Merit Essay

Merit Essay
Dennis Schroader
Phi 107
Tirizia York
March 29, 2010

The concept of merit, in the context of a philosophical argument, is one in which the subject receives an award based upon a characteristic or attribute possessed by the subject. In this context, merit is entirely different from desert. To be clear, for the purposes of this paper “desert” means the condition of being deserving of something, rather than a barren wasteland characterized by a severe lack of precipitation. Therefore, whereas merit conveys an entitlement, desert conveys a reward.

In his essay, “Merit: Why do we Value it?” (1999), Louis Pojman leads with a brief description of the evolution of prevailing philosophical thought on the matter of morals. Beginning with Homeric society (ancient Greece), the predominant philosophy was that success or failure were all that mattered. Those individuals in high stations merited their position in society by virtue of their birth (p 84). This was the foundation for what developed into the feudal society of Europe and was the dominant philosophy until Immanuel Kant (1781) defined a new world order (my terminology, for want of a better one) in which the concept of merit faded in favor of desert. Simply put, Kant proposed that a subject’s intentions are more important that their end results (Pojman, p 84). John Rawls (1971) takes political philosophy to a new level. “For Rawls all desert claims reduce to entitlements and justified entitlements are those obtaining in a society governed by the principles of justice-as-fairness” (p 88). That which follows is Pojman’s attempt to lay a broad foundation for the defense of a meritocracy in stark contrast to the notion of the communist ideal of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” (Marx, 1875). Rather, Pojman cites Marx’s fallback position, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution” (p 92).

While this student loathes agreeing with Karl Marx on anything, at least that second position seems more tenable to free market sensibilities than the first. It is this student’s firm opinion that individual freedom is an inherent concept in market-based capitalism a la Adam Smith and the cornerstone upon which the foundation of the United States was built. In order for individual freedom to reign truly supreme, a society must successfully marry both the concepts of merit and desert. This deeply held conviction aligns with Pojman’s statement regarding, “… a theory of natural rights, as opposed to positive rights [sic] are recognized in our nations Declaration of Independence…” (p 97).

Pojman goes on to eviscerate the practice of “affirmative action” in the United States (pp 98-99). It is assumed that the reader is sufficiently familiar with this term and that it needs no special definition. His conclusion and argument leading thereto could not be more correct. This practice is an affront to merit or desert based justice and causes greater social ills than those it seeks to cure.

The argument against Rawls’ claim of justice-by-fairness (p 99) is incomplete. In simple terms, Rawls argues that we do not deserve that into which we are born: our genetic make up, natural talents, socio-economic status, etc. This thesis extrapolates to a psychological and sociological indictment of our notion of free will, which this student ardently rejects. Pojman states:

“Human beings, though thoroughly the products of casual forces, still act voluntarily and may be held as the centers of these casual operations, and treated as such. We hold each other responsible for our voluntary acts, praise and blame, reward and punish whether or not determinism is true” (p 99).

Insofar as it goes, Pojman’s claim is correct. The problem lies in the fact that it does not go far enough; a truth to which Pojman himself confesses, to his great credit (p 99). Take, for instance, the case of two men from a lower-middle-class part of town. Both have divorced working mothers and absentee fathers. Neither are particularly talented in athletics or the performing arts, nor do either have any exceptional intellectual gifts. Societal norms would expect at least one of these men to be involved in some sort of criminal (or at least illicit) activity. A moral relativist might claim that such an occupation is perfectly acceptable for that person in their circumstance. What is missing from the sociological thirty-thousand-foot view of the world is that human beings are not in fact ants. Free will and self-determination do indeed exist. The example above is a fair – if crude – approximation of the teenage experience of this student and his best friend through high school. Both chose to work their way out of their poverty and lead lives as productive and useful (and law abiding) members of society despite the so-called disadvantages.

Human beings, in the strictest of biological terms, may belong to the animal kingdom, but are in fact distinct from animals, as the word is used in the common vernacular. Because we are capable of voluntary, reasoned action, we must establish and be held accountable to standards of conduct. Among these standards is that each should reap the benefits or consequences of his or her own actions. The individual is solely responsible for his or her own success or failure in the world, although the ends (or merit) must not be the only means by which we evaluate the rightness of the individual. That person’s motives and means play an equal part in determining what is their just due (or desert). The marriage and balancing of the two principles is not a simple task, but a necessary one.

References

Pojman, L. (1999). Merit: Why do we Value it? In Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol 30 No 1 (pp 83 – 102). Blackwell Publishers