Dan Kahan's presentation from the 2008 Project on Law and Mind Sciences (PLMS) Conference.

"Recent scholarship in law and political science identifies "political ideology" as a major determinant of judicial decisionmaking. My talk will consider the possibility that much if not all the evidence this work rests on might be attributed to the influence of cultural cognition, a set of mechanisms that motivate individuals to conform their factual perceptions to their values. I will suggest why this account might not only furnish a psychologically richer and more complete description of dissensus (and consensus) in law, but also how it complicates the normative implications of judicial disagreements attributed to 'ideology.'"

PLMS
http://isites.harvard.edu:80/icb/icb.do?keyword=k13943&am...

The Situationist Blog
http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/

Dan Kahan's Faculty Page
http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?i... (less info)