Chapter 3 - The Scope of Desert Bases

Summary

Often times, contrasting desert claims (e.g., about which employee most deserves a promotion) stem from different desert bases being picked out (e.g., effectiveness vs. longevity as an employee). In such cases, there is no way to adjudicate these contrasting desert claims. The reason is that desert is a formal concept. Accordingly, an analysis of desert sheds no light on whether the most efficient employee or the employee with most seniority "most deserves" a promotion. Not all traits, though, can serve as a legitimate desert basis. While everyone agrees on this point, moral philosophers have gone on to debate the range of traits that can legitimately ground desert claims. Interestingly, common usage suggests that the range is broader than most all moral philosophers have wanted to allow. But the key question is not whether we should restrict desert bases to those traitis that are, e.g., valuable or appraisable. The key question－for anyone defending the received wisdom on desert－is whether we can show why there is noninstrumental vaue in fittingness itself obtaining between a deset basis (valuable or not) and treatment.