CHAPTER 7: THE CONCEPT OF DESSERT

By Sean Cullen and Courtney Fretz

Disagreements About Dessert

Miller believes that there are three positions on dessert and on the relationship between dessert

and distributive justice: 1) The Positive View 2) The Negative View3) The Pluralist View

Positive View/ Pluralist View

Miller defends the positive view about dessert itself, but defends the pluralist view when deciding on a relationship between dessert

and justice.

Three Dessert Judgments Primary Dessert Judgments Secondary Dessert Judgments Sham Dessert Judgments

Do Dessert claims derive their force from institutional

conventions? Without the Olympic Games would anyone

deserve an athletics medal?

Can Anyone deserve a promotion without there being a hierarchy of office to move from level to level?

“It is the existence of the institutions that makes the performance or the capacity a possible basis of desert”-pg. 139

Justice in Dessert Principles are used in order to set up an

institution. Justice is due to people getting their dessert based on the principles that were set when the institution came around.

“He deserved to get it, but didn’t” is to claim that the institution is not functioning correctly.

Dessert vs. EntitlementEntitlement is something you receive under an existing set of rules, which is

not the same as deserving it.

There are times when Dessert and Entitlement do blend together.

At times “Deserves” really means is entitled to under fair institutions”

Dessert and PayDessert does not require that people be paid for productive work, but if people are paid for work of this kind, then people who are more productive deserve higher pay.

For Example: Baseball Players?Holiday Bonus?Others?

Dessert as Pre-institutional Dessert is a critical notion. People may give dessert to people

outside of institutions.

S. Cullen: couldn’t society in general be considered an institution?

Miller feels that society’s criticisms responds to desserts of different kinds, making dessert pre-institutional.

Dessert and Luck

Luck affects performance in two ways:1) Having the opportunity to perform2) The performance itselfPossible Examples: -Terrible archer luckily hitting bull-eye in

competitive contest 3 times.-Natural Talent

Personal Judgments It is hard to determine who deserves

what desserts, or where to draw the line.

Non-comparative judgments make it difficult to determine the just answer of who gets which dessert.

Judgment calls: How much to pay a doctor vs. a manual worker- should different societies not have the same outcome?

In Closing.. “A society can give people what they

deserve but also set resources aside to carter to needs, and e guided in economic matters in part by considerations of efficiency.”- pg 155