Rawls Theory of Desert

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Jay Carlson

PHIL 735: Contemporary Political PhilosophyDr. Justin Weinberg

Rawls Anti-Desert Argument: A Defense

The concept of desertroughly that people should receive goods in proportion to how

much they have earned or deserved themhas a strong intuitive appeal for many people. In

an athletic race where the winner receives a medal, the runner who finishes the race first can

make a legitimate claim to deserve the prize. This appeal is so strong in some that any

distribution of goods not based on desertsay, according to needis declared unjust. If the

winning prize were instead to go to the runner who finished in last, there would be cries that

an injustice had taken place. In John Rawls theory of justice, however, the concept of desert

is rejected as an inadequate foundation for justice. Desert is then relativized as a derivative,

institutional principle. I will explore the objections to this account coming from the

libertarian perspective, specifically from David Schmidtz. I hope to show that Rawls can

overcome these objections.

Rawls finds the concept of desert inadequate as a foundation for distributive justice

because what a person achieves is never wholly or even primarily a function of their

individual merit. What an individual achieves is a product of the endowments that person

received through their arbitrarily given place in the world, including, inter alia, their social

class, geographical location, as well as their historical and cultural eras. If a persons

achievement is due to these factors that are beyond their individual control, then the person

does not actually deserve anything they achieve. While this anti-desert argument may seem

obvious in regards to external resources, Rawls also claims that this argument equally applies

to a persons internalresources, i.e. their personality, talents, physical attributes, and their

ambition, which are inherited through a complex hereditary and societal matrix equally

outside the control of the individual inheriting them. If a person is not deserving of the


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financial endowments they inherit from their family, then they equally do not deserve the

talents and natural endowments they hereditarily inherited from their family (Rawls 1999,

89).

The athletic race that illustrated the intuitive appeal of desert also illustrates the

shortcomings of the concept of desert that Rawls is concerned about, namely that the initial

distribution of resources and endowments is unequal. In effect, the starting line is not an

equal beginning point for everyone; some peoples starting points are further away from the

finishing line than others. For Rawls, to declare that the winner of an arbitrarily unequal

contest is justly deserving of the winning prize at best ignores that not every participant got a

fair shot at winning and at worst crystallizes the outcomes of those antecedent and arbitrary

inequalities as themselves just.

The upshot of Rawls inclusion of natural endowment in his anti-desert argument is

that even an individuals effort that a person puts into achieving something does not give them

a legitimate desert-claim. To put the point more precisely, an individuals own, desert-

making input into their achievement is so inextricably embedded in a background of inputs

external to the individual that is difficult, if not impossible, to definitively tell how legitimate

a desert claim a person has. Since we cannot distinguish1 these parts and assess the

contributions of an individual (Rawls 1999, 276) the corollary policy is to simply ignore

desert as a principle upon which to found the basic structure of society.

This is not to say that Rawls wholly discounts the notion of desert, as he points out

that those with talents that are desirable in a market are entitled to whatever they can acquire

1 Rawls is only committed to the impracticality of separating a persons own desert from the

arbitrary factors of their environment. Rawls says that attempting to directly reward

according to desert is impracticable but not impossible (Rawls 1999, 273).


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in accordance with the rules of a fair system of social cooperation (Rawls 1999, 89). The

concept of desert by itself is inadequate to set up fair system of social cooperation, where

each person has the genuine liberty to pursue her conception of the good (Rawls 1993, 19).

Libertarians have found much to dispute in Rawls account of desert. I will focus on

three objections from David Schmidtz, specifically the preinstitutional notion of desert, the

additional model of desert that eludes Rawls general criticism, and the implicit use of desert

in Rawls difference principle.

First, Schmidtz observes is that Rawls describes desert exclusively as a backward-

looking concept, that ones desert can only be based on the actions one has done in the past.

Schmidtz thinks exclusive attention to a past-based, compensatory model of desert ignores

one kind of desert common in everyday discourse: the future-oriented, promissory model of

desert. This kind of desert is where someone is deserving of a promotion because they

excelled when they were given that promotion. They fulfilled the expectations that were

placed on them. This promissory kind of desert is as much a recalibration of the moral

balance between what a person has done and the goods she receives as the compensatory

model; the order is simply reversed (Schmidtz 42).

Schmidtz thinks that this additional model of desert seriously undermines the scope of

Rawls critique of desert. A persons desert need not be completely eliminated because she

does not deserve her endowments; even if a person has done nothing in the past to deserve her

particular endowments, if she is able to make productive choices as a result of that

opportunity, one can legitimately call her deserving.

Second, Schmidtz finds the concept of desert powerful on pragmatic grounds: desert

empowers people to use their opportunities well (Schmidtz 55). Rawls would agree with


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this, but Schmidtz wants to press Rawls on why that concept is so appealing to us. Why does

it seem appropriate to say that the fastest runner in the race deserves the prizeand not, say,

the neediest runner? Schmidtz is not just asking about institutional desert where society sets

up certain nonnatural expectations that if a person does X, then they will receive Y. Rather,

Schmidtzs question is thepreinstitutional question: why set up institutions that would

distribute goods according to desert to begin with (Schmidtz 63)?

Third, Schmidtz thinks that desert is implicitly operative in Rawls alternative to

desert: the difference principle. The difference principle is to distribute goods equally unless

an unequal distribution is to the benefit of the least well off (Rawls 1999, 13). Schmidtz

asserts that presumably the least well off should have an opportunity to work their way up

from their place of disprivilege, and that this kind of reasoning would be included in the

deliberation of the original position (Schmidtz 56). If they are to work up, then they must do

so in a desert-satisfying way: surely Rawls wants the least well off to overcome their state by

working to deserve some good?

Responding to these objections in turn, several issues arise for this promissory mode

of desert that seriously question its effectiveness in undermining Rawls critique. First, what

would be an appropriate desert-makerthe connection between the internal constitution of a

person and their outcome necessary to establish these kinds of desert claim (Schmidtz 36)

for this model of desert? Schmidtz says that a promissory desert-maker is ultimately the

action that a person does with the opportunities they are afforded (Schmidtz 44). But this

seems to ultimately collapse promissory desert into a species of compensatory, backward-

looking desert, as it can only be established retrospectively. Thus it would still be subject to

Rawls criticisms of compensatory desert. Schmidtz, however, adumbrates what these desert-


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makers might be for the promissory model in stating that a person can deserve a chance in the

present based on what they will do if given the chance (Schmidtz 40). This kind of

opportunity desert is a thinner notion of desert than the compensatory model, as it can only

point to what a person might do if given a particular opportunity. Schmidtz admits that

grounding this kind of claim is a difficult examination of an individuals desert-making

internal features that is neither rewarding past, nor gambling on future performance

(Schmidtz 47).

Two responses can be given to this description of grounding opportunity desert. First,

one could note Catherine Wilsons observation that the internal features2 to which Schmidtz

refers are difficult to separate from contextual features of the persons surroundings (Wilson

304). Second, Schmidtz gives us no indication of which internal features in a person might be

considered deserving of an opportunity. It seems almost impossible to ground opportunity

desert claims without resorting to some kind of performance by the person in question. I say

almost impossible because I think there is one way of grounding opportunity-desert without

referring to past actions. It involves the claim that every person, in virtue of their equal

standing as moral persons (Rawls 1999, 442) deserves a chance to the social opportunities that

are available. Thus, it seems that Schmidtzs postulating a present-tense form of opportunity

desert requires something along the lines of Rawlsian formulation of fair equality of

opportunity: opportunities ought to be available to everyone (Rawls 1999, 63).

Schmidtzs concern with desert is that opportunities should go to people who will do

something good with those opportunities. Rawls would not deny that claim but only point out

2 Wilson also think it is possible that a persons internal features may underdetermine a

desert-claim in the same way that the isolated internal features of a painting may

underdetermine an aesthetic judgment.


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that we cannot be justified in making claims of one person being more deserving of an

opportunity than another unless we can judge them from a level playing field. For Rawls,

then, a justified claim to opportunity desert requires postulating that people have equal moral

standing entitling them to as many opportunities as others are given. Furthermore, there must

be background institutions that are designed to offsets those arbitrary inequalities that exist in

society, effectively leveling the playing field (Rawls 1993, 268). Against those just

background conditions, co operations that take place among individuals are free to take place,

and the results that come from those actions can be accurately judged to be fair and just, and

the achievers in competitions can justifiably be deemed deserving (Rawls 1993, 266). It

seems that only with these kinds of institutions in the background allowing everyone true

equality of opportunity can genuine desert-claims truly be demonstrated.

This also answers Schmidtzs question concerning the preinstitutional notion of desert:

we want people to get what they deserve, but not if they had some overwhelming prior

advantage over other competitors that they could not justifiably credit as their own. Yes, it is

intuitive that a person who comes in first in a race deserves to be rewarded, but only if they

began at the same starting line as everyone else. Desert is to be weighed as one concept to be

balanced with the concepts of justice and fairness.

Regarding the least well off needing to do something desert-worthy, a simple response

can be given: which is better, for the least well off to have access to the same opportunities as

everyone else, or for them to have to fend for themselves, working uphill, as it were?3

3 Some critics might object that those who would take advantage of opportunities given on

level playing field would arise even if they were in the state of the least well off. While this is

true, we cannot ignore Rawls point that a persons drive and the environment heavilyinfluences ambition, like every other part of their person. This means that we cannot argue

that because someone in a state of disprivilege does not achieve something they would not

achieve anything even if given an equal opportunity. Such an assertion is purely speculation.


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In answering Schmidtzs objections it is important to note the value of his

contributions, in particular the promissory account of desert. Desert does not only include

what resources a person has at their disposal, but also what they do with those resources.

Some people with great resources waste them frivolously, while others who are given very

little resources are able to parlay them into a tremendous amount. What Rawls wants to avoid

is a society where certain segments of the population are stuck in cycles of disprivilege

because opportunities are systematically closed to them, not because they were undeserving of

those opportunities to begin with. Rawls would suggest that if everyone is afforded the same4

level of opportunities, then we can make a more accurate determination of who is deserving.

In the end, the binary between a Rawlsian critique of desert and Schmidtz promissory

account of desert is not mutually exclusive. Schmidtz himself admits as much (Schmidtz 57).

Rawls does not wish to wholly disregard the concept of desert; he only recognizes the

limitations of desert as a stand-alone principle by which to directly distribute goods. To best

insure the genuineness of desert claims is by setting them against the fair and just background

of institutions that strives for an equality of access to opportunities.

4 It is hopelessly idealistic to think that any human social system can guarantee equal access to

all opportunities to all of its citizens. Nevertheless, as a standard to strive for and by which to

measure the justice of society, it seems adequate.


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Works Cited

Rawls, John. Theory of Justice. Revised Edition. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard

University Press: 1999.

---. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press: 1993.

Schmidtz, David. Elements of Justice. New York: Cambridge University Press: 2006.

Wilson, Catherine. The Role of a Merit Principle in Distributive Justice. Journal of Ethics.

Vol 7, No. 3 (2003). 277-314.

Rawls Theory of Desert

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