Deserving is about justice.

We always try to gauge what we deserve and what others deserve — TiredThinker

you deserve the freedom to be human, which includes fair trade of work and goods

When we talk about deserving, we're interested in how well a person is suited for a position, position understood in the broadest sense possible. For example if you want to be a manager in an organization, you'll have to show that you deserve that position. I guess it boils down to showing people that you fit the bill, you're just what the doctor ordered and so on. Likewise, if you want to be someone's husband, you'll have to prove you're life-partner material.

I suppose there's an element of justice involved - one must evaluate (judge) who/what deserves whom/what. There's also fairness, another concept allied to justice, to consider. May the best man win! Meritocracy is the cornerstone of deservedness.

To mess up this fantatastic system, guaranteed to make both winners and losers happy/content, we have the deadly duo: lady luck and nepotism.

Fortune Favors the prepared mind. — Louis Pasteur

Fortune Favors the bold. — Some Guy

Hi there! I'm afraid you lost your post-a-picture privilege.

Nobody deserves anything. :mask:

"Imagine Sisyphus happy – amor fati!"

:100: :strong:

Deserve is an attempt to justify some sort of position or judgement. I agree with 180Proof: Nobody deserves anything.

What about that science teacher who gave me a 70 instead of a 90 on my project in sixth grade because he thought it would push me harder? Wouldn't I be deserving of a 90?

We always try to gauge what we deserve and what others deserve, but how is any such thing measured objectively? — TiredThinker

I am not sure what the 'we', presented by you amounts to. If you are referring to the laws set up to arbitrate disputes between various claims of right and injury, the possibility that arbitrary decisions will be made without regard to more refined senses of justice is exactly why those institutions came into being.

'We' came to a limit to what could be understood in the dealings between persons and came up with a system to carry on despite that insight not being available to an 'us.'

Nobody deserves anything — 180 Proof

Even criminals who committed heinous crimes?

Nobody. We get what we take or cannot avoid.

Nobody. — 180 Proof

So nobody deserves a punishment?

Only if they can't avoid it.

Only if they can't avoid it. — 180 Proof

Who are they? And if they can't avoid it? What does it mean?

Who are they? And if they can't avoid it? What does it mean? — L'éléphant

"They" is anyone. If "they" can't avoid it then "they" suffer the punishment. It means different things to different people. I just don't like the word "deserve." Some equate it with justice, or karma, or whatever. On the non-punishment side, some folks say X deserves to be treated positively. Or everyone deserves a medal. But all that entails judgement. And judgement is subjective. And shouldn't all judgement be placed into the context of an entire life, instead of one or more incidents? And who knows the entire life of another?

Does a deer "deserve" to be torn apart and eaten alive by a pack of wolves? No. But it doesn't not deserve it either. What about the pups back in the den? Do they deserve to eat? What differentiates the intraspecific relations of man from the inter- or intraspecific relations of any other animal(s)?

"Deserves got nothing to do with it." William Muny. It's just life. "Fair" is a subjective creation of our heart, sometimes shared, sometimes written, sometimes not.

The "they" you referred to in the post to which I'd replied.

"Deserves got nothing to do with it." William Muny. — James Riley

:fire: :cool:

Nobody deserves anything. :mask: — 180 Proof

:lol: :up: We're all a bunch of underseving lucky/unlucky bastards & bitches.

Society is just. Therefore: --
One deserves one's privilege.
One is lucky to get by.
The poor are always undeserving.
OR ...
Deserts in practice are about morality, not justice. We are all sinners and deserve hell but are redeemed by Christ. Everyone deserves a little kindness from their fellow sinners, and sinners are redeemed by the kindness they show their fellows through Christ.

Nobody deserves anything. :mask:
— 180 Proof

:lol: :up: We're all a bunch of underseving lucky/unlucky bastards & bitches. — Agent Smith

This is a recipe for irresponsibility and social collapse, much favoured by philosophers, and promulgated by the rich.

This is a recipe for irresponsibility and social collapse, much favoured by philosophers, and promulgated by the rich. — unenlightened

That doesn't make it false.

Indeed it doesn't. Neither does it make it even truth-apt. The decision is not between true and false here, but between forms of life. The red pill and the blue pill are both part of the same cinematic fiction. If good and evil are fictions, then the truth has no value either.

Indeed it doesn't. Neither does it make it even truth-apt. The decision is not between true and false here, but between forms of life. The red pill and the blue pill are both part of the same cinematic fiction. If good and evil are fictions, then the truth has no value either. — unenlightened

So, the domain of discourse isn't truth. Are we then discussing utility? Something else perhaps? Made-up worlds which we've constructed from scratch - mindscapes/ideaverses - which we then overlay on the world to, in a sense, make it human-friendly, more pro-life than it actually is. Imagined orders (vide Yuval Noah Harari)? Interesting to say the least. It's not about truth then, yet you talk of red pill/blue pill.

Good and evil are, quite possibly, (over)simplifications - thinking in binary (usually) makes life much easier. The clarity that it offers (yes/no, no maybe) must come at a price though but many, it seems, can afford it.

If good and evil are fictions, then the truth has no value either. — unenlightened

I disagree. I think that good and evil are subjective, and individual choice can be informed by truth. It's the idea that there must be some collective human agreement on what is good and what is evil that creates the rub. Even then, the collective can agree on something as good or evil without it being objectively so. That is where we get these funny notions of "justice" and "morality." These are legal or ethical fictions that, like truth, inform our conduct. But there is no objective deserve.

I wasn't so much concerned with institutions as the judgement of people is full of folly and is pretty subjective. In the case of a man that everyone thinks is more than deserving of a particular woman, if the woman is the only one that disagrees, that shows outcomes and deserving are certainly not tied together and not very objective when it comes to society and the way things tend to go. But lets say there were two identical twins in two separate near identical universes (so they don't affect one another). But one suffers a car crash and the other doesn't. Lets assume no other major entropy afterwards. One lives a life of pain and disability and the other doesn't. Certainly not fair nor deserved? Or lets say the disabled one does have additional changes? Loss of income, ends up in a more dangerous neighborhood to afford a place, maybe loses friends that were connected by more active lifestyle? Also undeserving? Can deserving only be assessed by the divine?

I disagree. — James Riley

Wot me worry? If there are no values, there is no value to truth, and never mind the bollocks of object and subject.

This is a reductio. If you post on a philosophy forum, you value truth. Indeed to participate in communication at all is to value truth. To value logic is to value truth preservation, and the reality of values is demonstrated daily on this site. There is a moral inequality between truth and falsehood that is a fact of life. If you think it is an arbitrary distinction that is a matter of preference, you are as wrong as if you think a broken clock is just as good as working clock. Language does not work unless there is this inequality between truth and falsehood.

If there are no values, there is no value to truth, and never mind the bollocks of object and subject. — unenlightened

You equate a lack of communal agreement on values with a lack of individual (subjective) appreciation of values. That is not the case. Just because I don't share your values doesn't mean I don't have any.

If you think it is an arbitrary distinction that is a matter of preference, you are as wrong — unenlightened

If you disagree with unenlightened, you are wrong. :lol:

Just because I don't share your values doesn't mean I don't have any. — James Riley

I have no reason to believe you. and nothing more to say.

I have no reason to believe you. and nothing more to say. — unenlightened

You just made my point against your point regarding the subjectivity of value.

I don't believe you.