Someone I know recently said, “I hate it when things are terrible for people who deserve only wonderful things.”
I am unsure of the mechanism this person is employing to determine what people deserve. “Deserve” is a positive ought claim. So this person must know what people ought to be doing, or else how can he know what they deserve?
Forget about this person in particular – most people would agree that some people are getting what they don’t’ deserve, and other people are not getting what they do deserve. However, when these people are asked if they know what is Good, it turns out that they don’t know what is Good. They have assertions, but they don’t have justifications. They have goods, but no Good. So how can these people know what a person deserves?
I think we can press the matter a step further than “we don’t know who deserves what”. If people don’t know what is good, how can they be achieving what is good? The precondition for achieving what is good is knowing what is good. The precondition for knowing what is good is seeking what is good. Are these people seeking? Or are they too busy watching movies, getting ahead in their careers, and managing their love lives? When they philosophize, do they seek? or are they out to preserve their fantasy view of things? These people -- these people around us – aren’t even trying. That makes them in utter moral wrecks.
If the world is filled with the wickedness of people who don’t even do the preliminary work of seeking, then what makes them not deserve suffering?
