Serena Olsaretti

The compensatory desert argument is an argument that purports to justify inequalities in (some) incomes generated by a free labour market. It holds, first, that the principle of compensation is a principle of desert; second, that a distribution justified by a principle of desert is just; and third, that (some) rewards people reap on a free labour market are compensation for costs they incur. It concludes that therefore, a distribution of (some) rewards generated by a free labour market is just. In this chapter I criticise the first two premises of this argument. I argue that the principle of compensation is not a principle of desert (sections 3 and 4), and that a distribution of deserved compensatory payments may be unjust (sections 5 and 6). Before developing my critique of the compensatory desert argument, I start by illustrating further that argument in the version of it which has been defended by Julian Lamont (section 1), and to dispel two objections that have been moved against the view that compensation is a principle of desert.

One of the most distinctive features of Ronald Dworkin’s egalitarian theory is its commitment to holding individuals responsible for the costs to others of their ambitions. This commitment has received much criticism. Drawing on Dworkin’s latest statement of his position in Justice for Hedgehogs (2011), we suggest that it seems to be in tension with another crucial element of Dworkin’s own theory, namely, its endorsement of the importance of people leading authentic lives – lives that reflect their own values. We examine this tension between responsibility and authenticity, and some strategies Dworkin does and could deploy to defuse it, which we think are unsuccessful. We then propose a solution for reconciling the demands of responsibility and authenticity, which is, so we claim, friendly to Dworkin’s fundamental commitments but which leads to a revisionist interpretation of the demands of equality of resources.

This paper is part of a book symposium on Fred Feldman's, *Pleasure and the Good Life*. I argue that Feldman’s defence of hedonism, although successful on its own terms, is of less significance than it may seem at first, for two main reasons. First, Feldman’s defence of the claim that attitudinal pleasures are the chief good is either implausible or crucially incomplete. Second, Feldman’s claim that hedonists can overcome the objections levelled against them while remaining pure hedonists is only partially true.

One of the central motifs of G. A. Cohen's work was his opposition to capitalism in the name of justice. This motif was fully in view in Cohen's work on Robert Nozick's libertarianism: Cohen carefully reconstructed and relentlessly criticized Nozick's apologetics of the free market, which, he thought, was internally coherent but unconvincing. This article suggests that Cohen's opposition to libertarianism did not, however, go far enough, and identifies two respects in which Cohen's position could and should have been more critical of that philosophy