Do the Skilled and Hardworking Deserve More Than Others?

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter argues that even if there were a level playing field in terms of class and economic opportunity, individuals would still not deserve their income because of the luck of possessing uneven mental resources and bodily capacities. Since real, empirically variable human beings differ all the way down, the playing field can never be level and the competition never truly fair. Disadvantaging people on the basis of arbitrary facts about their bodies and minds, as meritocracy does, is inherently ableist. The chapter suggests that we should be highly skeptical of the twin notions of desert and meritocracy. It argues that society should not aim for absolute equality of income but rather a highly compressed income scale with robust guarantees for everyone to access the social and material conditions necessary for good and flourishing lives (called Good Life Egalitarianism).