ABSTRACT
A major topic in the study of social justice is the description and explanation of why people behave justly. In many discussions, people view the justice motive as the opposite of the egoistic motive, but also as different from the altruistic motive. Many economists believe that: (1) individuals strive to maximize their own profit; and that (2) the egoistic motive drives social behavior. Some sociologists and psychologists state that individuals strive to maximize their own profit but in doing so realize that unrestricted egoism leads to a war of all against all and, therefore, behave more altruistically (Walster et al. 1978). Other social scientists have tried successfully to show that social behavior is not only governed by self-interest (Montada 1998), but that individuals are also motivated by rules of fairness and justice. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the myth of individuals as profit maximizers still exists in the minds of broad categories of people, including scientists, in Western societies (Miller and Ratner 1996). To unravel the intricate threads leading to the complexities of the justice motive, Mel Lerner (1980) has made a major contribution. His definition of the justice motive in terms of deservingness and entitlement received much attention in the literature. Moreover, the operations of the justice motive made visible phenomena that had previously been poorly understood, such as blaming innocent victims. It turned out that the justice motive offers a good explanation of people’s justice beliefs and behavior, and empirical evidence supports this explanation.
