Justice and Desert in Liberal Theory

Abstract

Contemporary liberal theory appears to attach relatively little importance to the concept of desert. John Rawls's A Theory of Justice is exemplary in this respect. Rawls explicitly argues that desert has only a derivative role to play in an adequate account of distributive justice, and he is frequently interpreted as advocating a purely institutional theory of desert, according to which people's deserts are in general to be identified with their legitimate institutional expectations. This threatens to deprive the concept of desert of its critical, normative force. Yet Rawls explicitly suggests that desert has a more substantial role to play in retributive than in distributive justice. Even in the case of distributive justice, moreover, he stops short of endorsing a purely institutional theory of desert. This Essay reexamines the idea that there is an asymmetry between distributive and retributive justice with respect to the role of desert. It calls attention to a neglected rationale for that idea and, in so doing, it suggests that egalitarian liberals like Rawls need not endorse the kind of wholesale skepticism about desert that has sometimes been attributed to them.