Epistemologists often offer theories of justification without paying much attention to the variety and diversity of locutions in which the notion of justification appears. For example, consider the following claims which contain some notion of justification: B is a justified belief, S's belief that p is justified, p is justified for S, S is justified in believing that p, S justifiably believes ...

A central issue in contemporary epistemology is whether there is a species of (prima facie) justification that is immediate, direct, basic, or foundational. It is puzzling whether and how immediate justification could arise. This is perhaps the core issue that divides foundationalists from coherentists. An older conception of immediate justification is that some beliefs are capable of self-just...

Justification Logic studies epistemic and provability phenomena by introducing justifications/proofs into the language in the form of justification terms. Pure justification logics serve as counterparts of traditional modal epistemic logics, and hybrid logics combine epistemic modalities with justification terms. The computational complexity of pure justification logics is typically lower than ...

Thought,” university students are told that they are about to participate in a research project aimed at understanding “why differences in social and economic success existbetween graduates of different colleges and universities.” Half of the participants are presented with statistics indicating that alumni members of their own university group are significantly less successful in terms What th...

Social identity theory typically emphasizes how low status group members resist and challenge imputations of inferiority (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), whereas system justification theory emphasizes the tendency to accept and justify status hierarchies ( Jost & Banaji, 1994). On the theoretical assumption that responses to ingroup inferiority would vary according to individual differences in social d...

Previous research on system justification theory suggests that beliefs that rationalize inequalities are related to subjective well-being. We examine how “complementary” (hostile and benevolent) justifications of gender inequality may serve a palliative function for both men and women. Using multilevel modeling and data from 32 countries (N’s=362 to 5160), we find that relationships between hos...

Researchers in moral psychology and social justice have agreed that morality is about matters of harm, rights, and justice. On this definition of morality, conservative opposition to social justice programs appears to be immoral, and has been explained as a product of various non-moral processes such as system justification or social dominance orientation. In this article we argue that, from an...