Immigrant admissions and global relations of harm

Journal of Social Philosophy

Volumn 38, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 274-291

  Wilcox, Shelley ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 56349099133     PISSN: 00472786     EISSN: 14679833     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9833.2007.00379.x     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Michael Walzer is the best-known proponent of the conventional view. See Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 31-63.
2. See Joseph Carens, "Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders," in Theorizing Citizenship, ed. Ronald Beiner (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995), 229-54
3. (originally published in 1987) and "Migration and Morality: A Liberal Egalitarian Perspective," in Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and of Money, ed. Brian Barry and Robert E. Goodin (University Park: The Pennsylvania State Press, 1992), 25-47.
4. For alternative formulations of the freedom of movement argument, see Roger Nett, "The Civil Right We Are Not Yet Ready For: The Right of Free Movement of People on the Face of the Earth," Ethics 81, no. 3 (1970): 212-27;
5. and Michael Dummett, On Immigration and Refugees (New York: Routledge, 2001).
6. International Organization for Migration, URL: http://www.iom.int/jahia/ page254.html.
7. Carens, "Aliens and Citizens," 233-41.
8. Carens forgoes specifically Rawlsian concepts in subsequent versions of the freedom of movement argument, arguing instead that freedom of international movement, including the right to immigrate, is entailed by general liberal egalitarian values, such as human freedom, autonomy, and equal opportunity. Carens, "Migration and Morality," 25-47. Interestingly, Article 13 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of one's country of citizenship, together with the right to leave and return to one's country, and Article 14 specifies the right to seek asylum in other countries. However, the Declaration includes neither a general right to freedom of international movement nor a right to immigrate to the country of one's choosing.
9. James Woodward, "Commentary: Liberalism and Migration," in Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and of Money, ed. Brian Barry and Robert E. Goodin (University Park: The Pennsylvania State Press, 1992), 61. One could object that privileging the neediest prospective immigrants is consistent with equal treatment insofar as immigration is a legitimate means for fulfilling basic subsistence rights. However, this objection is not available to the proponent of the freedom of movement argument because the argument construes the right to immigrate as a negative right.
10. The Harm Principle originates in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. Roughly stated, Mill argues that a state may coercively interfere in the liberty of individuals only if it can thereby prevent harm to others. While Mill provides a utilitarian justification for the Harm Principle, other liberals defend it on alternative, including deontological, grounds. For instance, see H. L. A. Hart, Law Liberty, and Morality (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1963).
11. Joel Feinberg, Harm to Others: The Moral Limits of Criminal Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).
12. Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
13. Feinberg, Harm to Others, 33-34.
14. This account draws upon the work of philosophers engaged in the project of developing a comprehensive theory of collective responsibility, including the following. Christian Barry, "Applying the Contribution Principle," Metaphilosophy 36, no. 1/2 (2005): 210-27.
15. Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002),
16. and "Severe Poverty as a Violation of Negative Duties," Ethics & International Affairs 19, no. 1 (2005): 55-83.
17. Larry May, The Morality of Groups: Collective Responsibility, Group-Based Harm, and Corporate Rights (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998).
18. The essays in Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics, ed. Larry May and Stacey Hoffman (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1991).
19. Ialso draw upon classical work on legal causal responsibility, particularly Feinberg, Harm to Others, and H. L. A Hart and Tony Honoré, Causation in the Law, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).
20. In Barry's words, "A's conduct did not merely allow a causal sequence that had antecedently put B under threat of acute deprivation to play out, but rather initiated, facilitated, or sustained it." See Barry, "Applying the Contribution Principle," 212.
21. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, 166
22. and "Severe Poverty as a Violation of Negative Duties," 78-83.
23. Although there are controversies concerning the extent to which agents are accountable for the actions of others, this general account of collective democratic accountability is widely endorsed. See also Satz, "What Do We Owe the Global Poor?" Ethics & International Affairs 19, no. 1 (2005): 50.
24. A. Zvie Bar-On, "Measuring Responsibility," in Collective Responsibly: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics, ed. Larry May and Stacey Hoffman (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1991), 265.
25. Satz and Pogge give similar answers to this objection. See Pogge, "Severe Poverty as a Violation of Negative Duties," 78-79;
26. and Satz, "What Do We Owe the Global Poor?" 50.
27. Peter Shuck, Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2006);
28. Phillip Jones Griffiths, Agent Orange: Collateral Damage in Vietnam (London: Trolley Press, 2004);
29. and Robert Allen, The Dioxin War: Truth and Lies about a Perfect Poison (London: Pluto Press, 2004).
30. Major Tony Raimondo, "The My Lai Massacre: A Case Study" (Fort Benning: Human Rights Program, School of the Americas), URL: http://www.buffgrunt.com/buffgrunt-pdf/ Four%20Hours%20in%20My%20Lai%20A%20Case%20Study.pdf.
31. Oxfam, "Stop the Dumping! How EU Agriculture Subsidies Are Damaging Livelihoods in the Developing World," Briefing Paper 31: 2002 and "Milking the CAP: How Europe's Dairy Regime Is Destroying Livelihoods in the Developing World," Briefing Paper 34: 2002, URL: http://www.oxfam.org/ eng/policy-pape.htm.
32. For instance, Alison Jaggar argues that the structural adjustment policies implemented by the World Bank and WTO have foreseeably and avoidably contributed to a global feminization of poverty, producing serious human rights deficits for many women and children. See Alison Jaggar, "A Feminist Critique of the Alleged Southern Debt," Hypatia 17, no. 4 (2002): 119-42.
33. This account underlies modern tort law. For a helpful discussion of this and several other accounts of compensatory justice, see Renée A. Hill, "Compensatory Justice: Over Time and Between Groups," Journal of Political Philosophy 10, no. 4 (2002): 392-415.
34. Loran Lomasky defends this interpretation. See Loran Lomasky, "Compensation and the Bounds of Rights," in NOMOS XXXIII: Compensatory Justice, ed. John W. Chapman (New York: New York University Press, 1991), 13-44.
35. See Shelley Wilcox, "American Neo-Nativism and Gendered Immigrant Exclusions," in Feminist Interventions: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory, ed. Barbara Andrew, Jean Keller, and Lisa Schwartzman (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 213-32.
36. Ruth Rubio-Marin, Immigration as a Democratic Challenge: Citizenship and Inclusion in Germany and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
37. Joseph Carens, "Membership and Morality: Admission to Citizenship in Liberal Democratic States," in Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship in Europe and North America, ed. William Brubaker (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989), 31-50.
38. See Wilcox, "American Neo-Nativism and Gendered Immigrant Exclusions;"
39. Carens, "Membership and Morality;"
40. and Rubio-Marin, Immigration as a Democratic Challenge.
41. For a full defense of this view, see Shelley Wilcox, "Culture, National Identity, and Admission to Citizenship," Social Theory and Practice 30, no. 4 (2004): 559-83.