Chapter 2 - How We Came to Have the Concept “Desert”

Summary

British Sentimentalists such as Smith and Sidgwick observe that our desert claims are grounded in sentiments such as gratitude and resentment. But as Feinberg and others have noted, desert claims involve more than mere positive or negative attitudes toward a person, as we urge positive or negative treatment of them. Rather, in making a desert claim we suppose that our sentiments are appropriate ones. But what makes them appropriate? Seemingly, they are appropriate because there is a proportionality, or "fittingness," between the proposed treatment and the trait or action of the person that serves as a desert basis. The received wisdom－which Ross makes explicit－is that there is intrinsic value in this fittingness obtaining between treatment and desert basis. There have been some recent attempts by moral philosophers to offer accounts of desert that do not require implicit claims about value; but these attempts fail. So there is surely value of some kind in fitting treatment, with the received wisdom again suggesting that noninstrumental value exists in fittingness itself obtaining between treatment and desert basis.