When is a Distribution Rule Just?

Abstract

Innumerable scholars have addressed issues of justice. Disciplinary boundaries, however, have often separated discourse on the topic. This article compares selected philosophical accounts of justice with social psychological theory and empirical research on the same. At the core of such comparisons is the distinction between prescriptions for a just society and actual empirical beliefs about what is fair. This distinction colors the analysis of the paradoxical relationship between justice and self-interest evident to some extent in both philosophical and social psychological accounts.