We like to think about whether we “deserve” what we get, or whether someone else deserves what he/she has. But in reality there is no such mechanism.
So you’re saying we like thinking about a moral property, but we’re wrong to do so, because this property is not reliably instanciated? Desert theorist do not need to disagree—there’s no law of physics that means people necessarily get what they deserve. Rather, we are supposed to be the mechanism—we must regulate our own affairs so as to ensure that people get what they deserve.
Perhaps the bad concept here is actually “karma”, which I understand roughly to be the claim that there is a law of physics that means people necessarily get what they deserve.
So you’re saying we like thinking about a moral property, but we’re wrong to do so, because this property is not reliably instanciated? Desert theorist do not need to disagree—there’s no law of physics that means people necessarily get what they deserve. Rather, we are supposed to be the mechanism—we must regulate our own affairs so as to ensure that people get what they deserve.
Perhaps the bad concept here is actually “karma”, which I understand roughly to be the claim that there is a law of physics that means people necessarily get what they deserve.
I think around here we can call that the just-world fallacy.