It is typically thought that a student deserves—or at least can deserve—a grade in a class. The students who perform well on assessments, who display a high degree of competence, and who complete all of the required work, deserve a good grade. Students who perform poorly on assessments, who fail to understand the course material, and who fail to complete the required work, deserve a bad grade. In this paper, I raise a challenge to this conventional view about grades. In particular, I challenge the idea that grades—understood appropriately—can be objects of desert for class performance. In other words, grades are simply not the kind of thing that can be deserved. The argument is roughly as follows. In general, when some property or quality of ours is measured, where that property or quality is something that makes us deserving of something, the measurement, itself, is not the thing that is or could be deserved. Grades, however, are a measure of student performance, where performance is meant to be the basis on which students deserve their grades. Since they are mere measures of performance, grades are not and could not be deserved on the basis of performance, and so are not possible objects of desert. Rather, they serve as evidence of the desert basis (academic performance, e.g.) that grounds a student's being deserving of other objects (praise or recognition, e.g.). In short, grades, at best, measure how deserving one is, but grades themselves are not deserved.

中文翻译：

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测量和沙漠：为什么成绩不值得

通常认为学生应得——或至少可以得到——在课堂上的成绩。那些在评估中表现良好、表现出高度能力并完成所有要求的工作的学生，应该得到一个好成绩。在评估中表现不佳、未能理解课程材料以及未能完成所需作业的学生，​​应该得到一个糟糕的成绩。在本文中，我对这种关于成绩的传统观点提出了挑战。特别是，我挑战了这样一种观点，即正确理解的成绩可以成为课堂表现的应得对象。换句话说，成绩根本不是应得的那种东西。论据大致如下。一般而言，当我们衡量我们的某些属性或品质时，如果该属性或品质是使我们应得的东西，测量本身并不是应得的或可能应得的东西。然而，成绩是衡量学生成绩的标准，成绩是学生应得成绩的基础。由于它们仅仅是绩效的衡量标准，因此不能也不能根据绩效来获得成绩，因此不可能成为应得的对象。相反，它们作为应得基础（例如学业成绩）的证据，证明学生值得其他对象（例如表扬或认可）。简而言之，成绩充其量只能衡量一个人的价值，但成绩本身并不值得。由于它们仅仅是绩效的衡量标准，因此不能也不能根据绩效来获得成绩，因此不可能成为应得的对象。相反，它们作为应得基础（例如学业成绩）的证据，证明学生值得其他对象（例如表扬或认可）。简而言之，成绩充其量只能衡量一个人的价值，但成绩本身并不值得。由于它们仅仅是绩效的衡量标准，因此不能也不能根据绩效来获得成绩，因此不可能成为应得的对象。相反，它们作为应得基础（例如学业成绩）的证据，证明学生值得其他对象（例如表扬或认可）。简而言之，成绩充其量只能衡量一个人的价值，但成绩本身并不值得。