  Of course, if the desert principle is used to ground the basic institutions of society even though it does not lie in the overlap then those who think that desert is not a proper principle of justice will likely think that they are living in a society that they regard as unjust. The principle of legitimacy will imply in this context that the basic institutions of society are illegitimate because they are not based on principles everyone accepts. But surely the same can be said of those who hold the idiosyncratic principles. They can complain that they are required to go along with institutions that are unjust by their lights. The imposition on them implied by the basic institutions that fail to distribute in accordance with desert is as great as would be the imposition on the others implied by institutions that do distribute goods in accordance with desert. There is a complete symmetry here. Indeed, one way to put this point is to say that those who hold that desert is not a genuine principle of justice are themselves holding an idiosyncratic view when we take into account the fact that many think that desert is a genuine principle of justice.