The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

by Will Wilkinson on February 9, 2008

So…, James Poulos had said:

The big problem with Gerson’s ‘moral internationalism’ is not that it has a big heart or a goofy smile. The big problem is that it’s inimical to citizenship. Gerson and his ilk long for the day that Americans don’t get a better shake in life just because they’re Americans.

I was a bit confused by the possibility of a decent person denying the fundamental moral equality of human beings, so I asked in comments:

Just to be clear, you think Americans ought to get a better shake in life just because they’re Americans?

In the comments, James ends up endorsing this view, from J.A.:

Whether you subscribe to the notion that America’s prosperity and stability are undeserved accidents of a less-than-honorable history, or, alternatively, happy results of the Constitution and better than average leadership — or, in fact, if you believe neither or a combination of these — do other peoples, less fortunate in their circumstances, have legitimate moral claims on us for access to them? If you take as a given that America is, comparatively speaking, a really good place to live, work, and raise a family — which I think is obviously a true statement — then the question is not whether Americans should get a better shake in life; they do get a better shake in life by virtue of being citizens in a “really good place to live, work and raise a family.” The question isn’t even one of just deserts. The question is, what moral claims can non-citizens make on American citizens given the fact of American prosperity and stability?

Yes, Americans get a better shake in life than most people in the world in virtue of having had the good sense to get born in the United States, which does have relatively excellent institutions. Yes, those institutions are a main reason so many people come to live and work here. But I cannot make sense of the concluding question. Does J.A. think that the fact Americans are so rich weakens the obligations of Americans to non-citizens? I guess that would be an… interesting thing to think.

There is no need for confusion about the question at hand, which is clear enough: What justifies state-imposed limits on the human rights to movement and free association?

A country is not a big plot of land owned by its citizens. It is a jurisdiction of government within which there are many free people and many pieces of privately-owned property — at least if the government is decent. But suppose one is simple and thinks citizens own countries in much the way a family can own a farm. What then?

First, back up to the question of the justification of a system of private property. The division of the commons into parcels, and the use of government coercion to enforce private claims over these parcels — which include the right to exclude — requires a justification. Dave Schmidtz provides that justification here [doc]. In short, dividing the commons leaves each with more than had it remained open. The right to exclude enables general prosperity.

So, think of the Earth as a big commons, and imagine borders as fences. Can we justify the system of nation-states and its migration controls in the same way? Evidently not. The welfare gains that would come from even a mild decrease in coercive limits on travel and free association are awesomely huge, which of course implies that the status quo system of limits does not leave most people better off than they would be in a feasible alternative system. And this suggests that the global-level system of division and exclusion lacks moral justification.

Citizens may have stronger claims on one another than they have on non-citizens. And they may have stronger claims one another than non-citizens have on them, because they share the burdens and benefits of a set of common institutions. But everyone, no matter who printed their passport, has equal claim to the respect of their basic rights. Citizens are under a strict obligation not to harm or violate the rights of non-citizens. The status quo system, which limits the freedom to travel and cooperation without benefiting most of those whose freedom is limited, amounts to both a substantive and moral harm; it denies some basic conditions for human flourishing and a thereby constitutes a violation of basic rights. What non-citizens have coming to them, is the recognition of their rights, moral respect as persons.

Limiting basic rights to travel and associate may be justified if it is necessary to maintain the integrity and stability of instutitions that tend to make people better off overall. The United States economy and its supporting institutions are hugely beneficial not only to those who live and work within them, but more broadly. I am open to serious, empirically-minded arguments about the location of the point at which additional openness to migration leads to diminishing benefits. But, I’m afraid, one sees very little of this.

  • JSBolton
    It ought to be asked, how can a prospective immigrant have rights here, just by starting to move this way? Is there some good to the species to be gained by inventing an obligation of the net taxpayers of our citizenry, to extend protection through our government, out to all who say they want it? How do we know that foreigners here have rights and not privileges only? More cooperation of whatever kind is always better? What about cooperation by foreigners in increasing aggression on the net taxpayers of our citizenry, is that part of the dynamic cooperation that generates increased utility as it increases? The intellectually honest and sincere would want to answer these questions, or not?
  • I'm not going to get into citing examples of non-State enforcement mechanisms in this thread; I know you're well read enough and familiar with the arguments already. The question of stability of civil institutions in a statist world is a good and tough one, but again, far beyond the point I wanted to make here, and far off topic.
  • a state is not the only enforcement mechanism of rights.
    What are some other ones and why do they matter if the State can just drive them out of business?
  • Micha, what rights-enforcement mechanism is capable of protecting me from the state?

    I don't recall ever claiming I knew of such a mechanism. The lack of such a mechanism, of course, isn't incompatible with my statement that a state is not the only enforcement mechanism of rights.
  • Larry
    You gave two hypothetical claims and said if morality/rights are meaningless they are equally valid, which is to say not valid at all.

    That's not what I said. What I did say was that if all moral/rights assertions are thought to be equally reasonable, that leads to a contradiction -- but of course that's only true if you think that any moral/rights assertions are reasonable at all. In your case, then, you can at least escape the contradiction. Whether you can escape harm from the state or anything/one else, being unable to claim protection or help, is another matter.
  • what you can’t do, if rights, like morality, are meaningless absurdities, is make any claim. You’re on your own, TG.
    You gave two hypothetical claims and said if morality/rights are meaningless they are equally valid, which is to say not valid at all. Where is the contradiction?
  • Larry
    The argument that a particular belief entails an absurdity is a refutation of that belief for everyone who's moved beyond Dada.

    You can, of course, believe or disbelieve in anything you like. But what you can't do, if rights, like morality, are meaningless absurdities, is make any claim. You're on your own, TG.
  • If by reductio ad absurdum you mean proof by contradiction, it is fine and frequently used in mathematics. You gave an argument from incredulity that two opposing statements could be equally reasonable because it was simply absurd.

    Micha was the one who brought up rights-enforcing mechanisms. Just because I don't believe in rights doesn't mean I can't also disbelieve in a mechanism that can stand up to the state.
  • Larry
    TGGP: Yes, there is no reason at all for any of it.
    Micha, what rights-enforcement mechanism is capable of protecting me from the state?

    "Rights"? What "rights"? "Any of it" would have to include "rights" too I'm afraid.

    Maybe the problem here is that you think the argument from absurdity (reductio ad absurdum) is a fallacy.
  • James
    Will comments:
    "Just to be clear, you think Americans ought to get a better shake in life just because they’re Americans?"

    First of all, it's not impossible that Americans mostly deserve what they have. Secondly, even if it's just a better shake Americans ought to be able to pass it on, at the national level, to whom they choose.
  • Argument from absurdity
    Isn't that a fallacy or something?

    if all moral assertions are equally reasonable, then it’s as reasonable to assert that it’s immoral to do that which I’ve agreed to do as it is to assert that it’s moral
    Yes, there is no reason at all for any of it.

    Micha, what rights-enforcement mechanism is capable of protecting me from the state? Because all the competitors seem to have gotten their asses thoroughly kicked everywhere but the high seas and Antarctic.
  • I've seen Nozick. Wasn't impressed.

    True, it wouldn't make sense to speak of rights if we adopted the logical positivist position. I don't, in fact, adopt that position, but I thought I'd put it out there as a possible disproof of your claim that "not all moral assertions are equally reasonable."
  • Larry
    You are confusing legal rights with moral rights

    No, I'm simply talking about what the Constitution, as you point out, refers to as secured rights, or, as I said, viable rights.

    But then Larry goes on to say that “there are no states without defensible borders, and definable citizens,” thereby implicitly assuming that a state is the only enforcement mechanism of rights.

    I didn't actually say that a state was the only enforcement mechanism for rights, but I probably should have stated explicitly that it's the only just -- i.e., morally reasonable -- mechanism, since alternatives either involve attempts at private enforcement (see Nozick) or are reducible to a state in any case.

    ... might it be the case that all moral assertions are equally reasonable given that all moral assertions are equally unreasonable, if we reject the possibility of cognitively meaningful moral assertions altogether?

    In which case it hardly makes sense to speak of "rights" at all, whether as discussed by the Constitution or by Roderick Long.
  • Will claims:

    "I am open to serious, empirically-minded arguments about the location of the point at which additional openness to migration leads to diminishing benefits. But, I’m afraid, one sees very little of this."

    C'mon, be honest with yourself. You have no interest in "serious, empirically-minded arguments." You don't like numbers and you don't like reality. You like metaphysics.
  • and not all moral assertions are equally reasonable.

    Putting on my logical positivist hat for a minute, might it be the case that all moral assertions are equally reasonable given that all moral assertions are equally unreasonable>/i>, if we reject the possibility of cognitively meaningful moral assertions altogether?
  • That said, I do agree with Larry that in order for rights to be viable - that is, respected or enforced - a mechanism is required. Larry offers a state as an example of an enforcement mechanism. But then Larry goes on to say that "there are no states without defensible borders, and definable citizens," thereby implicitly assuming that a state is the only enforcement mechanism of rights. It isn't. It isn't even a very good one. By definition, a state must violate rights in order to even exist. Whether the rights violations necessary for the creation and continued existence of a state are worth the supposed benefits of monopolizing the institutions of legitimized force is a question for another thread, but it bothers me how quickly people skip this step and simply assume that:

    1. Rights require an enforcement mechanism to be viable.
    2. States are one such enforcement mechanism.
    3. ???
    4. Therefore, states are the only such enforcement mechanism, and thus all rights come from the government, in which case nothing the government does can ever be said to violate rights. I am above the law!
    5. Profit!

    [Two South Park references in one post!)
  • But, second, contra Will, there are no viable “rights” without a mechanism — such as a state — to protect them against violation; and there are no states without defensible borders, and definable citizens.


    You are confusing legal rights with moral rights, a mistake the preamble to the Declaration of Independence was written to correct:

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

    That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.


    Or, as Roderick Long more recently put it,

    For libertarians, the concept of rights belongs in the first instance to the realm of interpersonal ethics, and applies to the political realm only secondarily. That is because, for libertarians – as for the liberal tradition generally – rights are not the product of a political regime, but are prior to such regimes and constitute a constraint on them. Hence rights cannot without circularity be defined in terms of the purposes of a political regime. If political regimes are constrained by certain pre-existing rights, and indeed have as one of their purposes the protection of these rights, then it must be possible to describe what these rights require without presupposing the existence of a political regime. A crucial feature of libertarian political theorizing is the insistence that not just the precise nature, but the very existence, of political authority requires justification and cannot simply be assumed. If we start from the basic natural rights that human beings would have in any social context, including a state of nature, then the specification of a particular political regime cannot subtract from that array of rights; but then it cannot add to it either, for, as we shall see, the addition of one right always involves the subtraction of another.
  • Larry
    First, contra JA, moral reasoning is in fact possible, and not all moral assertions are equally reasonable.
    Could you provide some support for that statement?

    Argument from absurdity: if all moral assertions are equally reasonable, then it's as reasonable to assert that it's immoral to do that which I've agreed to do as it is to assert that it's moral -- which is absurd. Hence, not all moral assertions are equally reasonable. QED.
  • First, contra JA, moral reasoning is in fact possible, and not all moral assertions are equally reasonable.
    Could you provide some support for that statement?
  • Larry
    First, contra JA, moral reasoning is in fact possible, and not all moral assertions are equally reasonable. Hence, there can be, and are, moral obligations even without your agreement (and if there were not, then your agreement itself would be irrelevant). But, second, contra Will, there are no viable "rights" without a mechanism -- such as a state -- to protect them against violation; and there are no states without defensible borders, and definable citizens.
  • JA
    Oh man, I just read that you were a philosophy major, so let me clarify this:

    "But the point remains: there is no inherent tension between having utility and being false."

    I am, of course, speaking about propositions -- "true that" rather than "true how". E.g., it is true that if you are a good boy Santa will bring you presents -- useful, beneficial, but false.

    One would be hard pressed to argue that a false technique has more than nominal utility (e.g. showing how not to do it).
  • JA
    I wrote, "This is no mystery, but a natural result of each man judging his world from the inside looking out, using the same repertoire of mental metrics."

    Another way of saying this: fundamental conflict in moral judgment is precisely the result you get when you think of each man as a prepared, complex, and adaptable algorithmic singularity.
  • JA
    "If it’s useful, how is it a fiction?"

    Surely a distinction must be made between useful and true. Especially given the vulnerability of our neo-cortical world-modeling to conceptual placebos.

    There is no inherent contradiction in the idea that a false belief might result in benefits -- to the person, the society, or both -- if, via its subjective force, it leads to the types of "behavioral constraints" you mention. In fact, this must be the case more often than not, since so many ancient and mutually exclusive belief systems abound on this planet. Did they not have some utility, personal or collective, they probably would not still be extant. Of course, given the sheer number of them, it's also possible that human beings, via their more natural virtues, inhabit a state of ecological release.

    But the point remains: there is no inherent tension between having utility and being false.

    Now, you make a good amount of sense when you talk about the benefits of behavioral constraints. Were everyone to follow their impulses, complex civilization and its attendant benefits would be impossible: the systemic consequence of each person obeying nothing but appetite is maximum entropy. As Omar says, "A man's got to have a code." And as Jesus said, "Depart from me, ye who are lawless." Without the centripetal force of a common ethic, the resulting existential randomization would keep mankind in a very bad way indeed.

    But you cannot get from there to the idea of a priori moral obligation. You can speak in terms of ethics; if you define a destination point you can speak in terms of strategy. But morality itself is an illusion; it is an evolutionarily-evolved, subterranean constant of human nature, it operates via intuition and emotion and only belatedly (and tenuously) accords with reason, and as a tool for survival it is unwieldy and highly imprecise.

    Instantiations of "moral judgment" are largely inscrutable, heteroglot and discordant, as you would expect from a blunt, evolutionarily derived faculty like the moral instinct. Thus, while it is true that the concept of "justice" is universal in human beings -- not exactly a precise statement but enough for our purposes -- its conceptions can be and often are diametrically opposed to one another. This is no mystery, but a natural result of each man judging his world from the inside looking out, using the same repertoire of mental metrics.

    Thus, an argument based on moral rights and obligations is inherently problematic unless you first destroy the distinction between the in-group and out-group, and even then it is less isomorphic to reality than it should be. Much better to find an external standard that is measurable, like, ah, Kolmogorov complexity or something (for society), rather than use the slippery concepts of moral truth.

    And believe me when I say I have no intention of out-naturalizing you. My goal was to find common ground that was, ah, actual ground, rather than conduct the conversation on different levels of air. Each of the latter has, over the past few hundred years, been disassembled and reduced to rubble, while the former remains immutable as ever.
  • Will Wilkinson
    "The great disillusionments of human history all had one thing in common: the discovery that Man was not the center of the universe. Moral Truth as the last illusion is more ensconced, since morality itself is an instinct of human nature. But like the Ptolemaic system of cosmology, it too will be replaced by fact, and none too soon."

    I can assure that you're not going to out-naturalize me. Maybe we have a different idea about what it means to be fully "disillusioned". There are empirical facts about the conditions for human flourishing. There are sets of norms, rules, conventions, institutions etc. that lead people acting within them to live wealthier, healthier, more satisfying, longer lives. That's what I'm after. It's pretty damn far from magical.
  • Will Wilkinson
    "I may be precluding a future political career here, but this is a polite — though useful — fiction."

    If it's useful, how is it a fiction? In my book, rights are justified by the likely effects of respecting them. The argument JUST IS that respecting certain side-constraints on action is useful. The flipside is that failing to respect them is harmful.
  • Will Wilkinson
    "I’m not sure how you imagine these obligations to arise."

    Certain constraints on behavior, when generally observed, tend to make most in the relevant social system better off over time. Insofar as people have an interest in their welfare, they ought to heed these constraints. Let's call them rights.

    The relevant social system, it turns out, does not stop at borders. Cooperation is already globalized. The gains from cooperation increase as the scope of cooperation increases. Nationalist arguments are arguments for ensuring these gains are not realized.
  • JA
    Last one, I promise:

    You write, "So, think of the Earth as a big commons, and imagine borders as fences. Can we justify the system of nation-states and its migration controls in the same way? Evidently not."

    Think of the earth as a big commons, and imagine selectively-permeable membranes as fences. Can we justify the system of cellular exclusivity and its transport controls in the same way? Evidently not.

    There is no hard-break in the physical world between cells and the superorganism we call society, though we're not disposed to see it.

    The great disillusionments of human history all had one thing in common: the discovery that Man was not the center of the universe. Moral Truth as the last illusion is more ensconced, since morality itself is an instinct of human nature. But like the Ptolemaic system of cosmology, it too will be replaced by fact, and none too soon.
  • JA
    "But everyone, no matter who printed their passport, has equal claim to the respect of their basic rights."

    I may be precluding a future political career here, but this is a polite -- though useful -- fiction.
  • JA
    "_Does J.A. think that the fact Americans are so rich weakens the obligations of Americans to non-citizens?_"

    Oddly enough, I do not recognize _any_ pre-existing obligations, so the question of whether or not our success weakens them is moot.

    By referring to our success I was positing a limit case. Obligations to non-citizens do not exist a priori, so we must ask ourselves whether they might emerge with circumstance. Obviously, the limiting circumstance is one in which we are rich and they are poor -- a situation where the claims flow strongly in one direction, and in the greatest number.

    I'm not sure how you imagine these obligations to arise. The categorical imperative? Surely you have in mind something less...intuitive.

    These obligations you speak of, do they pre-exist human beings? Were they products of the Big Bang, settling into the fabric of spacetime during the Era of Decoupling?

    I am not trying to be unlikeable, here. I just want to know how you ground your claims in reality. And if they are not so grounded, wherefore the strident certitude with which you present them?
  • Fred S.
    Stuart,

    Well, Steve said that Wilkinson "seldom" includes any numbers in his discussions of immigration. He was actually being quite charitable: substituing "never" would have increased the sentence's accuracy (as a quick skim of the post will verify).

    Didn't you find the appending of those two final sentences incongruous with the piece at large? A call for concrete, empirical investigation of an issue the rest of the piece had treated at the loftiest level of philosophical abstraction? Quite aesthetically displeasing, no...

    Mr. Donald,

    As someone in another thread noted, just because they wouldn't have the franchise wouldn't mean they couldn't kick up a fuss. Countries with notably high rates of immigration usually manage it through authoritarian policing and Draconian punishment(Dubai, Singapore).
  • Obviously Mexicans and suchlike should be free to come here and work, but the problem them is coming here and voting. Mexicans vote for Mexican institutions, and if we had Mexican institutions, our living standard would resemble that of Mexico - observe Argentina as an example of place that voted itself from first world to third world, and continues to do so.

    If we restricted the vote to people who were literate, had good credit rating, and own significant property, it would not be a problem. If we did that, we could, and should, open our borders. Universal sufferage, however, creates a problem.
  • Rasselas
    As I understand it your argument is that “the system of nation-states and its migration control” is justified only insofar as that system benefits those who are not within the most wealthy nation states. For the sake of argument we can assume that this is the right standard. There are two questions that are crucial:

    1) Do the institutions we are judging have to make people better off than they would be if those institutions did not exist or must they make non-citizens as well off as is within our power?

    2) Once we decide which of the standards mentioned in (1) to use, we must determine what institutions require justification. For instance, should we ask ourselves whether particular immigration policies make those outside of our country better off or whether the institutions that produce those policies (our republican system of government) make those outside of the country better off.

    As for (1) it seems too strict to demand that our institutions make everyone as well off as is within our power, so let’s suppose for a moment that we are asking whether or not a given institution makes people better off than they would be otherwise. If we adopt that standard of justification and then move to question (2) we must decide what institution we are going to judge. Liberal representative government has facilitated technological development that has left much (probably most) of the world better off. Judging the legitimacy of immigration controls by the legitimacy of the liberal representative institutions that produce them might not seem right to you. Maybe each policy, and not just the institutions that produce it, must be justified by making all non-citizens better off. If this is the standard then I agree with you on the legitimacy of immigration controls. Unrestricted immigration would obviously make many immigrants better off even if it ended up making current citizens significantly worse off. That being said, does evaluating every single policy in this way leave any room for citizens to govern themselves and decide what sort of country they want to live in? This is getting too long for a comment, but I am interested in how you would deal with (1) and (2).
  • Will Wilkinson
    Thanks, Stuart.
  • stuart
    Steve, come on dude.

    "I am open to serious, empirically-minded arguments about the location of the point at which additional openness to migration leads to diminishing benefits. But, I’m afraid, one sees very little of this."
  • As for who and what the United States is for, well, 55 guys with a lot more common sense than Will took a crack at exactly that question in 1787 and came up with this:

    "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

    I suggest that Will should start a movement to pass a Constitutional Amendment deleting the worlds "to ourselves and our Posterity" from the Preamble, and see how far he gets.
  • There are seldom any numbers in Will's posts.

    So here are a couple of big ones.

    Q. According to two Pew surveys in Mexico, what percentage of the 109 million Mexicans would move to the U.S. if it were legal?

    A. Over 40% in both surveys.

    Q. How many people live in countries where the average GDP per capita in purchasing power parity terms is lower than in Mexico?

    A. 5,043,000,000 as of 2006, according to the CIA World Factbook.
  • Larry
    Just to be clear, you think Americans ought to get a better shake in life just because they’re Americans?

    Just to be clear, you think that American citizenship is meaningless?

    What justifies state-imposed limits on the human rights to movement and free association?

    The necessity of the existence of the state itself, which, without such limts, would be dissolved altogether and unable to protect any rights at all, much less the vacuous notions of a planet-wide "rights rights to movement and free association".
  • To the extent that such children and grandchildren today threaten this country's institutions, permitting their parents and grandparents in was not a good idea. The thing about the immigrants of the past though is that they are not they aren't the immigrants of today. Immigrants aren't all the same. That link discusses immigrants today (worsening across three generations), but it was also the case with Mexican and Jewish immigrants that came to the same place and the same time eighty years ago. If 80 years is not enough, how about 159 in New Mexico? Pundits will initially applaud the violent ethnic cleansing of our previous underclass minority, but as the numbers grow the U.S will begin to look a lot like Mexico. Even if our elites hang on to power (which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like the way things are in Latin America) a two-tiered society is ugly thing I don't want to live in and I doubt you do either.
  • Will Wilkinson
    Aren't a whole lot of us the children and grandchildren of immigrants? Maybe my foreign-born Dad explains why I'm so much trouble.
  • Will Wilkinson
    That doesn't mean you don't have them. I never agreed to any obligation to not take other people's wallets, but I don't think that has anything to do with whether I should recognize it.
  • It is not the immigrants themselves who directly post a threat to our institutions, but their children and grand-children. Once you get the first generation, you get the second and third whether you want to or not.

    Does J.A. think that the fact Americans are so rich weakens the obligations of Americans to non-citizens?
    I never agreed to any obligations and I will recognize none.
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