write a short, objective summary of 250-500 words which summarizes the main ideas being put forward by the author in this selection.
⁞ Instructions:
STEP 1 – After reading all of Chapter 20, please select ONE of the following primary source readings:
- “The Morality of Migration” by Seyla Benhabib (starting on page 766)
-or- - “The Moral Dilemma of U.S. Immigration Policy Revisited: Open Borders vs. Social Justice?” by Stephen Macedo (starting on page 768)
-or- - “Selecting Immigrants” by David Miller (starting on page 781)
-or- - “Immigration and Freedom of Association” by Christopher Heath Wellman (starting on page 787)
-or- - “Freedom of Association is Not the Answer” by Sarah Fine (starting on page 808)
STEP 2 – Write a short, objective summary of 250-500 words which summarizes the main ideas being put forward by the author in this selection.
Please add examples of the lecture. Dont plagiarism
Chapter 20
The Ethics of Immigration
Copyright © 2019 W. W. Norton & Company
Image is the cover of the textbook: Background is a blue sky with white clouds over a grassy plain.
A forked dirt path cuts through the grass, leading in two different directions. The title of the
textbook, Doing Ethics, appears in large white letters, followed by the subtitle and author in
smaller font: Moral Reasoning, Theory, and Contemporary Issues. Fifth Edition. Lewis Vaughn.
Intelligent answers about immigration must rest on moral
principles or reasons and nonmoral facts.
The moral reasoning is straightforward and the principles are
familiar.
Solid nonmoral facts have been hard to come by.
Immigration in the United States
Before 1965, immigration policy in the United States was driven
by a quota system that favored Western Europeans.
The Immigration and Nationality Act (1965) changed policy to
favor skilled immigrants and those who, by immigrating, could
reunite families.
Immigration in the United States
In 2015, 43.2 million foreign-born individuals (both legal and
unauthorized) lived in the United States—that is, 13.4 percent of
the population.
Percentage of foreign-born individuals in:
• Canada—21.8 percent
• Switzerland—29.4 percent
• Australia—28.2 percent
Immigration in the United States
Each year, about a million immigrants enter the United States, while
over a million became lawful permanent residents.
Deportation is the formal removal of a foreign national from the
United States for violating an immigration law. About 344,000
immigrants were deported in 2016.
A refugee is “someone who has fled from his or her home country and
cannot return because he or she has a well-founded fear of
persecution based on religion, race, nationality, political opinion or
membership in a particular social group.”
From 1975 to 2017, the United States resettled about 3 million
refugees within its borders.
Misconceptions about immigration in the United States
1. In a few years, Hispanics will be the majority in the United
States, and whites will be the minority.
2. Immigrants commit more crimes than native-born people
do.
3. Immigrants are taking jobs away from American citizens.
Misconceptions about immigration in the United States
4. Undocumented immigrants pay no taxes.
5. Immigration harms the economy.
6. Unauthorized immigration is getting worse.
Two general perspectives on the morality of immigration
Cosmopolitanism: the view that wealthy nations able to ease
the suffering of the world’s poor and oppressed have a moral
obligation to do so, and that this obligation is as strong
concerning a nation’s own citizens as it is concerning foreigners
Cosmopolitanism inclines toward open borders.
Anticosmopolitanism: Wealthy nations able to ease the
suffering of the world’s poor and oppressed have a moral
obligation to do so, but they also have a moral obligation to their
own citizens that may be weightier than those concerning
foreigners.
Anticosmopolitanism holds that closed borders can be justified.
Kinds of arguments for cosmopolitanism:
• Cosmopolitan egalitarianism: appeals to equality and
freedom, claiming that everyone—both compatriots and
noncitizens—is entitled to equal moral rights and
consideration and that open borders are essential to
eliminating vast economic inequality
• Libertarianism: appeals to property rights and a person’s
right to freedom of movement; restricted immigration
interferes with foreigners’ right to movement and with
citizens’ right to allow foreigners on their property
• Utilitarianism: closed borders have adverse consequences,
primarily economic, in that they restrict trade, waste talents,
and impede prosperity
Reasons for restricting immigration:
• Security: Nations are obligated to protect their citizens from
external threats, and many people regard limitations on
immigration as an obvious way to do this.
• Culture: Closed borders help to preserve the nation’s
distinctive culture.
• Economy: Immigrants will wreck a nation’s economy.
• Welfare: A nation with substantial welfare benefits and an
open border would be overwhelmed with poor and needy
immigrants.
Utilitarian argument for anticosmopolitanism: open borders
would have objectionable consequences, such as:
• destroying the nation’s distinctive culture
• disrupting the economy
• breaking the welfare system
• turning control of the country over to foreigners
• unacceptably changing the nature of the political system
Nonconsequentialist argument for anticosmopolitanism:
nations’ right to close their borders derived from the
fundamental right to association
Christopher Heath Wellman: “[W]e take for granted that each
individual has a right to choose his or her marital partner and
the associates with whom he or she practices his or her
religion….[J]ust as an individual has a right to determine whom
(if anyone) he or she would like to marry, a group of fellow-
citizens has a right to determine whom (if anyone) it would like
to invite into its political community. And just as an individual’s
freedom of association entitles one to remain single, a state’s
freedom of association entitles it to exclude all foreigners from
its political community.”
Stephen Macedo’s nonconsequentialist argument for
anticosmopolitanism: based on the claim that citizens of a
political community have special obligations toward one
another and special reasons to be concerned with the
distribution of wealth and opportunities among citizens
1. If high levels of immigration by low-skilled workers make it
unlikely that we will fulfill our moral obligations to the
poorest Americans, then we should reduce or stop such
immigration.
2. Currently high levels of immigration by low-skilled workers
do make it unlikely that we will fulfill our moral obligations
to the poorest Americans.
3. Therefore, we should reduce or stop high levels of
immigration by low-skilled workers.
Stephen Macedo’s nonconsequentialist argument for
anticosmopolitanism:
Argument is valid.
Premise 1 is a moral statement, derived from Macedo’s
distributive justice principle.
Premise 2 is a nonmoral statement that must be supported by
empirical evidence.
This concludes the PowerPoint slide set for Chapter 20
Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues
Fifth Edition (2019) by Lewis Vaughn.
Copyright © 2019 W. W. Norton & Company
- Chapter 20
Background – 1
Background – 2
Background – 3
Background – 4
Background – 5
Background – 6
Background – 7
Background – 8
Background – 9
Background – 10
Moral Theories – 1
Moral Theories – 2
Moral Arguments – 1
Moral Arguments – 2
Credits