George Rainbolt

Much of the original philosophical literature on immigration focused on the general question of whether borders should be open. More recently, more specific questions regarding immigration have come to the fore. This article considers an important attempt to show that consideration of one of these more specific questions, the ethical limits on the enforcement of immigration law, leads to an answer to the general question of whether borders should be open. On this indirect argument for open borders, even if we assume that states have the right to exclude, the ethical limits on the means used to enforce this right imply that borders should be open. In early 2026, with President Trump using novel tactics to enforce immigration law and anti-immigrant sentiment on the rise in many countries, it may seem that this indirect argument is correct. However, using the United States’ Chinese Exclusion Cases as an example, I argue that the ethical limits on the means used to enforce the right to exclude do not imply that borders should be open.

Is freedom the absence of human-caused constraints, the absence of some subset of human-caused constraints, or the absence of human-caused and natural-forces-caused constraints? This chapter argues that freedom is the absence of both human constraints and natural constraints. The argument for this view relies on the value of freedom as a means to carrying out life plans. The chapter considers bivalent and trivalent accounts of freedom and defends a bivalent account. It argues that there is no need to adopt a trivalent account in order to point out the many important distinctions within the class of unfreedoms. It also introduces the concept of vacuous unfreedom. A vacuous unfreedom occurs when someone is unfree to do something, but no one has any obligation to do anything about this unfreedom because no one can do anything about it.

According to freedom as non-constraint, both human and natural constraints cause unfreedom, both interference and domination cause unfreedom, and both controlled and uncontrolled interference cause unfreedom. Some have argued that freedom as non-domination implies an objectionable ubiquity of unfreedom. This is the problem of over-generalization. Since freedom as non-constraint sees more cases of unfreedom than freedom as non-domination, it seems that this problem applies with even more force against freedom as non-constraint. This worry is defused by noting that unfreedoms are ubiquitous but many of them are trivial. This chapter also provides a response to the claim that freedom as non-constraint is merely an instance of freedom as non-interference. It argues that domination is distinct from interference because one person can be subject to the will of another even if the other’s psychology is such that there is no possibility of interference.

Is freedom the absence of uncontrolled interference or the absence of both controlled and uncontrolled interference? This chapter argues that freedom is the absence of both controlled and uncontrolled interference. It surveys various accounts of control and various arguments for the view that controlled interference does not cause unfreedom. It finds that all of these arguments are flawed. Controlled threats to freedom are still threats to freedom. This view of controlled interference implies an account of the relationship between freedom and the state that matches the lived experiences of freedom.

Is freedom the absence of interference, the absence of domination, or the absence of both interference and domination? This chapter argues that freedom is the absence of both interference and domination. It defends a novel account of interference and a novel account of domination. It argues that interference due to orthogonal preferences causes domination. Finally, it argues that freedom as non-constraint provides a better account of institutional and structural threats to freedom than either freedom as non-interference or freedom as non-domination.

When is a person free to do something? The focus of much of the recent work on this question has been the debate between those who defend freedom as non-interference (aka liberals) and those who defend freedom as non-domination (aka republicans). This book defends a new answer to this question, freedom as non-constraint. According to freedom as non-constraint, both interference and domination cause unfreedom, both human and natural constraints cause unfreedom, and both controlled and uncontrolled interference cause unfreedom. Compared to liberal and republican theories, freedom as non-constraint provides a better account of systemic and structural threats to freedom, a better picture of how market forces and governments impact freedom, and a better understanding of how the natural world constrains freedom. Freedom as non-constraint also provides a new account of the scalarity of freedom and points to the limits on our ability to measure freedom with precision.

I argue that one has a right when another has a normative constraint with respect to one. The fact that claims and immunities are the only Hohfeldian elements which constrain another combined with the fact that rights necessarily constrain others gives us reason to think that to have a right is to have either a claim OR an immunity. Hohfeldian elements can be defined in terms of fundamental normative concepts such as obligation and impossibility. This analysis provides a plausible account of liberty and power rights. The analysis also resolves the puzzles surrounding mandatory or obligation rights and rights which do not benefit the rightholder. To have a normative constraint with respect to another is to have an obligation or impossibility grounded in a feature of the rightholder. The analysis of rights provides good, but not conclusive, reason to think that there are moral rights. Further, the analysis reveals that the specificity view of rights conflict is true

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action.