Legitmacy and Maslow's Hierarchy

[wm]

This means that there are two types of injustices at work. The first is personal based on an injustice you suffer. These are tied directly to lower level Maslovian needs/Schwartz values. The second is injustice suffered by others which only affects those who have had their lower level needs satisfied and now feel the effect of higher level needs/values.

You acknowledge that part of the above is in error in a subsequent post. I wanted to comment on the second sentence in the quotation. Its content seems to imply the notion that we can feel a sense of injustice from our observing the injustices of others. This seems like a very Humean position with regard to the origin of a possibility of altruism (phrase stolen from Tom Nagel's 1978 book of the same title). I'd like to understand the connection between the two forms of injustice as you see it, if any exists.

I believe it varies across the population based on their own level of needs/values both individually and culturally. This complicates things, but at their core is the same value/reality mismatch or sense of injustice, either personal or altruistic, that can account for a substantial amount of why an average person decides to pick up a weapon and engage in an insurgency.

Also, what is an injustice is tied to need level. For example, in some societies inequity between the rich and the poor is associated with birth right. If I am born into a landed aristocratic family what is considered 'just' for me is significantly different from what is considered 'just' for a poor commoner. Those of us whose value system is based on individual achievement find this abhorrent. An example nepotism has been the standard for centuries, now it is considered passe.

The force of these two quotations seems to push one towards acceptance of ethical relativism. Needs may well be relative; so may be the means by which oneseeks to instantiate one's values. However, I am unwilling to accept relativism of values themselves. To do so is to undercut the claim that we can be altruistic and concede the field to the Ayn Rands of the world.