ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a summary of the empirical research on how human beings think about justice. Across lines of culture, gender, race, and nationality, we believe that justice is a matter of giving people what they deserve. This has been demonstrated by myriad results in experimental economics, social psychology, child development, and neurology. As just one example, if a person believes that he is being paid too little for his work-or too much-he is less satisfied than he would be if he were paid what he deserves. Our affection for desert appears to be baked into our DNA, and is found in non-human primates as well. For this reason, meritocracy is a fuller expression of our moral cognition than egalitarianism or libertarianism is. The chapter explains why Rawlsian contractors would not choose the Difference Principle, and why they would likely elect a desert-based distribution instead. It concludes with a discussion of the importance of intuition in justifying our theories.
