Distributive and procedural justice: Acceptability as solutions to social dilemmas

Community members are often faced with dilemmas in which pursuing their own personal self-interest can result in collective disaster. To avert disaster, people may turn to consensually held rules of fairness to solve their dilemmas. In this chapter, we review several common rules of fairness people may employ in distributing valued resources and in establishing the procedures for this distribution. We then review social-psychological research demonstrating how debate surrounds these fairness rules, and that consensus is often not held. We conclude by observing that calls for individual restraint made with reference to rules of fairness more often than not begs the question. Negotiation over what exactly fairness is still remains between individuals and groups holding different values, ideologies and power.