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If the truth were told, this volume and its direct antecedents must
rank among the most ambitious, if not simply pretentious, endeavors
imag inable, at least in the social sciences. The titles of the
volume and the chapters, promising to integrate the experiences of
the sense of justice and the affectional bonding of people in close
relations, seem straightforward and reasonable enough. What they
fail to convey, however, is the simple bald fact that we in the
human social sciences have no firm grasp on either of these two
fundamental experiences-what we sometimes call "love" and "justice.
" To begin with, even as "scientists" committed to under standing
based upon systematic propositions linking publicly observable
concepts, we have no clear consensus concerning the nature of the
affec tional bonds linking people in close relationships-love,
intimacy, caring, mutual responsiveness, or the sense of justice,
fairness, deserving, and in our efforts to under entitlement. And
we are continually handicapped stand these complex, moving
experiences by the persistent tendency to reduce them to
manifestations of, "nothing but," familiar psychological or even
biological processes-"secondary rewards," "selfish genes. " So, why
then this volume? Although there are many answers to the question,
probably the most germane is that the basic issues are so im
portant and intriguing that the recent past has seen rather
dramatic paral lel growth in social scientists' interest in these
two areas-justice and close relationships.
If the truth were told, this volume and its direct antecedents must
rank among the most ambitious, if not simply pretentious, endeavors
imag inable, at least in the social sciences. The titles of the
volume and the chapters, promising to integrate the experiences of
the sense of justice and the affectional bonding of people in close
relations, seem straightforward and reasonable enough. What they
fail to convey, however, is the simple bald fact that we in the
human social sciences have no firm grasp on either of these two
fundamental experiences-what we sometimes call "love" and "justice.
" To begin with, even as "scientists" committed to under standing
based upon systematic propositions linking publicly observable
concepts, we have no clear consensus concerning the nature of the
affec tional bonds linking people in close relationships-love,
intimacy, caring, mutual responsiveness, or the sense of justice,
fairness, deserving, and in our efforts to under entitlement. And
we are continually handicapped stand these complex, moving
experiences by the persistent tendency to reduce them to
manifestations of, "nothing but," familiar psychological or even
biological processes-"secondary rewards," "selfish genes. " So, why
then this volume? Although there are many answers to the question,
probably the most germane is that the basic issues are so im
portant and intriguing that the recent past has seen rather
dramatic paral lel growth in social scientists' interest in these
two areas-justice and close relationships."
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