Christopher Wellman

In Immigration and Freedom, Chandran Kukathas provides sophisticated and empirically informed arguments that it is impermissible and inadvisable to forcibly restrict immigration. In this essay, I focus on Kukathas’s chapter on the state, arguing that he is unduly skeptical of a legitimate state’s right to political self-determination. Even if I am correct, though, Kukathas may be right to warn us that the grave costs of attempting to limit immigration are not worth the putative benefits. In the end, what makes Immigration and Freedom distinctive and distinctively valuable is Kukathas’s core claim that the real threat to freedom comes from attempting to control immigration.

This chapter considers the idea that we should design and authorize an international institution to address issues and problems related to immigration. Its contention is that, even if we could somehow create an institution sophisticated and authoritative enough to conclusively determine what each country's portion of the collective solution must be, it still would not follow that individual states would necessarily be morally required to accept any immigrants. In addition, decisions will have to be made about which refugees should be helped in their homeland (with foreign aid and/or military intervention) and which cannot possibly be helped in their native countries and thus must be given political shelter abroad. If a country like Norway chooses to restrict foreigners from joining its political community, then even a wisely designed and perfectly run global institution with authority to assign particular shares to legitimate states would not necessarily leave countries in the position where their only two choices would be to open their borders or act immorally.

This chapter examines the democratic case for open borders, with particular emphasis on Arash Abizadeh's argument. More specifically, it considers Abizadeh's support for the positive claim that “anyone who accepts a genuinely democratic theory of political legitimation domestically is thereby committed to rejecting the unilateral domestic right to control and close the state's boundaries.” It first analyzes the plausibility of the notion that political coercion cannot be legitimate unless it is under the democratic control of all those coerced. It then discusses the right of the citizens of legitimate states to freedom of association and whether a state's claim to limit immigration is distinct from a property owner's claim to her land. If democratic governance is perfectly compatible with open borders, then it undermines the contention that commitment to democracy requires closing borders.

This chapter considers the selection criteria used by some countries as part of their immigration policies. It challenges the idea that even if states have the right to exclude all outsiders, it does not necessarily follow that they may screen applicants in any fashion they choose. To appreciate how problematic this issue is, the chapter examines the views of Michael Walzer, David Miller, Joseph Carens, and Michael Blake. It then attempts to explain the impermissibility of racist selection criteria by focusing how such a policy wrongs existing members. It also comments on the morality of actively recruiting immigrants, with reference to the practice of wealthy liberal democracies to court immigrants with specific skill sets that are particularly in demand. If a rich country continues to exclude the poor or recruit the skilled workers, this chapter argues that this state has a duty to provide adequate assistance via some other avenue.

This chapter considers the debate over a state's conditional duty to admit guest workers as full citizens. It begins by citing Michael Walzer's moral analysis of European countries' practice of importing employees from states such as Turkey. These states have since revised their policies, but at the time of Walzer's study, a country like West Germany would invite Turks in to perform a variety of undesirable but socially necessary jobs in construction and trash collection, for example. But these Turks were denied the rights and privileges of German citizenship. This chapter examines what is distinctively problematic about the combination of the work and lack of German citizenship. It also tackles the concern that Walzer's analysis is objectionably paternalistic and concludes by arguing that no one can plausibly claim that the subordination of guest workers was necessary in order to secure the important benefits of the employment contracts, because these benefits could have equally been realized without any oppression if only the Germans had been willing to extend the requisite political rights to all those workers who had remained in Germany for the necessary duration.

This chapter examines the libertarian case for open borders, with particular emphasis on how restrictive immigration legislation limits the rights of insiders who might want to invite foreigners onto their property and the rights of outsiders who might want to enter the country in question. It suggests that a state as a corporate political entity cannot enjoy the right to freedom of association without restricting the individual rights of its citizens, and that a political community does not have the option of admitting immigrants as second-class citizens. It also notes that, even if the case for open borders based on property rights does not stand up to scrutiny, supporters of libertarianism may counter that the real problem with restrictive immigration policies is that they violate foreigners' rights to freedom of movement.

This chapter deals with refugees as an especially compelling counter-example to anyone who seeks to defend a state's discretion over immigration. Following the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, international law defines a refugee as someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” Critics have objected to this definition for being too narrow. This chapter agrees that the citizens of wealthy states are obligated to help refugees, but rejects the idea that this assistance must come in the form of more open admissions. It suggests that we can try to help those undergoing persecution in their home state, but that refugees do not necessarily constitute an exception to the argument that legitimate states are entitled to exclude all outsiders, even those who desperately seek to gain admission.

This chapter challenges the egalitarian case for open borders and defends the right of legitimate states to design and enforce their own immigration policies. It offers two reasons why the egalitarian case for open borders is not convincing. Not only does it question the particular brand of egalitarianism invoked in this argument, it seems that wealthy states can satisfactorily discharge their duties to the world's poor without opening their borders. Not everyone who believes that all humans are entitled to equal moral consideration agrees that we must eliminate all inequality. Egalitarians who push for open borders typically presume the adequacy of luck egalitarianism. If we switch from luck to relational egalitarianism, however, the disparities in wealth among different countries appears much less problematic. The chapter also considers a state's right to freedom of association in relation to duties of distributive justice.

This chapter examines the utilitarian case for open borders, which argues that allowing each state to close its doors to all outsiders has horrible consequences. It considers three concerns about giving each state power to limit immigration: it results in gross economic inefficiencies, economic inequality, and political tyranny. Based on these arguments, utilitarianism appears to be advantageous if states are stripped of the right to set their own immigration policies. The chapter outlines a number of reasons why the utilitarian case is not convincing. For example, if one also factors in potential costs of denying states control over their territorial boundaries, it becomes much less clear that there would be a net gain to such a move. Moreover, the deontological nature of the right to political self-determination entails that a state may withstand such appeals to overall efficiency and other mere consequential considerations.

This chapter offers a moral defense of the right of states to control immigration, or what is known as the right of exclusion. It argues that legitimate political states are morally entitled to unilaterally design and enforce their own immigration policies, even if these policies exclude potential immigrants who desperately want to enter. This argument is based on three core premises: legitimate states are entitled to political self-determination, freedom of association is an integral component of self-determination, and freedom of association entitles one to not associate with others. Based on this reasoning, the chapter suggests that legitimate states may choose not to associate with foreigners, including potential immigrants, as they see fit. It explains why legitimate states are entitled to political self-determination by recalling the controversy surrounding the Nuremberg Trials.

This book explores the debate over the ethics of immigration by articulating and defending opposing positions on the subject. It asks whether states have the right to prevent potential immigrants from crossing their borders, or whether people should have the freedom to migrate and settle wherever they wish. It first considers the claim that legitimate states are morally entitled to unilaterally design and enforce their own immigration policies based on three core premises: legitimate states are entitled to political self-determination, freedom of association is an integral component of self-determination, and freedom of association entitles one to not associate with others. It then tackles the argument that national borders must be open as part of the commitment to the moral equality of all human beings—which legitimate states can be expected to hold. The book focuses on the coherence and consistency of arguments that seek to morally defend the right of states to control immigration, the right of exclusion. Its central contention is that a morally consistent liberal political theory must embrace freedom of international movement.

All parties involved in researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing COVID-19 vaccines need guidance on their ethical obligations. We focus on pharmaceutical companies' obligations because their capacities to research, develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines make them uniquely placed for stemming the pandemic. We argue that an ethical approach to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution should satisfy four uncontroversial principles: optimising vaccine production, including development, testing, and manufacturing; fair distribution; sustainability; and accountability. All parties' obligations should be coordinated and mutually consistent. For instance, companies should not be obligated to provide host countries with additional booster shots at the expense of fulfilling bilateral contracts with countries in which there are surges. Finally, any satisfactory approach should include mechanisms for assurance that all parties are honouring their obligations. This assurance enables countries, pharmaceutical companies, global organisations, and others to verify compliance with the chosen approach and protect ethically compliant stakeholders from being unfairly exploited by unethical behaviour of others.

COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be scarce for years to come. Many countries, from India to the U.K., have demonstrated vaccine nationalism. What are the ethical limits to this vaccine nationalism? Neither extreme nationalism nor extreme cosmopolitanism is ethically justifiable. Instead, we propose the fair priority for residents framework, in which governments can retain COVID-19 vaccine doses for their residents only to the extent that they are needed to maintain a noncrisis level of mortality while they are implementing reasonable public health interventions. Practically, a noncrisis level of mortality is that experienced during a bad influenza season, which society considers an acceptable background risk. Governments take action to limit mortality from influenza, but there is no emergency that includes severe lockdowns. This “flu-risk standard” is a nonarbitrary and generally accepted heuristic. Mortality above the flu-risk standard justifies greater governmental interventions, including retaining vaccines for a country's own citizens over global need. The precise level of vaccination needed to meet the flu-risk standard will depend upon empirical factors related to the pandemic. This links the ethical principles to the scientific data emerging from the emergency. Thus, the FPR framework recognizes that governments should prioritize procuring vaccines for their country when doing so is necessary to reduce mortality to noncrisis flu-like levels. But after that, a government is obligated to do its part to share vaccines to reduce risks of mortality for people in other countries. We consider and reject objections to the FPR framework based on a country: having developed a vaccine, raising taxes to pay for vaccine research and purchase, wanting to eliminate economic and social burdens, and being ineffective in combating COVID-19 through public health interventions.

Natural duty accounts of political obligation purport to explain why citizens are duty-bound to support their country’s political institutions. In brief, natural duty approaches posit that the obligation to obey the law follows from a more general natural duty, such as the duty to maximize happiness, to promote justice, or to rescue others when they are sufficiently imperiled and can be rescued at no unreasonable cost to oneself. This chapter surveys natural duty approaches to political obligation, highlighting the relative strengths and weaknesses of these accounts. Special attention is devoted to the challenge the particularity requirement presents for natural duty approaches, as well as the issue of determining which general moral principle offers the most promising explanation of the obligation citizens have to support just civil institutions.

Rights forfeiture theory seeks to explain when and why punishment is permissible. While traditional accounts, such as retributivism or deterrence theory, identify morally valuable aims that punishment might secure, only a forfeiture theory of punishment successfully establishes why a wrongdoer’s rights are not violated when she is subjected to the hard treatment characteristic of punishment. This chapter aims to give an overview of forfeiture theory, clarify the concept, and discuss a number of puzzles and objections raised by the theory.

Applied or practical ethics is perhaps the largest growth area in philosophy today, and many issues in moral, social, and political life have come under philosophical scrutiny in recent years. Taken together, the essays in this volume – including two overview essays on theories of ethics and the nature of applied ethics – provide a state-of-the-art account of the most pressing moral questions facing us today. Provides a comprehensive guide to many of the most significant problems of practical ethics Offers state-of-the-art accounts of issues in medical, environmental, legal, social, and business ethics Written by major philosophers presently engaged with these complex and profound ethical issues.

_Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics_ features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today. Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in applied ethics Topics addressed include abortion, affirmative action, animals, capital punishment, cloning, euthanasia, immigration, pornography, privacy in civil society, values in nature, and world hunger. Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in applied ethics, whilst also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers.

__Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics_ features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today._ Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in applied ethics Topics addressed include abortion, affirmative action, animals, capital punishment, cloning, euthanasia, immigration, pornography, privacy in civil society, values in nature, and world hunger. Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in applied ethics, whilst also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers.

__Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics_ features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today._ Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in applied ethics Topics addressed include abortion, affirmative action, animals, capital punishment, cloning, euthanasia, immigration, pornography, privacy in civil society, values in nature, and world hunger. Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in applied ethics, whilst also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers.

Applied or practical ethics is perhaps the largest growth area in philosophy today, and many issues in moral, social, and political life have come under philosophical scrutiny in recent years. Taken together, the essays in this volume – including two overview essays on theories of ethics and the nature of applied ethics – provide a state-of-the-art account of the most pressing moral questions facing us today. Provides a comprehensive guide to many of the most significant problems of practical ethics Offers state-of-the-art accounts of issues in medical, environmental, legal, social, and business ethics Written by major philosophers presently engaged with these complex and profound ethical issues.

In my view, gratitude is better understood as a virtue than as a source of duties. In addition to showing how virtue theory provides a better match for our moral phenomenology of gratitude, I argue that recent work in the area of the suberogatory, our considered judgments concerning the role of third parties, our reluctance to posit claim‐rights to gratitude, and the observations of preceding studies of the subject all lend support to my contention that the language of duties is ill‐suited to describe the moral dynamics of gratitude.

Given the prevalence of hate ideology, a concerted, multipronged effort to combat it clearly seems in order. In this essay, I explore whether hate crime legislation is a permissible and advisable component of this effort. In particular, I consider whether it is morally permissible to impose enhanced punishments upon criminals who select their victims at least in part because of an animus toward members of the group to which the victim belongs. Would it be permissible to punish more severely a White supremacist who attacks a person only because she is Black, for instance, or an anti-Semitic thief who selects her victims at least in part because they are Jewish? After sketching a preliminary defense of this type of hate crime legislation, I note some potential concerns, including vexing questions about the likely effects of imposing such laws under the present, nonideal circumstances in the United States.

Now in an updated edition with fresh perspectives on high-profile ethical issues such as torture and same-sex marriage, this collection pairs cogently argued essays by leading philosophers with opposing views on fault-line public concerns. Revised and updated new edition with six new pairs of essays on prominent contemporary issues including torture and same-sex marriage, and a survey of theories of ethics by Stephen Darwall Leading philosophers tackle colleagues with opposing views in contrasting essays on core issues in applied ethics An ideal semester-length course text certain to generate vigorous discussion.

Given the continued popularity of virtue ethics, it is appropriate to evaluate its impact on normative theory and its ability to fulfill its promise as a new approach to ethics. In this paper, we review three new books by prominent virtue ethicists: Morals from Motives by Michael Slote, On Virtue Ethics by Rosalind Hursthouse, and Natural Goodness by Philippa Foot. We also assess the ability of virtue ethics to respond to three standard objections to the theory. Our conclusion is that although more work needs to be done, virtue ethics has considerable promise as a competitor to other normative theories.

The central question in political philosophy is whether political states have the right to coerce their constituents and whether citizens have a moral duty to obey the commands of their state. In this 2005 book, Christopher Heath Wellman and A. John Simmons defend opposing answers to this question. Wellman bases his argument on samaritan obligations to perform easy rescues, arguing that each of us has a moral duty to obey the law as his or her fair share of the communal samaritan chore of rescuing our compatriots from the perils of the state of nature. Simmons counters that this, and all other attempts to explain our duty to obey the law, fail. He defends a position of philosophical anarchism, the view that no existing state is legitimate and that there is no strong moral presumption in favor of obedience to, or compliance with, any existing state.