562 Justice, Equity, and Fairness in Human Relations
Observers whose belief in a just world is shattered by
being confronted with victims of injustice either commit
themselves to restore justice if that would be feasible (e.g.,
Lerner & Simmons, 1966); claim justice from powerful oth-
ers as the state (e.g. Schmitt, 1998); or they deny the injus-
tices by derogating the victims (Lerner & Simmons, 1966),
blaming the victims for having caused their own fate, or
denying that harm and losses are serious (e.g., Montada,
1998a).
CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK
We have good reasons to assume that the concern for justice
is universal, and we have ample empirical evidence that a
universal consensus on what is to be considered as just or
unjust is the exception rather than the rule. We can observe
diverging views between individuals, groups, and cultures,
and we know of significant historical changes. This is not to
say that no cases would exist in which views about justice are
shared in a culture: Experimental social psychology has no
problems finding and arranging cases that are considered
unjust by nearly everybody. But the omnipresence of con-
flicts and debates about what is unjust and what would be
just—in private lives, in public debates, and in the political
arena on the local, national, and international levels—gives
evidence of diverging views.
Two kinds of social conflicts and debates should be dis-
tinguished: (a) conflicts about the standards or principles of
justice to be applied, and (b) conflicts about facts that are rel-
evant when a specific standard of justice is applied. For in-
stance, in conflicts about the layoff of employees, the choice
and the weight of different standards or criteria of justice may
be disputed (seniority, merit, current productivity, or needi-
ness of the employees vs. equal chances of all or an equal
cutback of wages and working time for all, an alternative to
layoffs). Otherwise it may be disputed who has more or fewer
merits, who is more or less productive, or needy, and so forth.
The first kind of conflict is obviously a justice conflict, but
the latter is also a justice conflict, insofar as criteria of proce-
dural justice may subjectively seem violated when one’s own
view of the facts is not shared by everybody—namely, the
criteria of voice, impartiality, or objectivity.
It is an important task of empirical research to identify the
standards of justice that are applied and to describe the cul-
tural and individual preferences that may be specific to con-
texts and cases. On the basis of such information, a reliable
assessment of the conflicting views in actual disputes is pos-
sible; such an assessment is a precondition for a discourse
and for conflict settlement. Until now, research has focused
only a few standards of justice and has not paid attention to
the whole spectrum of criteria.
An enlightened discourse has to take several perspectives
at a problematic case or a justice conflict. Being aware of the
prevalence of justice dilemmas—meaning that two or more
valid principles of justice are conflicting—should help to
avoid and to overcome one-sided views.
Looking at the character of justice appraisals, Lerner’s
distinction between preconscious, intuitive, and experiential
versus rational processes in coming to judgments about jus-
tice and injustice is a very important one (Lerner, 1998). Many
appraisals of injustice are intuitive and not consciously re-
flected upon. Furthermore, the parties of justice conflicts have
primarily intuitive beliefs about justice and rarely have
founded their positions on reflected moral reasoning. What is
the problem with that? Experienced and observed injustices
may motivate actions that have good and productive conse-
quences: Protest may assert the validity of a justice norm, stop
further violations, motivate compensation for the victims, and
so forth. But it is also true that experienced and observed in-
justices may motivate terrible actions, up to homicide, war,
and genocide. Moreover, they may mean a serious impairment
of the well-being and mental health of individuals. Therefore,
it might be well-advised to subject these intuitions of justice
and injustice to reflected moral reasoning.
For this purpose, the typical use of the singular form when
speaking of justice may be counterproductive because it
may suggest that a single view of justice is valid: Which view
should be valid other than the own intuitively compelling
one? Whenever views of justice and injustice instigate emo-
tions or motivate actions that have negative effects for the
subjects, for others, or for the social systems, moral reason-
ing may help to demonstrate that no single view can claim
absolute validity: Accepting one view, one principle absolute
would violate all others. Trying to integrate and to balance
various principles of justice in their decisions and regulations
is the wisdom of institutions and authorities.
Moral reasoning and discourses about justice are one way
that views about justice are built up or changed; these are not
the only ways, however. The socialization and adoption of
views of justice takes many more ways. Social facts as well
as the dominant ideologies and traditions have a coining
effect on people’s minds, at least as long as they are not crit-
icized by trustworthy people as unjust.
A look at social movements and the psychological
processes and strategies used to change the public awareness
about entitlements and obligations is informative, as Major
(1994) has shown. It is no less informative to examine
psychological barriers against changes of the worldview—a
consolidated belief in a just world, the conviction that the