Philosophy of the Contemporary World
Short assignments at the end of the class each week.
Migration is people moving from one place to another;
international migration is a type of movement that involves two types of migrants:
refugeess and economical migrants.
Refugees are protected by the Geneva convention of 1951. You cannot push back people migrating for refugee-reasons. This means you have been granted asylum. If someone is seeking asylum but is not yet recognised as a refugee is an asylum-seeker.
Before the 1951 Geneva convention it was heavily tied to citizenship. So when the nazis stripped Jews of their German citizenship, they lost the rights to have rights in other countries too. States could refuse them as undesirable aliens without a passport.
The idea is that economic migrants move out of voluntary choice, and refugees out of necessity.
Carens critiques the institution of citizenship.
”Citizenship in western democracies is the modern equivalent of deudal class privilege – an inherited status that greatly enhances one’s life chances. To be born a citizen of a rich state in Europe or North America is like being into the nobility (even though many of us belong to the lesser nobility). Etc.”
This is getting towards third worldism I think.
- the point he is getting at is that it is a hereditary privilege.
Carens argues that we should open all state-borders. Closed borders protect birth-right priviliges.
Christopher Wellman: States have full freedom to decide their own immigration policies.
He makes an analogy with marriage; you are not forced to marry anyone, you have the right to decide who to marry.
Freedom of association entitles one to refuse to associate with others.
Is there a difference between the public and the private sphere?
3 set readings: one short article + two opinion pieces
Submit one question or comment on Toledo about one of the texts by 14 October 5pm.
There are also optional readings.