7 ms·

> "Being homeless was an unfree condition by all counts; thus, it was incumbent on a free society to remedy that problem. A quadriplegic adult was blocked from

by whack 8y ago

> "Being homeless was an unfree condition by all counts; thus, it was incumbent on a free society to remedy that problem. A quadriplegic adult was blocked from civil society if buildings weren’t required to have ramps. Anderson’s democratic model shifted the remit of egalitarianism from the idea of equalizing wealth to the idea that people should be equally free, regardless of their differences." I wonder if Anderson supports an open-borders immigration policy. By her argument, a free society should be equally obligated to someone unlucky enough to be born in Congo, and should afford her all the same freedoms to live, work and participate in a well functioning free society. I personally don't support an open borders policy, but that's because I don't subscribe to her philosophy of morality. If she isn't calling for an immediate end to border enforcement, I wonder how she reconciles that with her espoused moral philosophy.

pytester 8y ago
>By her argument, a free society should be equally obligated to someone unlucky enough to be born in Congo, and should afford her all the same freedoms to live, work and participate in a well functioning free society. Where did she say that society should treat its obligations towards non-members as equal to the ones it has towards members? I can't find it. >I personally don't support an open borders policy, but that's because I don't subscribe to her philosophy of morality. I don't see how her philosophy of morality does either. This seems somewhat strawmannish.
gaius 8y ago
A border is a community saying "we believe certain things and within this physical territory, our beliefs prevail, by force if necessary". And if someone says "I believe those things too, can I come in?" that's OK. But if someone doesn't believe those things it's neither clear why they would want to come in, nor why that community would want them to, since whatever reason clearly isn't for the benefit of existing community members. The beliefs are written down as the law but they aren’t set in stone - a candidate who ran for office on a manifesto of an open border and won sufficient votes could rewrite the law. I’m not sure if there is an electorate anywhere in the world that would go for it.
kirkules 8y ago
I'll just mention that having a moral philosophy that implies that the ideal society doesn't have something analogous to our country borders does not necessarily require open borders in a society that is not otherwise ideal.
coldtea 8y ago
>I wonder if Anderson supports an open-borders immigration policy. By her argument, a free society should be equally obligated to someone unlucky enough to be born in Congo, and should afford her all the same freedoms to live, work and participate in a well functioning free society. One could rationally want the best for their country/society, but not for everybody outside of it (e.g. if giving that free-pass-for-all access can decline the prospects of one's society more than the free-pass-for-those-already-in can help it, because of the population increase, different backgrounds that would need to overcome, different religious and political preferences that a mass of outsiders could impose, etc).
- whack 8y ago
  > One could rationally want the best for their country/society, but not for everybody outside of it Her moral philosophy seems predicated on the idea that everyone is deserving of certain rights. If we're going to deny these rights to some people on the basis of birth-location, why not deny the same rights on the basis of other criteria such as race, gender, intelligence, physical health, etc > e.g. if giving that free-pass-for-all access can decline the prospects of one's society more than the free-pass-for-those-already-in can help it I agree completely with the above, but that's because the above is a utilitarian argument and I believe in utilitarianism. If you were to ask Anderson though, she would likely reject utilitarianism as a moral philosophy.
  - pytester 8y ago
    >Her moral philosophy seems predicated Was that something she actually said or just something you inferred? It seems pretty clear that she thinks that each society has an obligation towards its members but I didn't her mention anything about obligations societies have towards non-members. I very much doubt that she's against, say, the right of asylum, but there's nothing there that I can see that implies that she believes France has an equal responsibility to provide for Chinese citizens as it does towards its own.
    - TomMarius 8y ago
Rotten194 8y ago
I haven't heard her stance before, but it seems interesting and I agree with what I've read so far. With that in mind, I do support an open border. Why wouldn't you? A closed border denies freedom of movement under arbitrary restrictions of "productivity" (or random lottery, which is just as arbitrary), aka you only earn the freedom to move if you've been deemed productive -- so people with physical disabilities preventing them from working, or severe mental illness should be denied the right to move where they wish? Or that person from the Congo shouldn't be allowed to come here simply as a circumstance of their birth? I'm sure almost everyone on HN would decry the Berlin Wall as a authoritarian human rights abuse. And lets be clear, most western nations aren't shooting people trying to cross the border on sight, and usually have some sort of asylum process (that may take years and years, however). But the limitation of movement itself is also a human rights abuse, in my mind. German families were cut off from each other, unable to see relatives trapped on the other side of the wall. The Stasi secret police were able to apprehend and torture people unable to escape because of the wall -- a closed border makes authoritarian regimes more powerful. The US is far from East Germany, but why even begin down that path? Don't we supposedly value freedom above all else? Didn't Franklin say "He who would sacrifice freedom for a little temporary safety deserves neither"? How is a closed border compatible with that sentiment? Westerners didn't ask permission to invade the Congo, or India, or hundreds of other places in the global south, and we certainly didn't get visas before stripping those countries of natural resources and their cultural heritage (see: every item in the British Museum that they refuse to return), and then we turn around and say hey you can't come here without our permission? How hypocritical is that? And lets not kid ourselves that closed borders keeps "the bad people" out -- people who want to commit crimes generally don't care about following immigration laws. They'll dig tunnels under walls, pilot submarines full of cocaine past the Coast Guard (this really happens), and extort desperate people trying to escape violence and crushing poverty. So yes, I do think a closed border is immoral. If it means more strain on welfare programs in the short run as people try to start new lives here, well, if we can afford trillions to bomb the middle east into the stone age, we can probably afford that.
- mynameishere 8y ago
  None of your arguments support the thesis that a closed border is immoral. And yet they are all misguided, even to the extent that they argue something or other. For example, the Berlin wall divided a city that was otherwise ethnically, culturally, geographically, historically a single unit. This is not comparable to a national border in any sense. So why make the comparison? Past injustices like colonialism, whether good, bad, or evil, justified or otherwise, have no bearing on present policies except perhaps as an illustration of the dangers of cultural disunity. In any case, if they make an policy argument, it is for more greatly closed borders. Much more. With machine guns. Likewise, the effectiveness of a physical border is technical problem--not a moral or rhetorical point of any sort. You can't say, "ladders defeat walls, therefore walls are immoral." Silly argument. I guess my point is--if you want open borders for X reason, just say 'X'. For instance, open borders might be economically advantageous to you or people of the group you identify with. That's rational.

by whack 8y ago

pytester 8y ago

>By her argument, a free society should be equally obligated to someone unlucky enough to be born in Congo, and should afford her all the same freedoms to live, work and participate in a well functioning free society. Where did she say that society should treat its obligations towards non-members as equal to the ones it has towards members? I can't find it. >I personally don't support an open borders policy, but that's because I don't subscribe to her philosophy of morality. I don't see how her philosophy of morality does either. This seems somewhat strawmannish.

gaius 8y ago

A border is a community saying "we believe certain things and within this physical territory, our beliefs prevail, by force if necessary". And if someone says "I believe those things too, can I come in?" that's OK. But if someone doesn't believe those things it's neither clear why they would want to come in, nor why that community would want them to, since whatever reason clearly isn't for the benefit of existing community members. The beliefs are written down as the law but they aren’t set in stone - a candidate who ran for office on a manifesto of an open border and won sufficient votes could rewrite the law. I’m not sure if there is an electorate anywhere in the world that would go for it.

kirkules 8y ago

I'll just mention that having a moral philosophy that implies that the ideal society doesn't have something analogous to our country borders does not necessarily require open borders in a society that is not otherwise ideal.

coldtea 8y ago

>I wonder if Anderson supports an open-borders immigration policy. By her argument, a free society should be equally obligated to someone unlucky enough to be born in Congo, and should afford her all the same freedoms to live, work and participate in a well functioning free society. One could rationally want the best for their country/society, but not for everybody outside of it (e.g. if giving that free-pass-for-all access can decline the prospects of one's society more than the free-pass-for-those-already-in can help it, because of the population increase, different backgrounds that would need to overcome, different religious and political preferences that a mass of outsiders could impose, etc).

whack 8y ago
> One could rationally want the best for their country/society, but not for everybody outside of it Her moral philosophy seems predicated on the idea that everyone is deserving of certain rights. If we're going to deny these rights to some people on the basis of birth-location, why not deny the same rights on the basis of other criteria such as race, gender, intelligence, physical health, etc > e.g. if giving that free-pass-for-all access can decline the prospects of one's society more than the free-pass-for-those-already-in can help it I agree completely with the above, but that's because the above is a utilitarian argument and I believe in utilitarianism. If you were to ask Anderson though, she would likely reject utilitarianism as a moral philosophy.
- pytester 8y ago
  >Her moral philosophy seems predicated Was that something she actually said or just something you inferred? It seems pretty clear that she thinks that each society has an obligation towards its members but I didn't her mention anything about obligations societies have towards non-members. I very much doubt that she's against, say, the right of asylum, but there's nothing there that I can see that implies that she believes France has an equal responsibility to provide for Chinese citizens as it does towards its own.
  - TomMarius 8y ago

Rotten194 8y ago

I haven't heard her stance before, but it seems interesting and I agree with what I've read so far. With that in mind, I do support an open border. Why wouldn't you? A closed border denies freedom of movement under arbitrary restrictions of "productivity" (or random lottery, which is just as arbitrary), aka you only earn the freedom to move if you've been deemed productive -- so people with physical disabilities preventing them from working, or severe mental illness should be denied the right to move where they wish? Or that person from the Congo shouldn't be allowed to come here simply as a circumstance of their birth? I'm sure almost everyone on HN would decry the Berlin Wall as a authoritarian human rights abuse. And lets be clear, most western nations aren't shooting people trying to cross the border on sight, and usually have some sort of asylum process (that may take years and years, however). But the limitation of movement itself is also a human rights abuse, in my mind. German families were cut off from each other, unable to see relatives trapped on the other side of the wall. The Stasi secret police were able to apprehend and torture people unable to escape because of the wall -- a closed border makes authoritarian regimes more powerful. The US is far from East Germany, but why even begin down that path? Don't we supposedly value freedom above all else? Didn't Franklin say "He who would sacrifice freedom for a little temporary safety deserves neither"? How is a closed border compatible with that sentiment? Westerners didn't ask permission to invade the Congo, or India, or hundreds of other places in the global south, and we certainly didn't get visas before stripping those countries of natural resources and their cultural heritage (see: every item in the British Museum that they refuse to return), and then we turn around and say hey you can't come here without our permission? How hypocritical is that? And lets not kid ourselves that closed borders keeps "the bad people" out -- people who want to commit crimes generally don't care about following immigration laws. They'll dig tunnels under walls, pilot submarines full of cocaine past the Coast Guard (this really happens), and extort desperate people trying to escape violence and crushing poverty. So yes, I do think a closed border is immoral. If it means more strain on welfare programs in the short run as people try to start new lives here, well, if we can afford trillions to bomb the middle east into the stone age, we can probably afford that.

mynameishere 8y ago
None of your arguments support the thesis that a closed border is immoral. And yet they are all misguided, even to the extent that they argue something or other. For example, the Berlin wall divided a city that was otherwise ethnically, culturally, geographically, historically a single unit. This is not comparable to a national border in any sense. So why make the comparison? Past injustices like colonialism, whether good, bad, or evil, justified or otherwise, have no bearing on present policies except perhaps as an illustration of the dangers of cultural disunity. In any case, if they make an policy argument, it is for more greatly closed borders. Much more. With machine guns. Likewise, the effectiveness of a physical border is technical problem--not a moral or rhetorical point of any sort. You can't say, "ladders defeat walls, therefore walls are immoral." Silly argument. I guess my point is--if you want open borders for X reason, just say 'X'. For instance, open borders might be economically advantageous to you or people of the group you identify with. That's rational.