Vol.:(0123456789) The Journal of Value Inquiry https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-020-09746-1 1 3 Reasonable Pluralism about Desert‑Presupposing Moral Responsibility: A Conditional Defense J. P. Messina 1 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020 1 Introduction Having successfully orchestrated a wicked scheme to rid himself of his pregnant wife and take up with another woman, Match Point protagonist Chris Wilton turns refective. “It would be ftting,” he thinks, “if I were apprehended and punished. At least there would be some small sign of justice—some small measure of hope for the possibility of meaning”. 1 A world in which cool-headed murderers go unap- prehended and unpunished is, Wilton suggests, a world that is in some signifcant way foreclosed to the possibility of justice and meaning. In making this suggestion, Wilton tracks the ordinary view that the world is better and more meaningful when people get what they deserve, whether this concerns reward or punishment; praise or blame; gratitude or resentment. 2 Such a view underwrites a number of Western insti- tutions and social norms—both formal and informal, which presuppose not just that it is fair and ftting to subject, wrong-doers to the so-called reactive attitudes (grati- tude, resentment, blame, guilt, etc.) and to more formal modes of punishment, but also that doing so restores balance to the moral ledger and secures justice for vic- tims. Moreover, it is widely thought that giving up on these desert-based account- ability practices would make our lives less meaningful. Signifcant though desert may be, satisfying its demands is controversial busi- ness. For it is questionable that human beings possess the kind of control neces- sary to ground their deservingness. The most prominent threat to our possessing this Thanks to Dana Nelkin for helpful feedback on this piece, for her support, and for encouraging me to pursue this project. * J. P. Messina jpmessin@uno.edu 1 University of New Orleans, 2000 Lakeshore Dr, New Orleans, LA 70148, USA 1 Allen, W. (2005). Match Point. Home Entertainment. 2 As Joel Feinberg has it, “To say that a person deserves something is to say that there is a certain sort of propriety in his having it," independent of any given institutional rules and independent of whether he in fact has it. See Feinberg, J. 1970. Doing and Deserv- ing: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 56.