The Admissibility of Representational Transformation: A Preliminary Discussion of Alienation and the Restoration of Distinction

Abstract

Every representation of a person by an institution transforms what it represents, and every such transformation loses something. The observation is not by itself a complaint, since a representation that lost nothing would be unusable, and a theory holding all such loss to be unjust would describe a world in which justice is unavailable. This paper separates the two things that are ordinarily run together in the diagnosis. Information loss is a property of the map; alienation is a property of the relation between a person and the use made of the map. The two are independent, and one counterexample pair establishes it: exhaustive surveillance loses nothing and alienates completely, while a nickname loses a great deal and alienates no one. On that separation the paper builds a taxonomy of transformation over two axes in place of a list of kinds, and states an admissibility condition: a transformation is inadmissible when the distinction it destroys cannot be restored at the instance of the person it concerns. The condition is defended against three objections. It is not procedural, since a nominal right of restoration that no attainable act would exercise fails it. It is not predictive, since whether a route of restoration exists is a present structural fact and no forecast. And it does not aggregate, since it is stated per person and admits no offsetting. The condition is applied to evidence-based policy and to archival appraisal, and its limits are stated: it is a necessary condition and never a sufficient one, and a transformation may satisfy it and remain monstrous.