Thursday, June 21, 2012

Merit

In his article, Merit: Why Do We Value It? Louis Pojman argues that we should strive to form a world in which "the virtuous are rewarded and the vicious punished in proportion to their relative deserts."  (Pojman, 1999, p. 83)  Pojman creates a compeling argument as to why we deserve what we earn.   He sites many examples to support his view and even attempts to persuade  us by offering several objections to his idea.  He then, takes each of these objections apart, offering further justification for his feelings on merit and desert.  Yet despite his efforts, Pojman's argument is still lacking. There are problems that arise from what seems to be such a straight forward idea. 

"Both merit, which emphasizes excellence and contribution, and desert, which emphasizes intention and consciencetious effort" are included in his debate.  (Pojman, 1999, p. 88)  According to Pojman, "desert, then, is closely connected to effort and intention, whereas merit signifies positive qualities that call forth positive response, including qualities that we do not deserve."  (Pojman, 1999, p. 87)  As a definition to what merit and desert are, this a a perfect definition.  However, then stating that one should be rewarded based on desert means that those rewards should place a greater emphasis on intention.  One problem we run into with desert is understanding and then rewarding a person based on their intentions.  As the saying goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".  It is impossible to know what a person's intentions really are.  In addition, this would also infer that if an individual caused harm or pain to another, but did so unintentionally, or better still with good intentions, they should not suffer the same consequences as someone who commited the same act with malice.  Either way, the results of that act would be the same. 

Pojman states, "a notion of a moral order (natural law) wherin good and evil exist, so that evil deeds should be followed with evil results to the evildoer and good deeds with good results to the virtuous person" underlies these principles. (Pojman, 1999, p. 97)  Although there is do dispute for the exsistence of good and evil, it is a relative term.  Our beliefs in right and wrong are based primarily on our societal cultures.  "Societal culture involves beliefs and values about what is desierable and undesireable in a community of people, and a set of formal and informal practices to support the values."  (Kinicki, 2009, p. 63)  Therefore, what is considered good or proper may not appear so in another culture.  This would lead to great inconsistency in trying to reward or punish others.

Pojman is searching for equality and justice. However pleasant this may sound, true equality does not exsist.  To be truly equal, "everyone must be treated alike, whatever their status or strength.  But if…you attempt to treat everyone equally and fairly, you will confront the problem that some people do certain things better than others.  Treating everyone equally means ignoring their differences, elevating the less skillful and suppressing those who excel."  (Greene, 2000 p. xviii)  In fact, you will soon find that "many of those who behave this way are actually deploying another power strategy, redistributing people's rewards in a way that they determine." (Greene, 2000 p. xviii) 

This brings us to one of the biggest problems with Pojman's well orchestrated theory.  Who determines what is right and wrong, and as a result the reward or punishment they should receive?  Does he assume we will have altruistic leaders to light the way or will other completely unselfish members of society take on the role of judges on our behalf?  The chances of either are not very likely.  With no great leader or great dispearsment of reward or punishment available on earth, people will naturally revert back to their natural state.  As such, there really is no one great consistent judgement available to carry out so great a task. 

Many may argue that we do in fact have such a leader in the form of God.  This may be true.  However for the most part, those rewards must come after we have already left this mortal state.  If we are to wait for those rewards and punishments alone, there would be very little to either encourage or discourage the moral acts of those still here.

In addition, we face the issue of change.  Societies, cultures, governments and people are constantly evolving.  As Han-Fei-Tzu, a chinease philosopher from the third century B.C. points out, "the sage neither seeks to follow the ways  of the ancients nor establishes any fixed standard for all times but examines the things of his age and then prepares to deal with them.  There was in Sung a man, who tilled a field in which there stood the trunk of a tree.  Once a hare, while running fast, rushed against the trunk, broke its neck, and died.  There upon the man cast his plow aside and watched that tree, hoping that he would get another hare.  Yet he never caught another hare and was himself ridiculed by the people of Sung.  Now supposing somebody wanted to govern the people of the present age with the policies of the early kings, he would be doing exactly the same thing as that man who watched the tree."  (Greene, 2000 p. 423) 

We cannot effectively set forth grounds to reward and punish others based on merit and desert as Pojman sets forth.  In order to do so we would need a moral code set in stone, that everyone was willing to abide by, and that altruistic, impartial leaders could inforce.  However, this is just not practical.  Although Pojman's argument sounds very attractive, his lack of realism leaves us with very little usefulness from his long dissertation.  In short, we are right back where we stated. 



References



Greene, R. (2000). The 48 Laws of Power. New York: Penguin Books, Ltd.



Kinicki, A. (2009). Organizational Behavior, Key Concept Skills and Best Practices. New York: McGraw-Hill.



Pojman, L. (1999). Merit: Why Do We Value It? Journal of Social Philosophy , 30 (No. 1), 83-102.

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