Ilkin Huseynli

The notion of voluntariness has important implications for normative discussions on migration. If the voluntariness of migrants has significant normative implications, the degree of voluntariness in migration ought also to affect, even if not entirely determining, the entitlements of migrants, and the obligations host countries have towards them. Some argue that migration is non-voluntary if and only if it is motivated by the agent’s belief that she lacks any objectively acceptable alternative to migration. The proponents of this motivational account of voluntariness in migration argue that voluntariness is binary. But perceiving voluntariness as binary is unsatisfactory as it prevents us from seeing relevant differences between migrants in terms of their degrees of voluntariness. I adopt the motivational account of voluntariness and argue that it is compatible with the idea that voluntariness in migration is a matter of degree because: (a) evaluating a person’s lack of acceptable alternatives requires a probabilistic assessment of available options, and (b) migration is a process spanning a long period, so discussing voluntariness in migration requires us to examine voluntariness over an extended timespan. I develop a metric to quantify migrants’ degrees of voluntariness and illustrate its application, particularly in legal deliberations concerning migrants’ status.

La nozione di volontarietà ha delle implicazioni significative nell’ambito delle discussioni normative sulla migrazione. In particolare, molti sostengono che le richieste di ammissione da parte di migranti non volontari abbiano maggior peso normativo per il paese ospitante, in quanto questa condizione implica che la scelta di migrare sia stata forzata. Al contrario, poiché la migrazione volontaria è percepita come il risultato di una preferenza individuale, si tende a considerare le pretese dei migranti volontari come meno stringenti per i paesi ospitanti. Se la volontarietà o meno della scelta di migrare ha queste implicazioni normativamente rilevanti, viene naturale domandarsi se anche il grado di volontarietà delle scelte migratorie possa essere pertinente, anche se non sufficiente, a rendere conto dei diritti dei migranti e degli obblighi dei paesi ospitanti nei loro confronti. Sembra infatti che l’equa determinazione dei diritti dei migranti presupponga la possibilità di misurare la volontarietà dell’atto stesso di migrare.

When I am unable to drive due to a road blockade, there seems to be a morally relevant difference between a case in which the road is blocked by workers and a case in which the road is blocked by a landslide. Many political philosophers tried to capture this pretheoretical judgment at a more abstract level through the formulation of a concept of freedom. They argue that one is unfree when one's inability is casually or morally brought about by others but merely unable when one's inability is brought about by oneself or nature. The causality view of freedom holds that I am unfree to drive because the workers are causally responsible for the blockade, whereas the responsibility view of freedom holds that to determine whether I am unfree, we should ask whether the workers are morally responsible for the blockade. Each view has some strengths and weaknesses. I capture their strengths and avoid their weaknesses by suggesting a novel interpretation of moral responsibility as answerability, according to which we are answerable for all our actions in virtue of the fact that our actions reflect our evaluative judgments. This interpretation allows for a plausible resolution of the disagreement between these views.

John Christman avoids three common pitfalls: reliance on a “true self,” perfectionism, and moralizing freedom. His account defines freedom through four conditions: absence of prevention, relevant capabilities, social recognition, and endorsable socially constituted practices. While the book demonstrates remarkable philosophical precision and historical grounding, significant tensions emerge. Christman’s political realism constraint—requiring conceptions of freedom to guide realizable action—conflicts with long-term emancipatory ideals, as illustrated by historical cases like Quaker abolitionists. Additionally, making social recognition definitional renders the account conservative, preventing advocates of unrecognized practices from claiming unfreedom.

Social conceptions of freedom allow that a person can be free even when unable to act, so long as her inability is not due to the conduct of others. Yet despite permitting the conceptual possibility of freedom without ability, these accounts have not addressed whether such freedom retains any value. I argue that freedom has ability-independent value as it can be valuable even when it cannot be exercised. To explore this possibility, I adopt a negative conception of freedom as my working definition and develop a typology that distinguishes between content-dependent and content-independent values of freedom, each of which can be either ability-dependent or ability-independent. I show that freedom can have ability-independent instrumental value when it causally contributes to valuable phenomena such as happiness or social progress; ability-independent constitutive value when it is conceptually necessary for valuable phenomena such as citizenship and personal autonomy; and ability-independent contributory value when a valuable phenomenon such as respect supervenes on freedom. These findings challenge the prevailing assumption that only exercisable freedoms are valuable, and expand the normative landscape by introducing a new category of contributory value, which captures how freedom can be valuable even when it plays neither a causal nor a conceptual role in relation to other valuable phenomena.

How do we determine whether a migration is voluntary when persons organize their own displacement under the shadow of ethnic violence? I examine this question through a case study of a 1989 Soviet village exchange between Azerbaijanis from Gizil-Shafag (in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic – SSR) and Armenians from Karkanj (in the Azerbaijani SSR), where residents negotiated their mutual relocation while operating under threats to their safety. Through analyzing competing accounts of voluntary migration, I demonstrate why the agential account fails to capture the fundamental difference between fleeing ethnic violence and migrating for career advancement. This inability makes the agential account susceptible to misuse by nationalists attempting to justify ethnic cleansing. However, the political account – which focuses on whether migration is motivated by one’s belief that one lacks objectively acceptable alternatives – not only better reflects the lived experiences of ethnic minorities facing displacement but also provides clearer guidance for migration policies.

I argue that Azerbaijani universities are a façade masking an ulterior motive. I examine the difficult relationship between authoritarian power and the university in Azerbaijan through the study of coercive policies put in place by university administrators preventing free thought and hampering the freedom of academics. My central thesis is that the university is a place where researchers should be able to teach and conduct their research freely, without any hindrance from their administrators. However, in authoritarian countries, such as Azerbaijan, academic freedom suffers from regular interference and restrictions on the part of those administrators who, arguably due to the nature of the regime, assume that academics are not supposed to criticize the society, politics or universities in which they work. These administrators, who are often academics themselves, mistakenly believe that university priorities should be at the service of the regime at the expense of knowledge. I submit that the rigid discipline of Azerbaijani universities and the unfree relationship between high-ranking administrators and scholars – a relationship based on the domination of the former over the latter – do not only stymie academic discussions and development, but also squelch the liberty and creativity of scholars.

Some argue that republican freedom is impossible because since it is always possible that a person or a group of persons possesses arbitrary power to interfere with individuals, no one is free to do anything. To avoid this challenge, in their recent article, Sean Ingham and Frank Lovett invoke the notion of ignorability in terms of which they offer a moderate interpretation of republican freedom. On their view, B is free from A to φ if A’s possible types who prefer to intervene with B’s φ-ing are ignorable. They also try to show that freedom is not determined by the probability of an intervention. However, we argue that they fail to do this and that freedom as non-domination is not entailed by ignorability.

Henry David Thoreau’s defense of John Brown has been interpreted as an inconsistency in his political philosophy. Since Thoreau was best known for his commitment to civil disobedience, his critics argued that his support for Brown constitutes a break in Thoreau’s political thought. However, I argue that "A Plea for John Brown" should be seen as a radicalization of Thoreau’s transcendental politics rather than an inconsistency in his writings. To understand this decade-long process of radicalization requires an analysis of Thoreau’s four main essays from "Resistance to Civil Government" in 1849 to "The Last Days of John Brown" in 1860.

We argue that while the new opposition in Azerbaijan between 2005 and 2013 did not realize all the goals set, it influenced a new generation of young activists who became the loudest supporters of democratic and secular values in Azerbaijan. This grassroots activation of the youth brought noticeable changes to some parts of Azerbaijani society by questioning the authority of traditional values. Many young people, especially students found a platform to discuss their problems concerning everyday basic issues such as intimate relationships as well as their freedom to live in accordance with their personal choices and desires without the family interference in the light of theoretical questions such as the importance of liberal democratic values, individual liberties, and the rule of law. The successfully established connections between material problems and transcendental ideals encouraged some young people to participate in the open discussions and seminars organized by the new opposition. Because of the emergence of this new generation of active youth, the government was forced to incorporate some elements of this new discourse at least by making some cosmetic changes within its structures. The government became successful in its attempts of weakening the new opposition by hijacking its ideas and creating similar but pro-government organizations; neutralizing or buying some well-known opposition figures such as writers and journalists; and finally, persecuting the leading members of the youth organizations.