The following research findings are from comparative psychologist Michael Tomasello, author of Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny.:
Apes don’t intervene or protest when a fellow ape is about to be harmed. Apes appear to have no sense of justice.
Across cultures, three-year old human children do have a sense of justice, which is based on perceived need, merit, and rules.
Children begin helping around the same age (18 months) regardless of culture and despite different norms of helping.
Three-year olds consider merit when sharing resources. For example, they avoid taking objects effortfully obtained by a fellow toddler even though they could “get away with it”, as when the other toddler has gone of the room for a while.
Young children will not help a distressed child if her distress appears unjustified, such as crying over something trivial. They will only help when the distress seems justified by a clear cause.
In several cross-cultural studies, young children tasked with divvying up “windfall” goodies within a group preferred to distribute the goodies equally with the other children, as opposed to giving some children more than others.
Young children are more likely to share with children who have shared with others previously.
Five-year old children will not share group rewards with free riders, such as when tasked to divvy up goodies given to their group as a reward for completing a group project. So if little Sally just watched while the others worked, the other children would not share the reward with her.
Working together towards a group goal (“collaborating”) engenders a sense of “we” that leads children to see their partners as “equally deserving of the spoils.”
Per Tomasello, “some sense of deservingness… is crucial for the development of a morally-grounded sense of fairness.” The same applies to issues of social justice. Social justice is typically seen as a matter of who deserves what. Some people stress need. Others stress merit. And just about everyone considers rules, which includes laws, regulations, and norms.
Cross-cultural studies have found that most people agree with the following:
Distribute resources equally, when need and merit are equal and the rules allow it.
Give more to the needy at some threshold of neediness, regardless of merit.
If there are agreed upon rules, and resources are allocated unequally based on these rules, that’s okay.
Merit is partly based on considerations of effort, both quantity and quality.
Political differences are often a matter of disagreements about need, merit, and rules. In general:
Progressives stress equal distribution, which requires them to downplay merit and devalue some rules (e.g., legal protections for businesses).
Conservatives stress the role of merit in life outcomes, which leads them to downplay luck.
Economic conservatives accept the rule that a seller is entitled to keep what he is paid in a legal transaction. That includes sellers of labor and expertise, such as CEOs and hedge fund managers.
Progressives are more likely than conservatives (both economic and social) to consider needs in terms of rights to government assistance.
Conservatives accept the right to government assistance in case of need but consider need more narrowly than progressives.
Conservatives often consider patriotism in the sense of “we are working together on a common project”. In other words, they link “we” with “working together on a common project”. Hence, not much sympathy for free riders or those who are not part of the common project, e.g., people of other nations.
Progressives are more likely to see “we” as humanity in general, not a particular group or nation working together on a common project. Hence, progressives don’t see the point of patriotism.
Political differences can’t be reduced to disagreements about need, merit, and rules. But these essential disagreements do explain a lot.
References:
Aarøe, L. and M. B. Petersen (2014). " Crowding Out Culture: Scandinavians and Americans Agree on Social Welfare in the Face of Deservingness Cues" The Journal of Politics 76(3): 684-697.
Petersen, MB, Slothuus, R, Stubager, R, and Togeby, L (2011) Deservingness versus values in public opinion on welfare: The automaticity of the deservingness heuristic. European Journal of Political Research, 50: 24-52.
Michael Tomasello (2019) Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny. Cambridge, MA, Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press