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

396A r g u i n g a b o u t j u s t i c ethe greater difficulty for firms to induce highly skilled foreign workers torelocate to protectionist regimes, and the lower economies of scale involvedin teaching a minority language.Suppose then that a society’s members face a choice between protectingsome cherished language and maximally promoting their own income andwealth, or ‘wealth’ for reasons of brevity. How are the reasons governingsuch a choice best understood?In this too brief foray into the political morality of language policy, I shalladdress just one aspect of a complex and important topic. More specifically,I shall examine whether the choice between linguistic protection and wealthpromotion involves weighty conflicting requirements or whether a moreharmonious interpretation of those concerns is available. In addressing theissue, I shall assume that at least under some conditions there are soundreasons to use political means to protect an established language. Myconcern focuses instead on wealth promotion and with whether that goal isa countervailing requirement that conflicts with any reasons for linguisticprotection.Two conceptions of priority to the least advantagedTo address the issue I shall consider just two types of principle governingthe distribution of income and wealth. Both are types of non-aggregativeprinciple that deny maximizing the sum of wealth is of value and insteadassume that what matters is the distribution of wealth across individuals.Both types of principle also attach priority to the interests of the lessadvantaged when resolving conflicts of interest between individuals. What Ishall term maximinimizing principles favour making individuals wealthier,and when conflicts of interest arise such principles attach priority toindividuals who have less rather than more wealth. In contrast, nonmaximinimizingegalitarian principles endorse no such requirement but merelyprohibit increasing inequality in ways detrimental to the least advantaged.The latter principles ground a complaint only against decisions that expandinequality at the expense of the least wealthy; they ground no complaintagainst policies that fail to make them as wealthy as possible.For illustration, it may be helpful to note how, at different points, JohnRawls appears to affirm both types of principle.Stating the core requirement of his famous difference principle in Justice asFairness: a Restatement, Rawls (2001: 42-43) writes that ‘social and economicinequalities...are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.’ Rawls(2001: 59-60) later explains that to