Real freedom for all turtles in Sugarscape? - Presses universitaires ...

232A r g u i n g a b o u t j u s t i c efor some individuals and worsened for none. However, it is indeed aninteresting question whether a levelling down operation may in some casesproduce an improvement, all things considered, and it is a less pressing butnot uninteresting question whether it may produce an improvement in atleast one respect. I belong to the crowd of those who are sceptical about theformer possibility, believing that in general it is not a good thing to worsenthe situation of some without improving the situation of others, but do notfeel any quiver at the thought that levelling down may sometimes improvethings in some limited respect (i.e., the distribution).Van Parijs rejects the option of taking an artificial language as the linguafranca, but does admit that it would have some advantages, in particularbecause it would be fairer, symbolically more neutral than English. Thisadvantage in terms of fairness is not big according to him and can beoverridden by efficiency considerations. But it is an advantage. This is arather convincing point and appears to give at least an argument in favourof symbolic levelling down. This is not an all things considered judgment,because efficiency considerations point in the other direction, but this seemsto provide a clear-cut case in which a pure levelling down in a symbolicdimension of people's status (via the status of their native language)displays some good feature.The possibility of finding such an example is not totally new, of course. Ifone considers equality to be a desirable feature of a distribution, one mustconsider that levelling down, when it produces an equal distribution (or aless unequal one), has at least a reason in its favour. What the linguisticexample provides is another vivid example in which levelling down is goodin some respect.Moreover, what is different between the classical egalitarian case in favourof levelling down and the linguistic example is that the latter deals withsymbolic status instead of well-being. While egalitarianism in terms of wellbeingis challenged by prioritarianism, it is not common to think of a similarchallenge as regards status and respect. It is very common in politicalphilosophy to take equality of status and respect as basic values for a justsociety. The reason why equality instead of priority is usually invoked inthis context may perhaps be that in the standard case of social status, itseems that a problematic egalitarian justification (at least in “some” respect)of levelling down cannot arise because equality of status is always achievedat to the benefit of the lower status. In other words, equality is then neverachieved by levelling down but rather by equalization at a middle level (thejoint abolition of nobility and serfdom, masters and slaves) or by levellingup (the abolition of categories such as "the untouchables"). The example ofthe artificial lingua franca is an unusual case in which equality of status can