ABSTRACT
Despite its intuitive appeal, the idea that desert has a role to play in a theory of justice has been almost universally denied. This is a result of the influence of John Rawls, who famously argues that we cannot deserve anything on the basis of our talents, effort, or character-for we have these things merely as a matter of “fortune”. This chapter is devoting to showing that Rawls’s objection is unsound. Rawls rests his objection on a false metaphysical account of personal identity. The essentiality of origin-the idea that an object could not have had a different origin than it actually did-shows how our desert-claims are grounded. So long as equal opportunity prevails-as it does in a meritocracy-desert can operate in a theory of justice in a common sense way.
