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Taking moral equality seriously: Egalitarianism and immigration controls

Cole, Phillip

Authors

Phil Cole Phil.Cole@uwe.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations



Abstract

In this paper I re-state the egalitarian argument against the morality of immigration controls: such limits violate the central ethical commitment to moral equality. This means that immigration controls fail a fundamental moral test and represent the ethical failure of the liberal project of moral equality. I set this re-statement against recent arguments about what moral equality means, specifically Christopher Heath Wellman's use of Elizabeth Anderson's notion of relational equality. Wellman believes that Anderson's ideas seriously damage the egalitarian argument, but I argue that this is a misreading of her account. I conclude that any liberal attempt to morally justify immigration controls must fail through committing the basic logical error of ‘begging the question’.

Citation

Cole, P. (2012). Taking moral equality seriously: Egalitarianism and immigration controls. Journal of International Political Theory, 8(1-2), 121-134. https://doi.org/10.3366/jipt.2012.0033

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Apr 1, 2012
Journal Journal of International Political Theory
Print ISSN 1755-0882
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 8
Issue 1-2
Pages 121-134
DOI https://doi.org/10.3366/jipt.2012.0033
Keywords cosmopolitanism, egalitarianism, immigration, membership, moral, equality
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/948339
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/jipt.2012.0033