Moral exclusion occurs when individuals or groups are perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and consiahations of fairness apply. Those who are morally excluded are perceived as nonentities, expendable, or undeserving. Consequently, harming or exploiting them appears to be appropriate, acceptable, or just. This broad definition encompasses both severe and miM forms of moral exclusion, from genocide to discrimination. The paper discusses the antecedents and symptoms of moral exclusion, and the interaction between the psychological and social factors that foster its development. Empirical research on moral exclusion is needed to pinpoint its causes, to predict its progression, and to effect change in social issues that involve the removal of victims from our moral communities. The last section of the paper introduces the articles that follow.Moral exclusion occurs when individuals or groups are perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and considerations of fairness apply. Those who are morally excluded are perceived as nonentities, expendable, or undeserving; consequently, harming them appears acceptable, appropriate, or just. Moral exclusion (a term proposed by Ervin Staub, 1987) links a wide range of social issues, such as abortion, species conservation, nuclear weapons, and immigration policies, because our position on these issues depends on whom we include in or exclude from our moral boundaries. This paper introduces the journal issue with an overview of themes examined in the papers that follow. It is organized according to the progression of I thank

Most research on justice has aimed to describe abstract, depersonalized models that could apply to anyone. However, much of this research has involved identity, if only implicitly. We argue that justice needs to be contextualized to take into account the powerful effects of identity in determining when justice matters. The complexity and fluidity of identity need to be considered to understand when, why, and how strongly people care about justice, and how people choose among competing models of justice. We review existing research on distributive, procedural, and inclusionary justice and describe their connection to identity. We illustrate the intersection of justice and identity in environmental issues, a context in which these constructs have significant implications for individual, community, and planetary well-being. We conclude with 4 points to stimulate further research on the intersections of identity and justice.

Animals share our physical world, but the moral rules, values, and concerns about fairness that apply to those within our scope of justice rarely apply to animals. This paper reports an experiment that investigated the effect of three variables hypothesized to modify subjects' inclusion of animals in their scope of justice: (1) the animal's similarity to people, ( 2 ) the animal's utility to people, and (3) the severity of conflict between people and the animal. Three hundred and sixty-three high school students read materials that led them to perceive an animal, the Bombardier beetle (Brachinus), as similar or dissimilar to people and as beneficial or harmful. Subjects then read a low-conflict scenario and a high-conflict scenario, each followed by dependent measures. The findings indicated that subjects' scope of justice was modified by the perceived utility of the animal and by conflict severity. Surprisingly, perceived similarity in the highconflict scenario decreased subjects' scope of justice. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for theory and for environmental conservation.

Our attitudes and behavior toward the natural world depend on our scope of justice, the psychological boundary within which considerations of fairness and moral rules govern our conduct. Because the natural world is often excluded from the scope of justice, “depletion” resulting from the economic utilization of land, water, air, and animal and plant “resources” is perceived as acceptable and inevitable. To examine the prediction that perceived similarity, utility, and neediness will indirectly affect environmental protection, mediated by the scope of justice, 432 high school students allocated a resource to a beetle and rated attitudes that delineated their scope of justice. Multiple regression mediation analysis indicated that the scope of justice mediated the effect of neediness and one aspect of similarity, perceived intelligence, on environmental protection. Perceived neediness predicted inclusion and protection but, contrary to expectation, intelligence predicted exclusion from the scope of justice and an unprotective environmental stance. A second aspect of similarity, perceived complexity, predicted inclusion in the scope of justice but not environmental protection. Utility had a strong, direct influence on environmental protection. Implications for justice theory and for policy are discussed.

Environmental issues present an urgent challenge throughout the world. Air, water, and land pollution continue at alarming rates and increasingly strain the Earth's capacity to sustain healthy ecosystems and human life. Although technological and behavioral aspects of environmental conflict are often salient, this article contributes to the literature on environmentalism by examining moral orientations that underlie and fuel environmental conflict. The centerpiece of this article describes three kinds of denial in environmental conflict: (1) outcome severity; (2) stakeholder inclusion; and (3) self‐involvement. Like intermeshed gears, these forms of denial actively advance the process of moral exclusion. The article concludes with implications of this analysis for theory and practice.