FALL 2005

PHILOSOPHY 780 – 84559

DESERT AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

1:00-4:30pm W

Professor Jeffrey Moriarty

 

This course will examine the nature and value of desert, and consider its role in contemporary political theory.

We will begin by asking what kind of thing desert is.  It is a property.  But what kind of property?  We will then inquire into the value of desert.  Is desert a fundamental value?  Or does its value derive from the value of other properties, e.g., freedom?  Our discussion here will touch on the concept of an organic unity.  Next we will then examine the relevance of desert for contemporary political theories.  We will begin with an examination of John Rawls’s rejection of desert in *A Theory of Justice*.  Then we will consider some pro-desert critics of Rawls, such as George Sher and David Miller.  Questions of free will and responsibility tend to crop up in discussions of desert. We will have relatively to say about these questions—though we might ask to what extent they can responsibly be avoided.  Toward the end of the course, we may--if people are

interested--look at the trend among egalitarians (e.g., G.A. Cohen, Richard Arneson) to find a place for considerations of choice and responsibility in their theories.  We will ask whether these egalitarians are closet desert-theorists, and if not, what is distinctive about desert.

Authors to be read include Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, John Rawls, Joel
Feinberg, Fred Feldman, George Sher, David Miller, Serena Olsaretti, Samuel
Scheffler,  Shelly Kagan and Susan Hurley.