DISQUS

Will Wilkinson: Deserving It

  • The One True Josh · 3 years ago
    The Rawlsian argument conflates MONEY and VALUE in a way that leftists would normally shy away from. What are they saying, that people with more money are more abstractly valuable? Even libertarians barely believe that.

    Hard work and talent create more wealth, and as such deserve more of that wealth. People who make no money, but generate a lot of spiritual value deserve more of... whatever spiritual value produces. This does not mean that Donald Trump is a "better" person than the Dalai Lama, only that Trump deserves more money, and the Lama deserves more respect from people who value his contribution. My value system ranks money higher than spiritual purity, but I'm not forcing that world-view on anyone.
  • Wayne · 3 years ago
    Great TCS article. This is why I love arguments based on moral intuition.

    "Clearly, everyone agrees with me, that their intuitional tells them X,Y,Z."

    "No, No, No. Everyone's moral intuition tells them ABC!"

    What a rock solid foundation. We all believe what Will believes because his intuition tells him so. Oh, and I love the last two paragraphs. We are responcible too! Why? Because Will says so, I guess. No No wait. Because Will thinks everyone agrees with him that we are responcible.

    That sounds right.
  • GilM · 3 years ago
    Will,

    Did you defend the free market on the grounds of desert at the time?

    I think that's what Bryan was talking about. Not whether you were EVER willing to do so.
  • MPG · 3 years ago
    On Rawls's Desert Argument and picking up on your point about its scortched earth power, consider the following. No one deserves their genetic endowment. If no one deserves their genetic endowment, then no one deserves what flows from it. One product that flows from genetic endowment is good philosophy, and thus the true theory of justice. This theory commands a certain patterned distribution of goods. But since this flows from what's arbitrary from a moral point of view, we don't deserve it. Since we don't deserve the theory of justice, we don't deserve what flows from it. Therefore, we should not base any distribution on the theory.
  • Pithlord · 3 years ago
    MPG,

    Maybe the desert argument leads to Calvinism. If we don't deserve our genetic endowment, we probably don't deserve any contribution of the environment either. So we don't deserve anything. So anything good is a result of grace, and everyone should quit their damn bellyaching.