CHAPTER 2: The Evolutionary Bases of Deontic Justice

In this chapter we provide an evolutionary approach to explaining why individuals, in particular third parties, react to employee mistreatment. We define the deonance perspective of justice by contrasting it with other justice theories, and explain the properties underlying this perspective. Second, we introduce evidence suggesting that fairness has evolutionary beginnings, and we describe how an evolutionary perspective helps explain the deonance perspective. Third, we consider what we can learn from the evolutionary approach, including avenues for future research.