Lecture 11 Flashcards
Otherwise put: does the state have the right to exclude?
- This is actually two discrete issues: movement and membership.
- Do people have the right to move freely between states?
- Do people have the right to settle, and become members of states?
Liberal egalitarianism on immigration
- Egalitarian liberalism I: Rawls
- Rawls explicitly didn’t deal with the question of immigration – his was a closed society.
- But freedom of movement is part of the liberty principle in Theory of Justice. This supports relatively open borders.
- On what grounds?
- Because the Liberty principle is prior to the Difference principle (freedom of movement can only be restricted based on
liberty itself). - This means that while we could not justify the intake of immigrants on economic grounds, we could do so on the grounds of
liberty – i.e. we could refuse to take immigrants in who might themselves pose a challenge to liberalism. - But if instead immigration were not about movement but about membership then it could be justified (or rejected) based
on the difference principle – i.e. we could discuss whether immigration helps the worst off … - … which contemporary economic analysis suggests it does.
Rawlsian borders would be open if =
- So Rawlsian borders would be open if:
- 1) Immigration doesn’t pose a threat to liberty
- 2) It benefits the worst off
Carens spotlight
His basic argument is that:
- 1) If we start with the basic liberal premise of the “equal moral worth of individuals” and that “individuals are prior to
community” (found in Rawls, Nozick, etc)
- 2) These foundations “provide little basis for drawing fundamental distinctions between citizens and aliens who seek to
become citizens” (Carens 1987: 252).
- 3) This supports a strong open borders thesis.
* Can there be any restriction?
- Yes, a “public order restriction” – i.e. a minimal amount of restriction of immigration is necessary to preserve order, and
therefore create conditions for liberty. But this pales in comparison to the number of people that would be allowed in.
Spotlight Abizadeh
He asks:
- To whom must border control (coercion) be justified?
- Not just to insiders, but also outsiders.
- Why? A version of the “all-affected” principle, since borders affect people on both sides of the line, they must be justified to
both insiders and outsiders:
- “[I argue that democratic theory] rejects the unilateral right to close borders … The regime of boundary control must
consequently be democratically justified to foreigners as well as to citizens” (Abizadeh 2008: 37-8).
* He concludes that borders must themselves be mutually run, such that they take into account the wills of nonmembers as well as citizens (everyone who is coerced).
Sufficiency - liberal egalitarianism
- Sufficiency theorists might stipulate that letting in immigrants …
- 1) is necessary in order to give them sufficient resources on which to live (and develop the full range of their human
capabilities). - 2) Thus open borders are justified in order to achieve that sufficiency.
- 3) But this has the paradoxical effect of justifying partially closed borders, since you would only have to let in immigrants
below the sufficiency threshold.
- Most importantly, sufficiency theories offer a different kind of argument for open borders:
- Not due to securing freedom,
- But on the basis of ameliorating neediness.
- So what is the main argument against the (needs-based, or sufficiency-based) argument for open borders?
- Economic. Taking in immigrants will hurt our own neediest. (NOTE: this is empirically dubious).
Communitarianism
- Central insight: that we need closed borders to keep society/culture intact.
: many communitarians seek a way to mix liberal (universalist) principles with communitarian
justifications for closed borders.
Spotlight Miller
- He finds three defenses of the right to migrate:
- 1) Freedom of movement, including “the freedom to move into, and take up residence in, states other than one’s state of
current citizenship” - 2) The right to exit a state.
- 3) Rights of free association – i.e. that “immigration restrictions violate the rights of those on either side of the boundary to
associate (work, live, etc) freely with one another” (Miller 2007: 205).
Miller and right to immigrate
- 1) Sovereignty necessitates control over borders – but this is not an absolute authority, it is subject to human rights.
- 2) The rights and priorities of existing citizens should outweigh those of migrants, by dint of self-determination
Libertarianism on immigration
- In most cases, libertarians support open borders …
- … and free trade
- Following upon their defense of strong rights protections and minimal government.
- BUT. This is not always true.
- Hilel Steiner argues that a state is allowed to exclude …
- … based on an analogy to private property (in this case summer cottages).
- Is this persuasive?
- Fabre doesn’t think so, as it makes a jump from property to territory:
- “This libertarian argument assumes that ownership is the same thing as sovereignty” (127). This position was designed to legitimate closed borders…
- … But if land was not actually transferred justly, this would seem to legitimate open borders. - Moreover, even if transfers were just, libertarian principles don’t prevent labor migration, or permanent visits.
Immigration addendum
A few last points about migration.
- 1) If you do take in migrants, should you also grant them participation/membership rights?
- NOTE: this brings us back to the discussion of multiculturalism.
- 2) Should we consider letting in immigrants as a form of compensation for past (usually colonial) harms?
- NOTE: this is the problem of reparative justice (a temporal scope claim).
- 3) Who should take in migrants?
- NOTE: One answer is to say that there should be a quote of immigrants per year, and that states can trade the taking in of
migrants for economic gain. But there are concerns about allowing states to buy their way out of liberal principles.
