Richard Arneson: Should we reward the deserving? Some puzzles

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 we

Richard Arneson is a political philosopher with a special interest in theories of social justice.  AbstractDo plausible fundamental principles of justice incorporate the idea of rewarding the deserving?

The Monist, Volume 107, Issue 2, April 2024, Pages 176–189 Abstract The possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) exists despite no observed evidence, and the risks and benefits of actively sea

Fish and Fisheries, Early view: doi:10.1111/faf.12197. Abstract A substantial amount of scientific effort goes into understanding and measuring compliance in fisheries. Understanding why, how and when f

Online seminar Can implicit bias be reduced through training? Individual and group-level effects among Swedish social workers Moa Bursell is postdoctoral researcher in sociology. Her research concerns im

"We live in an unpredictable time, the leading experts in artifical intelligence tell us. They have no answers and ordinary citizens are not even capable of asking the pertinent questions. We traveled

During the last couple of decades, Europe has experienced significant political change as a result of new political parties that have emerged in many countries. We can see this development also in Swe

Did you take part in Earth Hour last month? On the 24th of March each year a big part of the earth’s population in the most energy consuming countries turn the lights off for one hour to stress the en

Campbell, T. Axiological Retributivism and the Desert Neutrality Paradox. Philosophies 2022, 7, 80. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7040080 Abstract: According to axiological retributivism, people canan outcome in which someone gets what she deserves, even if it is bad for her, can thereby haveintrinsic positive value. A question seldom asked is how axiological retributivism should deal withcomparisons of outcomes that differ with respect to the number and identities of deserving agents.Attempting to answer this question exposes a problem for axiological retributivism that parallels awell-known problem in population axiology introduced by John Broome. The problem for axiologicalretributivism is that it supports the existence of a range of negative wellbeing levels such that if adeserving person comes into existence at any of these levels, the resulting outcome is neither betternor worse with respect to desert. However, the existence of such a range is inconsistent with a setof very plausible axiological claims. I call this the desert neutrality paradox. After introducing theparadox, I consider several possible responses to it. I suggest that one reasonable response, thoughperhaps not the only one, is to reject axiological retributivism.

Noûs 2021 Abstract Distributive theories evaluate distributions of goods based on candidate recipients’ characteristics, e.g. how well off candidates are, how deserving they are, and whether they fare b