A balancing of claims in disputes or in distribution of resources. Founded on concepts derived from equity, ethics, law, natural law and religion, it amounts to a theory of moral rightness. One of the foremost spokespersons for this point-of-view was John Rawls (1921-2002) who wrote in his book A theory of justice (1999) that “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought (p. 3).” More recently, one of the most articulate theoreticians on moral justice is Michael J. Sandel. Children appear to be able to distinguish between moral justice and social conventions around the age of three years. Thus, age wise, this salient of feature of moral development appears to do-develop with the acquisition of a theory of mind.
See Moral development, Moral judgments, Moral philosophy, Morality, Theory of the child’s mind (ToM)