Chapter 4: Hot Cognition and Social Justice Judgments: The Combined Influence of Cognitive and Affective Factors on the Justice Judgment Process

These two quotes by these two “giants” of the literature on morality and justice illustrate the contrasting insights rationalist and intuitionist models have developed regarding the influence of cognitive and affective factors that may impact how people form judgments about justice and morality. Rationalist and intuitionist conceptions of justice and morality stand for two broad ways of thinking about justice and morality and encompass many elements of the essence of justice and morality (for an insightful review, see Beauchamp, 2001). However, the primary issue for the current chapter is that rationalist theories emphasize that reasoning causes justice and morality judgments to be constructed primarily by means of cognitive processes. These “cold-cognitive” processes (Abelson, 1963; Kunda, 1999) pertaining to the justice and morality judgment process involve the careful evaluation and weighing of relevant information before a justice judgment or a judgment about what is right and wrong is formed (see, e.g., Kohlberg, 1969; Piaget, 1932/1975; Turiel, 1983). Intuitionist notions, in contrast, suggest that justice judgments are strongly influenced by affective factors, that people’s intuitive feelings about what is right or wrong cause moral judgments, and that reasoning pertaining to justice and morality is usually a post-hoc construction, generated after justice or moral judgments have been reached on the basis of people’s gut feelings (see, e.g., Haidt, 2001; Kagan, 1984; Wilson, 1993).