Thank you for such a well-written definition: it makes the matter much clearer for me. However, there are areas where this definition might fail, and I believe it is important to think those through while we're on the topic. One example being a promotion for which you and one other person are eligible for. The promotion offers more work, for which you are ready, in exchange for considerably bigger pay. Both you and the other person are skilled enough to be deservant of it and are putting in around equal amount of work in while you're in the office, or wherever you are. One day, several days after announcing the potential promotion to you and the other person, your boss calls you in and, in a private conversation in his/her office, asks you whether you feel like you deserve the promotion more than the other person. Do you say you do, earning yourself a better place but leaving another person out of the opportunity?