Chapter 1: Fairness as Deonance

If fairness is more than self-interested rationalization, and moral injunctions indeed imply obligations as suggested by the Greek root, deon, then the study of organizational justice should look for evidence of moral commitments to fairness that rise above mere self-interest. I argue that we will be prepared to know where to look for such evidence if we were to have a “deontic” theory of fairness, and I try to outline what such a theory would look like. Specifically, I discuss the need to understand fairness based on a pluralistic set of motives (not just self-interest or altruism). From this perspective, I then discuss the following issues that have received considerable attention in organizational justice: (a) the differences between satisfaction and fairness, (b) the interaction between processes and outcomes, and (c) the similarities and differences between distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Although deonance is not yet a theory of organizational justice, the concepts and issues discussed in this chapter provide a foundation upon which such a theory may be developed.