What we think people can be said to deserve has far-reaching implications. Desert presents some challenging questions about the institution of punishment (retributive justice) and the structures in society regulating distributions of scarce goods (distributive justice). For the distributive side, questions include: Can people be said to deserve the wealth they earn? Do people deserve the talents that give them advantages within the market? And for the retributive side: What punishments do criminals deserve? What justifies the decision to punish someone who commits a crime? These questions and more arise when philosophers write on desert in relation to distributive and retributive justice. John Rawls presents us with a view of distributive desert that some find problematic when it is applied to retributive justice. As a result, additional questions arise about whether desert can be treated differently in distributive and retributive justice. Section I of my paper sketches the tension within Rawls's views on distributive and retributive justice. Since this tension is best framed in terms of desert, the remaining sections heavily focus on that concept. Section II presents Samuel Scheffler's solution to the tension in Rawls's views. Section III covers Jeffrey Moriarty's criticisms of the arguments Scheffler advances. Section IV discusses Jake Greenblum's criticisms of Scheffler's assessment of Rawls. In Section V, I evaluate the philosophers' positions and offer my conclusions on desert's proper role within distributive and retributive justice.

It is not necessarily concerning that it is harder for some to conform to the law until it brings up the issue of insanity. The insanity defense, though controversial, is inherently retributive in that punishing the mentally ill is not blameworthy. As ill-suited subjects for blame, mentally ill persons lack the cognitive reasoning skills necessary to be held legally accountable. Exculpating the mentally ill is not only retributive, but also deeply intuitive, evidenced by how many mentally ill persons seem "odd or crazy" to the average person. Finally, of all the tests used to determined insanity, the Federal Test of 1984 most successfully renders the insanity defense narrow enough to minimize abuse, allows for expert testimony, and calls for a cognitive interpretation of insanity.

Bad Samaritans are bystanders who omit from preventing some foreseeable harm when doing so could have been accomplished with little risk. Although failing to intervene to prevent a harm often renders Bad Samaritans morally culpable, under current common law in the United States they could not be held criminally liable for any harm that resulted to the victims of that harm. In this paper I argue for the criminalization of individuals who fall under this label; I argue for the adoption of Bad Samaritan laws. To accomplish this, I first argue for the conclusion that omissions can causally contribute to harm. From here I am able to reach three further conclusions relative to Bad Samaritan legislation. These three conclusions are that Bad Samaritan laws are justified, that the punishment for the violation of a Bad Samaritan law should be proportional to the degree culpability for the harm caused, and that if "commission by omission" statutes are justified, then so too are Bad Samaritan laws.