Chapter 1 - The Work We Expect Desert to Do

Summary

Listening to everyday conversations, it is obvious that many people expect the concept "desert" to do much of the work in justifying positive or negative treatment of others. Indeed, considerations of desert seem to trump most every other consideration in determining what treatment is proper. When we are convinced that all parties have received what they deserved, then we no longer insist on redress. And it continues to nag at our moral sensibilities when we judge that some person has not received her due. Although some moral philosophers argue that desert should not have a central role in ethical frameworks, there are compelling reasons to preserve a central role for preinstitutional desert, which differs conceptually from entitlement and other institutionally based normative considerations.