 In some cases there is little debate about whether a certain property serves as a desert base for a certain sort of treatment. This may be illustrated by the example of the student who produced outstanding work in a course and deserves a high grade. Few would debate the claim that the student deserves the grade in virtue of the high quality of her work. The desert base in that case would be having produced academic work of high quality. Similarly consider the case of the cold-blooded criminal who has inflicted great harm on many innocent victims. It is reasonable to suppose that he deserves a harsh penalty in virtue of his evil behavior. In this case, the desert base is something like having inflicted great harm on many innocent victims. 