The Nature of Desert Claims

Rethinking What it Means to Get One's Due

Bibliographic Data

ID23800433
AuthorsKevin Kinghorn (0000-0002-9935-7493, Asbury Theological Seminary, corresponding author)
Year2021
Publication date2021-05-31
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueNature of Desert Claims (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781108955546
OpenAlexW3159261269
ISBN9781108955546
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited39

Our everyday conversations reveal the widespread assumption that positive and negative treatment of others can be justified on the grounds that 'they deserve it'. But what is it exactly to deserve something? In this book, Kevin Kinghorn explores how we came to have this concept and offers an explanation of why people feel so strongly that redress is needed when outcomes are undeserved. Kinghorn probes for that core concern which is common to the range of everyday desert claims people make, ultimately proposing an alternative model of desert which represents a fundamental challenge to the received wisdom on the structure of desert claims. In the end, he argues, our plea for deserved treatment ends up being linked to the universal human concern for a shared narrative, as we seek healthy relationships within a community.

Ambivalence · Desert (philosophy) · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Narrative · Plea · Political science · Redress · Sociology · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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