 One possible justification for this assumption goes as follows. Even though we may deserve all sorts of things, only instances of someone’s deserving a certain welfare level are instances of “moral desert.” And only moral desert “matters” for the intrinsic value of a possible world. A theory that says the world is no better if I get that apology is not false-but-legitimately-oversimplified. It is saying the truth. According to this line of thought, it is not, in fact, always better when people get what they deserve. It is only better if they get what they morally deserve. (Shelly Kagan focuses on moral desert, presumably to the exclusion of other kinds of desert, in chapter 1 of his 2012.) 