Liberal and Conservative Approaches to Justice: Conflicting Psychological Portraits

Abstract

We propose a taxonomy that highlights the wide range of political psychological assumptions from which testable hypotheses can be derived about the origins of competing conceptions of justice. Productive researchers could devote their entire careers to testing hypotheses drawn from each of the eight "psychological portraits" in the taxonomy: flattering and unflattering cognitive and motivational characterizations of liberals and conservatives.

Keywords: justice, ideology