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Merit The subject of merits and demerits, as those of God and soul, bondage and emancipation, this world and the other, has been much talked about. Some people are sure that we deserve what we earn others state that there is the hand of fortune or destiny that leads us. In the anthology What Do We Deserve? Louis P. Pojman has collected works of various writers and given the different positions on issues.
The work helps build own point of view. According to the work, the meaning and significance of desert is deeply rooted in our morality. People say that it goes without saying that effort deserves success, wrongdoing deserves punishment, innocent suffering deserves sympathy etc. As human beings are uncontroversial bearers of desert they think they have the right to decide what they deserve: punishment, reward, apologies, compensation, admiration, contempt, wages, grades, prizes, and so on. Most of all, they treat others the way they deserve, according to their deserts.
Our perception of the notion of desert influences our ethical lives. The bases for deserving reward or success, or punishment are considered to be need or effort, or moral worth. But some scientists state that desert always involves responsibility. They post that one of the main division among "moral" and "nonmoral" desert is presupposition of responsibility: moral desert presupposes it; nonmoral desert does not. (Pojman, 57) It should be pointed that desert and merit, which are often used as synonyms, are not the same. We use them in ordinary language in multifaceted and overlapping ways. But they may have different central meanings.
Desert should not be treated as a species of "merit." Merit is based on possession of any quality that is an appropriate basis for treatment, whether the meriting subject is responsible for the quality or not, while desert is a species of merit that requires responsibility for the merit basis (Pojman, 97). From an analytic perspective, merit seems a broader concept. It, corresponding to the Greek word axia, is any feature or quality that is the basis for distributing positive attribution, such as praise, rewards, prizes (or penalties and punishments), and grades. There is a saying that Merit is much more cheaply acknowledged than rewarded. So merits, as well as demerits, are impure, internal behaviour of the soul.
Worship of God, adoration of the monks, compassion, charity, abstinence, mortification and other auspicious activities etc. , are termed as merits and their fruition brings favourable associations. Violence, untruth, theft, indulgence in sex and accumulation of possessions etc. , are called demerits and they are instrumental to unfavourable associations. (Pojman, 96) In the part Historical Interpretations of Desert Louis P. Pojman mentions Adam Smith work Merit and Demerit. Here Smith speaks about the influence of fortune. He emphasizes that the effect of this can diminish our sense of the merit or demerit or increase our sense. It depends on the proposed effects: whether they have failed or succeeded.
Merits and demerits have different causes, tastes, nature and results. Merits appear to be dear, while demerits unwholesome. Good and bad phases of life are both in the worldly existence and as such there is difference as regards results. Difference is on account of causes, taste, nature and result, in fact.
Merits and demerits are both dark wells. According to Smith, the effect of the influence of fortune is to increase our sense of the merit or demerit of actions beyond what is due to the motives or affection from which they proceed, when they happen to give occasion to extraordinary pleasure or pain. (Pojman, 83) Having examined the Pojman's works, a reader can form his personal point of view: whether we deserve what we earn. I agree with the statement. They say, the more I find concurrences in life the more I am sure that they are regularity of it. Go and stand on the crossing of some busy streets and see it. One the crossing there is the red light, which is a signal of bad (death), there is a policeman to check you, but you are not willing to stay at any cost.
Though you understand clearly that with the red light on, it is very dangerous to cross the roads, you can come under any vehicle, the policeman is warning you, and yet you are running. One can say that it is your destiny. But were not there the red light and the policeman warning you? In any case you have made your choice and deserved the punishment. Bibliography: Pojman, Louis. (1999).
Merit: Why Do We Value It? Journal of Social Philosophy, # 30 Blackwell Publishing, pp. 83 - 102, 1999. Pojman, Louis. (1999). What Do We Deserve? New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 50 - 120, 1999. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it cant be taken on its own merits.
If you wish in this world to advance your merits you " re bound to enhance; you must stir it and stump it, and blow your own trumpet, or, trust me, you haven't a chance.
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