  Kagan poses many examples and tests our responses to them (Kagan 1999 and 2012). An important range of examples involves situations in which a person is badly off, but has more than he deserves, and another person is well off, but has less than he deserves. Kagan suggests that for each person at a given level of deservingness, there is some absolute level of benefit or well-being that is exactly what the person deserves. From the standpoint of desert, getting this amount is ideal, better than getting either more or less. Kagan calls this level of benefit for a person with a specified deservingness score that person's peak. Now consider a saint who is very well off, but is way below her peak, and consider a sinner who is very badly off, but still is far beyond her peak. The sinner enjoys more good fortune than she deserves, the saint less. Now we face a choice: we can help either the sinner or the saint but not both. An advocate of equality says, help the badly off person, the sinner. An advocate of priority will say the same. Kagan suggests to the contrary that we should regard it as morally the better course of action to aid the saint, who has less than she deserves, rather than to help the sinner, who already has more than she deserves. Kagan suggests that rewarding desert trumps any moral imperative to equalize (or “prioritize”). Kagan adds a further suggestion: that getting what one deserves matters more, the more deserving one is. The sinner's getting less than she deserves is less of a big deal, morally speaking, than the saint's getting less than she deserves.