On Being Entitled

Abstract Entitlement is ubiquitous in social life. We see people behaving in entitled ways all the time, claiming privileges and resources at the expense of other people. But there is a question about what it is that makes people disposed to behave this way. Several philosophers have characterized entitlement as a manifestation of arrogance, where arrogance involves a belief in or sense of superiority to other people. Drawing upon a range of paradigm cases of entitlement, I show that entitlement cannot be adequately explained in terms of agents’ sense of themselves as superior. I suggest that entitlement is marked by a particular failure of moral appreciation. People who are entitled habitually, and culpably, fail to appreciate the overriding moral significance of other people’s rights, needs, and interests to what they themselves are owed.