Reviewing the Received Wisdom on Desert

Abstract

My aim in this book is to provide a conceptual analysis of desert. For various reasons, desert has not been a central feature within the frameworks of most moral and political philosophers. Writing in , John Kleinig observed that “the notion of desert seems by and large to have been consigned to the philosophical scrap heap” (Kleinig , ). And this was just as, as Thomas Mulligan describes it, “That scrap heap was promptly set ablaze by the publication of Rawls’s A Theory of Justice” (Mulligan , ). But there have been undercurrents over the past few decades. Joel Feinberg’s seminal  essay “Justice and Personal Desert” did much to revive the concept – at least among a few philosophers. Shelly Kagan’s  The Geometry of Desert also prompted new attention on desert. Frankly, it is a great surprise to me that philosophers have not focused more on the topic. The reason has to do with common usage. Ten years ago, I began to think that I might try to write on desert someday. With this interest in the subject, my ear naturally became tuned to noticing the term in people’s everyday conversations. This practice is very informative. Apparently, most of us think that desert does an enormous amount of normative work. We think that the consideration of whether someone deserves something pretty much settles the matter of whether the person should get it. But what is it exactly to deserve something? Mulligan comments that “Desert is a rich and labyrinthine concept which has defied easy analysis for millennia” (Mulligan , ). Maybe so. But you sure would not know it from listening to everyday conversations. Sportscasters confidently tell me which team deserved to win the game I just watched. Letters through my mailbox from charities remind me that every child deserves a good home. Law firms advertise on television by assuring me that they will fight to give me and my family everything we deserve. Assuming that my family and I deserve positive things, I am happy for a law firm to do this. But, again, what does it mean