Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

THE INJUSTICE OF JUSTICE AND THE JUSTICE OF INJUSTICE 235
The pretension of the remainder of this article is humble: to
survey issues raised by some of the current research being
carried out in psychology in the area of injustice concerns, in the
attempt to make available for the further reflection of moral
theologians some (a very limited amount) of the results of
psychological research pertinent to the question of how people
conceive of justice and injustice; how they arrive at judgments
concerning whether or not justice or injustice has been done;
and how they actually respond to situations which they perceive
to be unjust in real life. Psychology is not only concerned with
understanding injustice but also with how to use this
understanding in order to respond effectively to it. Part of the
self-defined purpose of the natural sciences is the discovery of
those processes which will enable us to control and improve our
human existence. 17 And this also is a valid research activity for
the moral theologian who is encouraged in his ministry by the
teaching Magisterium to make an instrumental and proper use
of the discoveries of the empirical sciences for precisely these
same purposes. 18 There are a variety of theoretical approaches to
17
The scientific concern of investigation into moral phenomena is
threefold. First of all, the interest is primarily in coming to understand the
‘why’ of what people do. Secondly, the recognition that people act differently
and unpredictably across situational boundaries leads to the attempt to
understand why this is so in terms of the interior or subjective aspects of the
acting agent. Thirdly, the study is itself motivated by a concrete goal, the
search for an explanation able to be generalized across individual and
situational boundaries in such a way that future behavior can be predicted
and modified. The psychologist’s interest in “moral behavior” should be
understood to be an interest in the pattern of behavior in real-life contexts
with attention to the inner processes that produced the behavior. “Without
knowing the inner processes that gave rise to the behavior, we cannot call it
“moral,” nor can we know how it is likely to generalize to other situations.
This concern with situational context and the inner processes that produce
the behavior is not just an academic nicety, but is essential to understanding,
predicting, and influencing moral behavior.” J. REST, “The Major Components
of Morality” in W. KURTINES and J. GEWIRTZ, eds. Morality, Moral Behavior, and
Moral Development (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1984), p. 26.
18
“A critical examination of the analytical methods borrowed from
other disciplines must be carried out in a special way by theologians. It is the
light of faith which provides theology with its principles. That is why the use