Justice in Social Relations 547What are the contents of social exchanges? Not only prod-
ucts and money, but also status (e.g., by a marriage or by
granting citizenship), commitment to a relationship, atten-
tiveness, information, services, support, good mood, love,
loyalty, and—on a less positive note—burdens (such as health
problems, addictions, and depression), criticism, blame,
harm, mistrust, and hostility.
What Is Fair and Just in Social Exchanges?
Fair Contracts
Thecontract is a prototypical form of social exchange.
Contracts are regarded as just when the partners are equally
informed and equally free to consent (Nozick, 1974). Justice
is threatened if relevant information is withheld, if pressure is
exerted, or if one party is not free to refuse to enter into the
contract because of a certain predicament.
Because contracts are of eminent importance in social
life, many legal norms have been established that specify the
obligations of the partners to provide all relevant informa-
tion, to observe the contractual agreements, to respect social
norms in the contents of the contract, and so forth. A contract
only has to be fairex ante:Valid contracts have to be ful-
filled, even if they turn out to be unfavorable for one party
because of circumstances beyond the control of the contrac-
tual partner (e.g., unexpected significant changes in market
prices). Moreover, specific legal regulations have been es-
tablished to protect the supposedly less powerful parties—
with respect to rent control, industrial law, and product
liability.
Laws and Social Role Norms
Legal regulations have also been established for many non-
contractual relationships, specifying the rights and duties of
the exchange partners (e.g., married couples, parents and chil-
dren, administrations and citizens, police and citizens, etc.).
Most important is, of course, the criminal law (addressed in
this chapter’s section on retributive justice) containing nega-
tive exchanges that are banned by law in a society.
Many exchange relationships are regulated not by laws but
by informal social norms, for example, by the system of reci-
procal social roles. Many normative scripts for social roles are
conventional in character. They prescribe the rights and oblig-
ations of the actors, and they shape the normative expecta-
tions held by the actors and by the public with respect to the
reciprocally related roles. Further regulations are found in the
behavioral codes of professional associations, in public con-
ventions regarding politically correct behavior, in the rule
systems of sports, in the bylaws of organizations, and so forth.
These legal and conventional rule systems correspond to and
are shaping the sense of justice within the population.Justice PrinciplesMany social exchanges are not subjected to legal or role-
bound norms but still have to be fair and just. Which stan-
dards of justice are operating here? Modified forms of the
equality criterion are standards for appraising the fairness of
exchange relationships,especially the principles ofreciproc-
ityandequity. Social exchanges are regarded as just if reci-
procity is established. This is true for positive exchanges, in
which equal mutual advantage is the normative standard, as
well as for negative exchanges, as portrayed in the biblical
rule of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
Equal mutual advantageshave also been postulated in
Hobbes’ (1648/1970) social contract conception of the state
and in the sociological theory of role-bound exchanges
(teacher-student, physician-patient, employer-employee,
leader-follower; cf. Parsons, 1951). However, the general
truth of Parson’s equal–mutual-advantage assumption for
reciprocal social roles has been criticized with good reason
(Gouldner, 1960): Some social roles or positions are certainly
more attractive, powerful, prestigious, and profitable than
others. And the equal opportunity assumption, which means
that all citizens have equal opportunities to receive the more
favorable positions, is illusory.
Equityhas been proposed as the normative standard for
social exchanges, implying equal ratios of investments/costs
and outcomes/benefits for all parties involved (Homans,
1961). Equity is to assess easily only when the investments
and outcomes are quantifiable—for instance, in money
equivalents. This is possible for market exchanges.
The claim that equity isthegeneral justice principle in
exchange relationships (Walster et al., 1978) is exaggerated.
One reason is that equity theory is too vaguely defined to be
applicable in qualitatively and structurally different relation-
ships. How should the ratio of contributions to benefits be
calculated, for example, for the employer and the employee,
the mother and the child, the players in a tennis match, or the
victim of an accident and his or her rescuer? All actors in
these relationships have obligations or entitlements, but they
are not entitled an equal ratio of contributions to benefits. The
entitlements are based on contracts, on particular social and
moral norms, or on the norms of fair play. Every citizen main-
tains an exchange relationship with the state. The citizens
and the state (in the same way as the insured and their insur-
ance companies) have reciprocal rights and obligations that
cannot be represented in the equity formula. Nevertheless, the