Abstract
Under the general conception of justice as equilibrium, desert is relevant to justice in distribution only where it expresses an actual burden, that is, when it involves some effort, sacrifice, work, risk, responsibility, inconvenience and so forth, when it is linked with an expenditure of energy and time. It is only this sort of ‘desert’ which should be in justice compensated by social benefits. The general underlying aim of this conception of desert is to screen out all those factors that are ‘unearned’, that are beyond human control, that are dictated by dumb luck, and for which a person cannot claim any credit. Only this notion of desert is consistent with justice considered as an introduction of a conscious moral order into human affairs. Even though, for practical reasons, rewarding according to results, or social contribution, may be sometimes more productive, and certainly easier, from the point of view of justice in distribution it is only the bearing of burdens which calls for compensation aimed at bringing about the equilibrium of advantages and burdens.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
See Section 4, this Chapter.
Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 59–60, n. 8.
David Miller, Social Justice ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976 ), p. 89.
See, e.g., Alan Zaitchik, `On Deserving to Deserve’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (1977), p. 382.
See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972 ), p. 314.
See Chapter 1.3.
J. A. Passmore, `Civil justice and its rivals’, in Eugene Kamenka, Alice Erh-Soon Tay, eds., Justice ( London: Edward Arnold, 1979 ), pp. 28–29.
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia ( New York: Basic Books, 1974 ), p. 161.
Feinberg, op. cit., pp. 57–58. See also John Kleinig, Punishment and Desert ( The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973 ), p. 59.
Nozick, op. cit.,p. 238.
Milton Friedman, Free to Choose (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979), pp. 167168.
Nozick, op. cit.,p. 238.
Rawls, op. cit.,pp. 311–312.
Nozick, op. cit.,p. 237.
Alan H. Goldman, Justice and Reverse Discrimination (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 12. See also Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982 ), p. 145.
Goldman, op. cit.,pp. 43–44, comp. Nozick, op. cit.,p. 237.
Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960 ), p. 94.
Friedman, op. cit.,p. 169.
Rawls, op. cit., p. 102. See also Albert Weale, Equality and Social Policy ( London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978 ), pp. 36–37.
Rawls, op. cit.,pp. 311–312.
Friedman, op. cit.,p. 168.
Ibid.,p. 168.
Rawls, op. cit.,p. 101.
Nozick, op. cit.,p. 228 (in this phrase, Nozick echoes Rawls’s arguments against utilitarianism).
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations ( London: J. M. Dent, 1929 ), p. 14.
Anthony T. Kronman, `Talent Pooling’, in J. Roland Pennock, John W. Chapman, eds., Human Rights, Nomos XXIII (New York: New York University Press, 1981), p. 66. Kronman notes, however, several practical complications and difficulties in applying the `common pool’ concept to taxation.
Jan Tinbergen, Income Differences ( Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1975 ), p. 63.
Charles Fried, Right and Wrong ( Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978 ), pp. 143–150.
Ibid.,p. 150.
Ibid.,p.147.
See Chapter 6.
See Frederic Vivian, Human Freedom and Responsibility (London: Chatto and Windus, 1964), esp. pp. 127–128.
J. J. C. Smart, `Free Will, Praise and Blame’, in Gerald Dworkin, ed., Determinism, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility ( Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1970 ), p. 209.
Goldman, op. cit.,p. 43.
Ibid.,p.43.
Nozick, op. cit.,p. 160.
Ibid.,p. 170.
See Eric D’Arcy, Human Acts ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963 ), p. 125.
Ake, op. cit.,p. 86.
F. A. Hayek, `The Principles of a Liberal Social Order’, Politico 31 (1966), p. 611.
There are several studies providing evidence for this statement with respect to different countries. See, for instance, Stefan Nowak, `Values and Attitudes of the Polish People’, Scientific American 245 (1981), n. 1, pp. 23–31, esp. pp. 24 and 27–28; Guillermina Jasso and Peter H. Rossi, `Distributive Justice and Earned Income’, American Sociological Review 42 (1977), pp. 639–651.
Hayek, `The Principles…’, op. cit.,p. 614, emphasis added.
Jan Pen, Income Distribution ( London: Allen Lane, 1971 ), p. 97.
Jasso and Rossi, op. cit.,p. 649.
Wayne M. Alves and Peter H. Rossi, `Who Should Get What? Fairness Judgments of the Distribution of Earnings’, American Journal of Sociology 84 (1978), pp. 541–564.
See Nowak, op. cit.
Walter Kaufmann, Without Guilt and Justice ( New York: Peter H. Wyden, 1973 ), p. 72.
Ibid.,p. 71.
Ibid.,p. 74.
Ibid.,p. 76.
Ibid.,p. 77, emphasis added.
See Edmund L. Pincoffs, `Are Questions of Desert Decidable?’, in J. B. Cederblom and William L. Blizek, eds., Justice and Punishment ( Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1977 ), pp. 75–88.
Miller, op. cit.,pp. 112–113.
Ibid.,p. 111.
See Section 1 of this Chapter.
John Stuart Mill, `Utilitarianism’ in Utilitarianism; On Liberty; Essay on Bentham, ed. by Mary Warnock (London: Coffins, 1962 ), pp. 313–314.
See pp. 268–269 below.
Smith, op. cit.,p. 89.
Ibid.
Emile Benoit-Smullyan, `Status, Status Types and Status Interrelations’, American Sociological Review 9 (1944), pp. 151–161.
George Caspar Homans, Sentiments and Activities ( New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962 ), p. 94.
Stuart Adams, `Status Congruency as a Variable in Small Group Performance’, Social Forces 32 (1953), pp. 16–22.
Ibid.
The list of rewards, which is referred to by Tumin, includes “those things which contribute to (a) sustenance and comfort, (b) humor and diversion, (c) self-respect and ego expansion” (my footnote — W.S.).
Melvin M. Tumin, `Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis’, American Sociological Review 18 (1953), p. 392.
Wlodzimierz Wesolowski, Classes, Strata and Power ( London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979 ), p. 114.
See Edward E. Sampson, `Studies of Status Congruence’, in Leonard Berkowitz, ed., Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (New York: Academic Press, 1969), esp. pp. 240–241, 247–248.
See Johan Galtung, `A Structural Theory of Aggression’, Journal of Peace Research 1 (1964), pp. 95–119, esp. pp. 98–100.
Table 7.9 in Henry Phelps Brown, The Inequality of Pay ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977 ), p. 235.
Feinberg, op. cit.,p. 93.
Tumin, op. cit.,pp. 390–391.
This argument, in principle, is not applicable to those societies where the education is free.
See Anne L. Kallenberg and Larry J. Griffin, `Class, Occupation and Inequality in Job Rewards’, American Journal of Sociology 85 (1980), pp. 731–768, esp. p. 740.
This method is described and critically assessed in Pen, op. cit.,pp. 303–304.
S. W. Lerner, J. R. Cable and S. Gupta quoted in Brown, op. cit.,pp. 128–129.
Pen, op. cit.,pp. 39–40.
Brown, op. cit.,p. 129.
Homans, op. cit.,p. 92.
See also Norman Daniels, `Meritocracy’, in John Arthur and William H. Shaw, eds., Justice and Economic Distribution (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1978), pp. 164178; Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice ( New York: Basic Books, 1983 ), pp. 135–139.
See Section 1, this chapter.
Ibid.
John Hospers, Human Conduct (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), p. 433. Cf. also Eckhoff, op. cit., p. 229; H. J. McCloskey, Meta-Ethics and Normative Ethics ( The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1969 ), pp. 231–232.
Hayek, `The Principles...’, op. cit.,p. 614.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1985 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sadurski, W. (1985). Distribution According to Desert. In: Giving Desert Its Due. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7706-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7706-9_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8412-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-7706-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive