There seems to be general consensus that someone is not entitled to, or deserving of something, just because everyone else around them has it.
So - suppose, as the hypothetical - that a teacher has the custom of giving cupcakes to every student. She brings cupcakes to school every day, and gives them to every student - except one student, “Amy.” Now there is nothing particular about “Amy” that would suggest a motive for discrimination - Amy isn’t a minority, smart or dumb, rich or poor, pretty or ugly, or of a particular religion, or background, or sexual orientation or something that would give a clue as to why the teacher is doing this. It’s just that the teacher always gives cupcakes to every student but Amy. The teacher also never explains her reasons for such behavior, and answers no questions about such.
Now, considering that
No student has a “right” to cupcakes;
The teacher was never obligated to bring cupcakes to anyone or to school in the first place;
Is Amy deserving of a cupcake because every student around her has one, and also, if she feels that she deserves a cupcake, are her feelings justified?
And also “Feelings aren’t required to be justified”.
Kids and teachers should “bring enough for everyone” because jealousy exists and is a problem in the environment of a classroom, it has nothing to do with anyone deserving or having the right to a cupcake.
Is this a hard rule with no exceptions? No. For instance it’d be fine if this teacher brought cupcakes for her class, and a different class with a different teacher didn’t get cupcakes, because there a) exists a reasonable explanation for the class that are cupcake-less, it’s just something that other class does, and b) while it might still cause that class to hate their teacher a bit, it is nowhere as problematic as singling out a student in a class.
And as much as I think most hypotheticals are terrible as the starting point of a discussion, this one would be vastly improved if you’d included some examples of situations where “There seems to be general consensus that someone is not entitled to, or deserving of something, just because everyone else around them has it.”
Since the only criterion for receiving a cupcake appears to be being a member of that teacher’s class, then in fact, by the standard definition, Amy does deserve a cupcake.
But even if you don’t want to say Amy “deserves” a cupcake, the scenario in the OP would still be horribly wrong. It would violate a basic sense of fairness. So even if Amy doesn’t deserve a cupcake (because no one does), it would not be OK not to give her one.
Amy has the right to expect the same treatment as everyone else in the class. If the teacher treats her differently with respect to cupcakes, there is reasonable belief that she will also be treated differently with respect to grading. In this context, the expectation is that she’s treated the same as every other student, and the cupcakes are a just an indicator.
If the teacher had a rational explanation for excluding Amy (such as the cupcakes were reward for good behavior) that would be fair. But the appearance of fairness is pretty important in a public school setting where a teacher has vast power over the student.
Amy deserves equal treatment. If that means a cupcake, then she deserves a cupcake.
True story: In 7th grade I had a science Teacher who would bring rock candy to school when we were on the geology chapter. Everyone could choose a piece of candy at the end of the lesson. The largest piece was a hunk of rock salt. The greedy kid would get a foul surprise. Guess who got the rock salt in my class?
There are always reasons a classroom teacher does things. Honorable? Not necessarily.
ETA…I never could have treats other students or Teacher brought to class because I was diabetic. Usually the teacher would give me crackers. If I knew ahead of time I would bring my own treat, fruit or something I was allowed to have.
The simplest answer to the OP would be, “of course not - no one really deserves anything out of life unless you earned it.”
But, for this situation and most others, there really needs to be either motivation provided or the item shouldn’t provided to everyone but one person or a small subset of people. Is Amy diabetic? Did she throw the cupcake at her teacher last time? Both of those are really good reasons for her not to have a cupcake. But just because isn’t a good enough reason, in my opinion.
There are plenty of other items, though, that regardless of how many people have them not everyone deserves them. My son doesn’t deserve a data plan because all his friends have one. He also doesn’t deserve to be on snapchat. Both of those require a certain amount either money or responsibility. I guess you deserve what you earn, but at the same time, the word deserve is a super sticky one. Everyone “deserves” food, water, shelter and clothing, but the quality of what you get is usually dependent upon what you give.
It’s the “earned” part that gets tricky. It’s like investment bankers that say they “earned” their six or seven figure bonus. Yes, they probably worked very hard and made a lot of money for their firm. But not everyone gets the same opportunity to land a job on a trading desk at Goldman Sachs. Some might even argue whether or not their particular job even provides any real value to society.
The point is, who decides who “earns” what is complex and fairly subjective.
That’s the problem I’m having, too. If I earn a lot of money to buy a nice house, do I deserve the house? Do I deserve it more if I saved a lot of money working for a small charity that paid me next to nothing and I’m extremely frugal vs. if I earned a ton of money as a celebrity like Paris Hilton, whose brand is based on her wealth and appearance?
The term deserve and earn seem to both come loaded with moral implications.
Amy deserves not to be treated badly without a good reason. She earns this level of treatment by living in a society where people are allegedly pretending not to be awful. In this situation no good reason was given, so she shouldn’t be treated badly. In this situation not getting the cupcake is bad treatment, because everyone else was given one making her deprived by comparison. Thus Amy deserved a cupcake.
The only way she would not deserve a cupcake would be if there was a good reason to deprive her of one. And maybe there is - we don’t know the teacher’s motives. Perhaps Amy murdered the teacher’s mother, and this is payback - in that case Amy didn’t deserve the cupcake. But we probably shouldn’t assume that Amy is a murderer - not without evidence, anyway.
For instance, if someone is willing to leave everything they know behind, pay their life savings to a stranger, walk across a desert and a mountain, enduring rapes and beatings along the way, are they more or less deserving to be here than someone who was just born here?
I think the real point is that the teacher has an ethical responsibility to treat the students all the same. It’s not that Amy is entitled, but that the teacher is obligated.
