IFFS PLAY

Do plausible fundamental principles of justice incorporate the idea of rewarding the deserving? Utilitarianism is famously indifferent between a world in which saints fare badly and scoundrels fare well and the reverse, with well-being totals the same. A variant of utilitarianism (“prioritarianism”) holds that benefits for people are morally more valuable, the worse off in lifetime well-being they would otherwise be. A simple further revision adds that well-being gains for people are morally more valuable, the more morally deserving they are. An objection to the revision is that no conception of deservingness withstands scrutiny. A proposal is that the question, what we owe to one another, is unavoidable for any person, and by seeking to answer it and conform one’s will to the answer one reaches, one becomes morally deserving. Such seeking can be pointless, so it’s moral striving one believes to be apt that renders one deserving. There are many objections to this, can they be defused?