How Is Entitlement Deserved?

North American Philosophical Publications

How Is Entitlement Deserved?Author(s): Ernest van den HaagSource: Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 395-402Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American Philosophical PublicationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40435896 .

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Public Affairs Quarterly Volume 8, Number 4, October 1994

HOW IS ENTITLEMENT DESERVED?

Ernest van den Haag

I

may be entitled to protection, prizes, money, jobs, promotions, goods and services and to honours (or deprivations) according to gen-

eral rules, such as laws, and to particular rules (of contests, contracts, lotteries, elections, markets, or games). How does one deserve what one is entitled to? Although they often overlap, or are conflated, entitlements and deserts clearly differ,1 so that one may say, "Smith did (did not) deserve what he was entitled to" e.g., by winning the election, or by a judge's decision.

Domitianus Ulpianus rule of justice suum cuique trihue (secure to every- one his due) echoed in Thomas Aquinas' "Justifia est habitus . . . ius suum unicuique trihue, " does not specify whether what is due is due because one is entitled to it, or because one deserves it. Ulpian may have identified desert and entitlement, or, perhaps, he was interested only in the latter. But although linked, desert and entitlement are independent concepts.

Desert is prior to entitlement. Legislators or rule-makers, who must de- cide what entitlements to create or justify, do so by deciding what activi-

ties, achievements, efforts, merits, qualities, needs, or violations, deserve

praise, blame, assistance, reward, or punishment and should lead to entitlements. To be sure, not all entitlements rest on desert; lottery prizes, or

inheritances, do not. Charity, by definition, does not.2 Nor do all actions

regarded as deserving generate entitlements. Yet, mostly, entitlements are intended to be based on desert. One is supposed to deserve the Olympic medals, academic degrees, promotions, wages, or pensions to which one is entitled. So with legal punishments which society is entitlted to inflict. Even inheritances may be so justified: the testator deserves to be entitled to dispose of his fortune by leaving it to the heir who, in his opinion, deserves it. (If the heir is a baby, this is stretching it a bit).

As for lotteries and other games of chance, they display our ambivalence toward desert. Ostensibly they are meant to disregard it, to entitle the

undeserving no less than the deserving. This is why puritans have histori-

395



396 PUBLIC AFFAIRS QUARTERLY

cally disliked games of chance: they defy the moral order supposed to reward only the deserving. However, the gambler himself may feel that there is a hidden moral order, which will recognize that he is more deserving than all others, wherefore he will win - even if his merits are not visible or even specifiable. Gambling is based on this infantile conviction of uncon- ditional superiority.

II. The Subjectivity of Desert

Entitlements usually rest on specific, explicit and authoritative rules, which often can be legally enforced. Contractual entitlements may rest on nothing else: you paid for and therefore are entitled to receive the goods or services you purchased. In contrast, desert tends to be based on more sub- jective, individual evaluations, following implicit criteria not always agreed on, or authoritative. Unless it coincides with entitlement desert sel- dom leads to enforceable awards. The bases of desert usually are perceived merits, or demerits. But different evaluators may attach different weights to them: "John deserves to be regarded as the greatest operatic performer, because of his unequalled voice;" "No, Bob deserves to be, because of his profound musical understanding," "Actually, Frank deserves the crown, because of his superior acting." These judgements of desert are obviously based on different priorities, on different weights, given to possible criteria (bases) of evaluation. Not so with entitlements. "Smith is entitled to the money" refers to explicit rules; "Smith deserves the money" need not. "He is entitled to the first prize," or

" to the presidency," rests on accepted law, or regulation. "He deserves the first prize," or, "to be president" expresses an opinion, which may deliberately diverge from the actual entitlement rules, perhaps to suggest, however vaguely, that they do not work as they ought to to accommodate the most deserving.

III. Entitlements Independent of Individual Moral Desert

What do we mean, when we say "she is entitled to $100, 000; or to win the beauty contest, or the race; or to the promotion - but does not deserve it? or, "

Mary deserved it more," or, she deserved ten years, but the judge was entitled to sentence her only to five? There are several explanatory possibilities.

We may refer to a misapplication of the entitlement rules. Smith got the promotion, but, had the rules been applied properly, Jones would have; he deserved it more. The decision makers misinterpreted the rules, or were biased, or misinformed, about the relevant merits of Smith and Jones. Analogously, the judge was not entitled to increase the sentence, because the misinformed law-makers had limited it to less than the crime deserved. Or, if he had discretion, the judge did not realize what the crime, or the criminal, deserved.



HOW IS ENTITLEMENT DESERVED? 397

A second possibility is that the result, although intended to, does not reflect desert, because the entitlement rules did not include, or give proper weight to relevant factors, or included irrelevant ones, which, although expedient, perhaps even necessary, do not reflect desert. Smith was entitled to the promotion because of seniority, but Jones deserved it more because he was better qualified - i.e., the entitlement rules based on seniority disregard merit. Or, Jones deserved the prize, but missed the deadline, so the less deserving Smith became entitled to it. General entitlement rules, cannot accommodate the circumstances that often make specific persons more deserving than those actually entitled to rewards and offices.

Not least, when the prize is awarded to the person entitled to it according to the rules, e.g., to the winner of a race, we may feel he does not deserve it, because of morally important disqualifications which are irrelevant to the race. He is a vicious person; or, he discovered the formula by sheer accident and is actually less competent than the more deserving, but less lucky com- petitor, who did not get a prize. There also are entitling qualities, or achievements - beauty in a beauty contest, swiftness in a race - which may be contrasted with general deserts, perceived to supersede the entitling qualities. Hence, we can say, "yes, he won the race fairly, but he didn't deserve to," meaning not that he was not the fastest runner, entitled to victory, but, rather, that he did not deserve his ability to win, his swiftness, because of his moral character. Usually desert refers to specific accomplishments and qualities. But it need not. We may feel that Smith, so unlucky in the past, or, such a

long suffering, or hard working, or generally splendid person, does deserve some good luck now. Note the oxymoronic notion of deserved luck. It appears to refer to an imaginary moral balance sheet.

IV. Entitlement, Desert and Luck

As is explicitly the case of lotteries, entitlement rules may be altogether independent of any discernable desert. Unintentionally, yet unavoidably, to some degree this is the case as well with all prizes and penalties to which one becomes entitled. Luck, independent of desert, plays an ineluctable role in human affairs, "the race is not to the swift, ... but time and chance happeneth to them all . . ." Ecclesiastes memorably tells us. One may meet and marry a wonderful person, or lose him or her to disease; one may discover oil in one's

backyard, inherit money, - or be run over by a truck. Such events seem undeserved. Because entitlements unavoidably reflect chance, one often is entitled to more, or less, than deserved - wherefore it is hoped by many and feared by some, that in a life to come entitlements will be superseded by true deserts.

V. NOZICK AND RaWLS ON MORAL DESERT

Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State and Utopia) believes that one is entitled to one's natural gifts and to the advantages and disadvantages they produce.




Nozick implies that one deserves one's natural gifts no less than anything else. In contrast John Rawls (A Theory of Justice) believes that one's natural gifts are not morally deserved. Therefore the possessors do not deserve the differential advantages they may achieve by virtue of their natural gifts and society should minimize these advantages. Rawls' not only thinks that the distribution of inequalities by a "natural lottery" cannot be morally justified, but also that, regardless of distribution, inequalities as such cannot be morally justified, although he concedes that they may be useful by increasing the social product, and should be allowed if they increase the income of the least advantaged.3

VI. Entitlement Systems

Because they accommodate the exigencies of efficiency entitlement systems may reward, or deprive, or punish, in ways that seem independent of moral desert and even inconsistent with it. Efficiency may require that people become entitled to morally undeserved rewards and deprivations. Thus, in a market system the only merit rewarded economically is economic merit. Since economic merit is independent of moral merit, the as- sent of those who do not do well in the economic race (competition) is grudging. The advantages to society derived from rewarding economic merit are not obvious to those who are not rewarded. Hence, the entitlements attached to economic merits by the market are often felt to be less deserved than those produced by a foot race, where the rewarded achievement is clear and the reward stipulated beforehand. Yet in both cases the entitlements are independent of moral desert.

The moral connotations of desert are attenuated also when the deserving qualities themselves are not regarded as morally relevant. Thus, the only merit regarded as deserving in a race is swiftness, which surely has little to do with moral desert. But once this criterion is agreed on, it would be thought morally wrong to allow anything else, however meritorious, to supersede it.

The market incomes to which one is entitled usually are above or below perceived moral deserts, based on effort, need, or devotion and other non- market criteria. The morally deserved, or, at least, customary, pretium justum often is inconsistent with economic entitlement. Yet the market rewards economic merit alone - however morally undeserved we feel it to be.4

VII. Can Economic Entitlement Be Made Consistent with Moral Desert?

Socialists do not believe that economic merit should entitle anyone to anything; they reject incentives which lead to morally undeserved distributions and feel that in a market system, those who are, or become rich are




entitled to more than they deserve, the poor to less. The attraction of socialism was the promise to reward according to moral desert, or need, however determined. Possibly need and moral desert were identified.

Could a socialist entitlement system do better in responding to moral desert than a market system does? Moral desert is hard to measure; a system that truly rewards according to it has yet to be invented. Socialism, as we know it, merely replaces economic with political entitlements. One is promoted, or rewarded not by an impersonal market, which automatically entitles one to rewards for economic merit, but by one's superiors. There is no reason to believe that superiors will recognize moral deserts, or de- cide on promotions accordingly. Indeed, if one goes beyond Ulpian's entitlements, it is debatable (but not here) whether a distributive "social

justice", based on desert, which socialism envisages, is more than the Chi- mera Friedrich von Hayek thought it is.

VIII. Desert as a Moral Concept

The general notion of desert is inclusive enough to verge on incoher- ence, although it remains indispensable to morally evaluate entitlements.

Any kind of achievement may be deserving. But desert may also refer to effort independent of achievement(he worked hard and deserves a reward. . . ), or need (he is helpless and deserves assistance). In modern times need has led to entitlements felt to be deserved. Unfortunately, when effort, or need - indeed anything but achievement - lead to entitlements, incentive

may be reduced. Yet, rules entitling one to assistance according to degrees and kinds of need have become law in many countries.

Thus, our needs, efforts, abilities, achievements, even qualities such as

beauty, all may be regarded as deserving some sort of favorable response, while our vices - drunkenness, laziness, criminality, may deserve treatment in the eyes of liberals, (who tend to believe that virtues should be credited, but vices should not be debited because they are pathology, for which we are not responsible), or punishment in the eyes of conservatives. "Desert" thus refers to our response to results, or to efforts and abilities, or to need and suffering, all deserving negative or positive responses according to an

implicit scale, partly articulated through entitlement rules.

IX. Are Deserts Deserved?

However they are determined, do we morally deserve our deserts?

Although we may be hesitant about innate talents and qualities, such as

intelligence, most of us feel that even these qualities (and the activities instinct with them) are deserving. We think the mathematically gifted person, who demonstrates a theorem, deserves the prize, which the

ungifted does not deserve. Other innate qualities, such as physical beauty,




or athletic ability, are not regarded as morally deserving, although they may deserve prizes in specific (nonmoral) contests. The Christian tradi- tion may have something to do with our distinction between moral and non-moral (e.g., aesthetic) desert. Following Judaic ideas, Christians, unlike pagans, gave little weight to non-moral qualities which, after all, play no role in salvation. It may be important as well that hardly any social incentives are needed for physical beauty, or its utilization, whereas the utilization of talent and the elicitation of efforts do require social incentives.

X. Desert and Determinism

Determinists point out that human achievements are produced by innate abilities and talents, combined with environmental influences and opportu- nities, which permit us to acquire skills and use them. Our willingness and ability to make efforts, to utilize our talent, also is both genetic and environmental. Neither our genes nor our environment seem morally deserved. Therefore, it is concluded, our talents, achievements and efforts do not morally deserve praise or blame, reward or punishment.5 Suffering, however, deserves assistance (and if there is liability, compensation) for the very reason for which talent, achievement and effort do not: the sufferer may not deserve his suffering, any more than the talented person deserves the talent.

Bereft of moral content, desert, at best, becomes inchoate entitlement, justifiable on contingent grounds, such as the need for incentives and disincentives. Is the deterministic vision itself justifiable? On a priori grounds one may hold the notion of merit, and of desert based on it, to be inconsistent with a causally determined universe. Whether one does depends on the kind and degree of determinism one adheres to and the place, if any, one keeps for free will. The logical a priori arguments in favor of determinism are beyond the scope of this essay. However, determinism has been weakened by blows both from philosophical theory and empirical science. Although the uncertainty found in nature cannot be equated with free will, it leaves the universe less determinate and predictable than was thought. The notion of cause itself has become nuanced and even questionable. Further, there may be empirical grounds for not rejecting moral desert. If achievements were produced exclusively by innate and environmental factors which are not the achievers responsibility, he would have to achieve, in each instance, neither more nor less than his genes and his environment determine. Otherwise he himself, in addition to being the product of genes and the environment, becomes an independent producer of effects deserving of praise or blame. But the identity of the potential (determined by genes and the environment) and of the actual seems counter-intuitive. It implies that




the willingness and ability to make efforts, as well as their quality, are predetermined fixed quantities. This is contrary to proprioception and to experience. Further the deterministic assumption implies that achievements could be deserving only if uncaused. This seems quite odd.6 The paradox can be avoided only by positing that achievements are not wholly predetermined by genes and by the environment.

XL Does the Alleged Absence of Differential Moral Desert Argue for Equality?

Even if none of us could be morally deserving, would it follow that we are all equally (un)deserving as some philosophers argue? Actually not. It would follow only that the distribution of good and bad things should not depend on ( allegedly illusory) deserts - which is to say that it should depend on something other than desert. This something may well be morally relevant and unequally distributed. Unequal needs, or hedonic capacities, may lead utilitarians to favor those with the greatest hedonic capacities, non-utilitarians those with the greatest needs, or socially help- ful virtues. Neither would favor equality.

John Rawles reaches a contrary conclusion by assuming 1) that people if they did not know whether they will come out rich or poor would prefer equality; and 2) that if so, this preference would justify equality. Both

assumptions are shaky. In general, egalitarians rely on a faut de mieux

argument that seems indefensible. Equality is justified inasmuch as in-

equality is not, in any particular instance. I know of no positive argument for equality - although there are good arguments for equality in specific respects (e.g., before the law) and against some specific inequalities.

In the absence of desert, all distributions become morally arbitrary, and

equal distributions no less than any other. We may make need the only moral basis for deserving, as Karl Marx proposed, disregarding achievement (and equality) altogether (See the Critique of the Gotha Program). However, neither equal distributions nor distribution according to need are

practicable enough to warrant serious discussion, unless limited to a very small portion of the population, or to specific circumstances and aspects of

activity. Unlimited distribution according to perceived need, or egalitarian distribution, fatally interferes with the incentives and disincentives indis-

pensable to social life. Equality before the law is one thing, general equality is another. Distribution to the disabled according to need is feasible, general distribution according to need is not.

Heritage Foundation Received: March 28, 1994




NOTES

1. See John Kleinig, "The Concept of Desert," American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 8 (1971). The distinction was made earlier in Joel Feinberg's Justice and Per- sonai Desert, in Justice, Carl J. Friedrich and John W. Chapman, eds., (New York: Lieber- Atherton, 1963, reprinted in 1974) as well as later in George Sher's Desert (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987)

2. 1 neglect tax deductions; after all income taxes are quite recent, charity is not. 3. It is not made altogether clear by Rawls why he would oppose an increase of the

income of the most advantaged if it does not decrease the income of the least advantaged. He insists that the increase is not permissible unless it helps the least advantaged. Possibly Rawls wishes to reduce envy or perhaps to indulge it. But this purpose surely is not part of social justice.

4. For a short time Jesuits in Salamanca equated the pretium justum with the market price. But the ecclesiastical establishment remained ambivalent. Uncustomarily high prices continued to be attributed to wicked speculators and greed, low wages to exploitation.

5. Mutatis mutandis what is true for positive achievements holds as well for negative ones, such as crimes.

6. Odder even than the Kantian notion that only actions contrary to one's desires or interests are morally deserving.



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How Is Entitlement Deserved?