Desert as fit: An axiomatic analysis

In Kris McDaniel, Jason R. Raibley, Richard Feldman & Michael E. Zimmerman (eds.), The Good, the Right, Life And Death: Essays in Honor of Fred Feldman. Aldershot: Ashgate Pub Co. pp. 3-17 (2006)
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Abstract

Total Utilitarianism is the view that an action is right if and only if it maximizes the sum total of people’s well-being. A common objection to Total Utilitarianism is that it is insensitive to matters of distributive justice. For example, for a given amount of well-being, Total Utilitarianism is indifferent between an equal distribution and any unequal distribution, and if there would be a tiny gain in well-being by moving from an equal distribution to an unequal, we have a duty to do so. To meet the objection from justice, Fred Feldman has suggested a desert adjusted version of Total Utilitarianism ---‘Justicism’ --- which in addition to the value of wellbeing takes into account factors concerning people’s desert.1 Feldman’s suggestion is novel and interesting but his theory has been severely criticized as a theory of distributive justice.2 In the present paper, I shall try to salvage what I think might be a kernel of truth in Feldman’s suggestion, or at least a kernel that is worthy of further investigation.

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Gustaf Arrhenius
Stockholm University

Citations of this work

Harming as causing harm.Elizabeth Harman - 2009 - In M. A. Roberts & D. T. Wasserman (eds.), Harming Future Persons. Springer Verlag. pp. 137--154.
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How to Adjust Utility for Desert.Bradford Skow - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (2):235-257.
Priority and Desert.Matthew Rendall - 2013 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (5):939-951.

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