Meritocracy as an End and as a Means

I introduce a framework for studying different interpretations of meritocracy and testing whether individuals adhere to them. Each meritocracy has two components: a merit criterion, determining when one individual is more meritorious than another, and a reward criterion for each individual, determining when one outcome is more rewarding than another for that individual. An allocation is meritocratic if more meritorious individuals are more rewarded. I distinguish between two conceptions of meritocracy. Meritocracy as an end holds it intrinsically valuable that individuals are rewarded according to their merit. Meritocracy as a means views rewarding merit as instrumental in achieving desirable outcomes according to other standards, such as efficiency. I show that these two conceptions are equivalent: each instance of meritocracy as a means can be associated with a corresponding meritocracy as an end. Finally, I examine two specific meritocracies present in the literature. Pareto meritocracy defines an action as more meritorious if it leads to a Pareto improvement in welfare, whereas proportional meritocracy requires that an individual’s consumption be proportional to the amount of labour he provides. By observing whether allocation choices of impartial spectators align with specific merit criteria, one can test whether spectators adhere to these meritocracies.