Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

234 STEPHEN T. REHRAUER
retributive), rather than revealing the nature of justice itself,
merely specify the domains under which particular rules of
justice are applicable, suggests that it is more fruitful and
certainly more in keeping with our individual and shared
experience to both specify and apply concepts of justice in
response to the injustices that actually occur around us. 12 Third,
at least one area of contemporary cognitive and social
psychology has taken a particular interest in the dynamics
governing how and under what conditions ordinary people
recognize a situation of injustice, and the influence that this
recognition has upon their behavioral responses. In particular,
the work of Sabini and Silver suggests that the feeling of anger
is closely tied to the belief that a moral infraction has occurred; 13
Weiner has discovered a strong correlation between belief that
one has been morally wronged and violent responses to the
perceived perpetrator; 14 Margolis highlights the importance of
the boundaries of our self-concept and our emotional capacity
while living within a social field of multiple moralities; 15 and
Edney offers the insight that if people truly cared about each
other, then concepts of justice would be unnecessary and
redundant, hence justice concepts may in fact be nothing more
than social and cognitive heuristics to help people who do not in
fact care about others (for whatever reason this might be) to
behave as if they did. 16 Thus, three different disciplinary
perspectives, the theological, the philosophical and the
psychological agree on the fruitfulness of adopting injustice as
an initial starting point which can reveal something to us about
the nature of justice.
12
J. FEINBERG, Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 265-266.
13
J. SABINI and M. SILVER, Moralities of Everyday Life (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1982), pp. 163-182.
14
B. WEINER, Judgments of Responsibility: A Foundation for a Theory of
Social Conduct (New York: The Guilford Press, 1995), pp. 14-24; 186-215.
15
D. MARGOLIS, The Fabric of Self: A Theory of Ethics and Emotions (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 1-14.
16
J. EDNEY, “Rationality and Social Justice,” Human Relations 37 (1984),
pp. 163-180.