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Rescues and Resource Allocation

blurred photograph of the ocean

For the past several days, the world has waited with bated breath to hear the fate of the occupants of the OceanGate submersible Titan. Launched on Sunday June 18th, the sub was intended to take Stockton Rush – CEO of OceanGate – and four passengers on a 10.5 hour voyage to the wreckage of the Titanic. Instead, communication was lost with Titan less than two hours into the voyage. When the sub failed to surface as scheduled, a massive search and rescue effort was initiated.

Among those searching were numerous ships and two C-130 Hercules aircraft from the U.S. Coast Guard as well as additional support from the 106th Rescue Wing of the New York National Guard. The Canadian Navy has dedicated the HMCS Glace Bay, while the Canadian Coast Guard has provided the John Cabot, with two additional ships – the Ann Harvey and the Terry Fox – en route. These were joined by Canadian P-3 Orion and P-8 Poseidon aircraft and the Motor Vessel Horizon Arctic. Two commercial vessels – the Skandi Vinland and the Atlantic Merlin – also joined the search, while France has sent L’Atalante.

This lengthy roster of responders seems understandable – especially given the 96-hour oxygen limit onboard the Titan. Some have, however, raised concerns about the resources allocated to find the occupants of the sub, especially in light of similar crises occurring elsewhere.

Just four days before the launch of Titan, a fishing boat carrying 500 refugees from Pakistan, Egypt, Syria and Israel/Palestine capsized off the coast of Greece. Rescuers managed to save 104 passengers – and recover an additional 79 bodies – but more than 300 passengers are still unaccounted for. Greek authorities have since been criticized for failing to render adequate aid to the migrants during the disaster. At the very least, the international response to this disaster (the mitigation of which would have used similar resources to those mobilized in the search for the Titan) was minimal, as was media coverage of the tragedy.

The comparison of these two cases raises an important question: how do we decide the appropriate level of resources to allocate in a rescue scenario?

The answer to this question is not an easy one, and requires care and sensitivity – especially in light of the details surrounding the Titan’s implosion. Of course, the obvious answer might seem to be that the inherent value of a human life justifies allocating whatever resources necessary to save that life. But here’s the thing: these kinds of resources aren’t infinite. For this reason, we are forced to make difficult decisions and do what we can to prioritise our resources as effectively as possible.

It’s this very idea that underpins triage – the practice used by emergency room doctors and combat medics during a time of crisis. Medical professionals do not have infinite time or medical resources, so are forced to use what they have to save as many lives as possible. The approach is strongly consequentialist in nature, and is eloquently described by utilitarian Peter Singer as “doing the most good you can do.”

While the heroic efforts of those that searched for the Titan should not be diminished, it’s an open question whether those resources are truly being implemented in a way that achieves the most good. At the very least, it provides a benchmark by which we might assess the appropriate level of response to other crises. Put simply: if the lives of five missing individuals truly warrant the search and rescue efforts being expended in the Atlantic, then consider what this means for the amount of resources that should have been (but were not) allocated to find the more than 300 people still missing in the Mediterranean.

And there’s something else we might need to consider too: namely, the responsibility that individuals have for putting themselves in a crisis in the first place. Last year, I wrote about how people’s risky choices might factor into the aid we give them after they lose their homes to extreme weather events. Luck Egalitarians note that while many of the bad things that happen to us are the result of random chance (like being struck by lightning), many other misfortunes occur as a direct result of deliberate gambles (like losing my life savings betting on a bad hand of poker). Luck Egalitarians refer to the latter as bad “option” luck, and believe that our obligations to help those suffering from this kind of bad luck are less than the obligations we have towards those suffering bad luck that results from random chance (referred to as bad “brute” luck).

How, then, might this concept apply to the passengers onboard the Titan? Such a journey is incredibly dangerous at the best of times. In this case, however, the risk was even greater given the battery of safety concerns with the jury-rigged nature of the vehicle. Despite this, each of the occupants decided to take on this risk for purely recreational purposes – even paying a quarter of a million dollars for the privilege of doing so. Does this mean that we should allocate no resources in an effort to save these individuals? That their fate – whatever it turns out to be – is merely each of them getting what they signed up for? Certainly not. But it does, again, make for an interesting comparison with those refugees who lost their lives in the Mediterranean. While they, too, chose to take on an extraordinary risk, many of them were compelled by circumstance; doing so to avoid poverty and conflict and – in many cases – a very real threat to their lives.

Ultimately, then, the appropriate level of resources to allocate in a crisis depends on a number of factors. Among these is a careful consideration of whether or not those resources are being mobilized in a way that ensures we are doing the most good we can do. We might also consider the extent to which individuals find themselves in a crisis as the result of their own deliberate and calculated gambles. With these factors in mind, it does become harder to understand how five individuals who chose to take a recreational journey fraught with risk have received more international support – and media attention – than the plight of 500 individuals who had little option but to embark on a dangerous voyage.

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What the Moral Tragedy in Afghanistan Teaches

photograph of soldiers running in the desert

The current situation in Afghanistan brings to the forefront several moral issues which, taken together, create a complex situation with a great deal of uncertainty about how to proceed. With the clock ticking down until several nations, particularly the United States, pull out entirely from the country, the lives of millions hang in the balance, particularly those who are fleeing the Taliban for fear of reprisals and especially women. But how exactly should we understand this issue morally speaking? What moral responsibilities do nations have who actively occupied and developed the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan? Is this a moral tragedy? And if so, what should be done about it?

First, it is worth recounting what led us here. Since 2001, the United States and other NATO  allies have occupied Afghanistan after toppling the Taliban regime. These were actions taken in response to the Taliban harboring terrorist groups involved in 9/11. But building and supporting a new republic has been costly. Thousands of military personnel have lost their lives since then and the cost of occupation, development of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and support in building the Afghan National Security Forces has been in the trillions.

In the meantime, the past twenty years has allowed a burgeoning democracy to exist in Afghanistan. In contrast to the Taliban rule of the 1990s, women have been given the freedom to be educated and to play a meaningful role in society including in journalism and the judiciary. Now many of these women, in addition to countless others who aided Western powers (such as interpreters) or who run afoul of traditional Taliban beliefs, are in mortal danger. Many seek to escape the country from the airport before the Taliban is able to take complete control. An entire generation of Afghanis may lose the only democracy they’ve ever known. The situation has reached a fever pitch with many now calling for a change of plans and with polls showing Americans unhappy with President Biden’s handling of the situation. In a situation as complicated as this, how do we morally make sense of it?

Firstly, there are several moral reasons which prompted the withdrawal in the first place. The United States has committed significant resources in the area both in troops and in money in an effort to prop-up the Afghan government for what many consider to be a ‘forever war’ that never had a chance of success.

In other words, the moral concern from people like President Biden is that while the U.S. had invaded Afghanistan to prevent terrorist attacks, the effort was not to “go to Afghanistan to nation-build.” While some believed that staying in Afghanistan would eventually lead to improvement, the sentiment from many military officials is that short of staying in perpetuity, the situation was never going to stabilize. Experts have predicted for some time that the war was ultimately unwinnable, that the Afghan government was corrupt, and that Afghan Security Forces would not succeed. Indeed, the pace at which the Afghan government fell to the Taliban after so much time, effort, and money had been spent could indicate how pointless staying ultimately would be.

All of these points suggest that, morally speaking, staying would not be worth the cost. Those, like Nikalas Gvosdev, suggest the adoption of a democracy triage mindset. As he notes, “U.S. support is not unlimited. If more is devoted to Afghanistan, or even sustained at current levels, it means less is available elsewhere for other equally deserving projects.” In other words, we cannot ignore the moral significance this scarcity of resources plays in determining the best course of action.

“With a population of about 36 million people, the question has to be asked as to whether that is the best investment of limited U.S. aid dollars versus other parts of the world where the same amount of money might lead to better outcomes for hundreds of millions more.”

On the other hand, philosopher Michael Blake emphasizes the ‘Pottery Barn rule’ (if you break it, you bought it): if you make yourself ruler over others, you are morally responsible for them. As Blake notes, “The decision to withdraw is likely to lead to enormous suffering in the years to come.” This means that the U.S. and other nations are to some degree morally responsible for the abuses that the inhabitants of Afghanistan will face. This would mean that it is incumbent on these nations to do something. To some, this means that “there is a moral case to remain and support Afghanistan against the Taliban threat” given the moral responsibility the West has to those who have embraced democracy, and because the costs of securing Afghanistan had been on the decline.

However, there is no magic undo button for the past few weeks and removing the Taliban would only be more costly now. There remain, however, lingering moral questions about what is owed to those who helped the West, those are being targeted by the Taliban, or those who simply want to leave. Gvosdev argues that in return for non-interference the U.S. should insist on the right to freely exit the country for those Afghanis who cannot live under the Taliban order. Indeed, much of the moral concern now is not whether to leave or stay, but rather what can be done to help given the terrible situation. Blake, and many other philosophers, would call this a moral tragedy – no matter what is done someone will be wronged – and so the best option is still one that is unmoral.

But this view is not one that should inspire moral apathy either. A forced choice between bad outcomes is no excuse for doing nothing anymore than claiming that since Afghanistan is a “graveyard of empires” (historically this isn’t really true) the situation was never going to resolve itself in a positive way. Indeed, this moral tragedy reminds us that ethics is not about choosing between good or bad options, but about weighing different, (and sometimes incommensurable) competing goods. Nevertheless, learning such lessons comes hard, as we are discovering right now in Afghanistan. But they also underscore the importance, as Blake explains, “that the U.S. tries to avoid entering into such morally tragic situations in the future,” and that people be more aware ahead of time of what their moral responsibilities demand. Perhaps that lesson learned could have avoided much of the “chaotic rush” we are now seeing, particularly when it comes to evacuations.

This only introduces yet another moral area of concern and that is the public. As Tom Nichols of The Atlantic argues, “this is on you” the voter. Even now as Biden’s approval ratings fall owing to the fallout of the withdrawal, it must be noted that the war’s beginning and the war’s end were popular. Minimizing moral tragedy means recognizing the role that one plays in creating them, and as Nichols notes, “Americans had no real interest in adult conversation about the reality of anti-terrorist operations in so harsh of an environment,” nor did they consider whether terrorism in Afghanistan had been effectively neutralized.

So perhaps this represents a failure of democracy as well. Just as was learned in Afghanistan, there is more to democracy than voting, so too is going to war a complicated business. For if the public is to be the warrant for future action, it can’t be the case that a war is allowed to fade into the background. A people cannot be expected to vote for war without knowing in advance what the situation is like, and the same goes for withdrawal. As most experts this week have made clear, the situation unfolding is not surprising (only surprising in terms of the speed at which events have unfolded).

While there are many lessons to be learned from Afghanistan, perhaps the public needs to recognize that when they beat the drum for war or call for the end of one, that they too bear moral responsibility for the outcomes. While Americans might blame the Biden administration for their handling of evacuations, they cannot blame the overall situation on their elected leaders for getting elected by calling for withdrawal. So, in addition to questions about the moral importance of either staying or leaving Afghanistan, and what means and resources should be used to aid the people of Afghanistan now, perhaps the most difficult moral question that haunts us is how to prevent moral tragedies like this from occurring again?

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Our Moral Obligations to the Afghans

photograph of bootprints in the sand

On April 14, President Biden announced the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. NATO forces, which today have a far larger presence in Afghanistan, will also depart, European officials reported. “We went to war with clear goals,” Biden said in a short speech. “We achieved those objectives.”

Noticeably absent from Biden’s speech was any mention of the many Afghans who, because of their collaboration with U.S. or NATO forces during the last twenty years, now face persecution under a Taliban government that, given the weakness and corruption of the current American-backed Afghan government, is likely to one day come to power. Nor did Biden mention the presumed fate of the many Afghans who took advantage of opportunities afforded by the U.S. presence. For example, today 40 percent of Afghanistan’s students are women. This is highly unlikely to continue under Taliban rule.

The moral case for opening our doors to Afghans is straightforward. Millions of Afghans have reasonably relied on American largesse and protection, and many have actively aided the U.S. in achieving its war aims. Those facts provide the basis for an obligation to protect those people from the harms they will surely suffer when the U.S. and its allies pull out of the country. In other words, we owe them protection from the Taliban because of what they’ve done for us, and because we allowed them to enjoy benefits under the pretense that we would ensure those benefits would remain available. And since no remedy other than resettlement can guarantee protection from these harms, we must provide the means for Afghans to safely make their way to this country or some allied nation, and we must help them readjust to their new lives in their new homelands.

Unfortunately, during the Trump administration the U.S. abnegated its role as a global leader for refugee resettlement. In 2017, for example, the U.S. for the first time resettled fewer refugees than the rest of the world combined. The refugee ceiling was progressively lowered after that; the FY 2021 refugee ceiling is the lowest in the history of the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Biden has said he will raise the ceiling, but didn’t sign the document required to put his announced policy change into effect. Biden can easily reverse Trump’s cruel policy, and should do so with all due haste. And, as I have argued, he should go further than this in the specific case of the Afghans, given our special obligations to them.

For those with a historical bent, our current predicament feels like déjà vu all over again. Some fifty years ago, the United States began its withdrawal from another unpopular “forever war” in South Vietnam. The death of the Republic of Vietnam finally arrived in 1975. Just as now, millions of Vietnamese then found themselves under a totalitarian regime that was committed to persecuting and “re-educating” large segments of the population to achieve ideological ends. There followed one of the greatest humanitarian crises in modern history, as millions of Vietnamese refugees — many of them former collaborators with the U.S. during the war — desperately took to the seas. From 1975, the U.S. opened its doors and provided resettlement support to over a million of these refugees, despite waning public support for refugees and a declining U.S. economy during the 1980s and early 90s.

Our country is far wealthier now than in 1975 — far more able to accommodate so many newcomers — despite the coronavirus-related economic downturn.  If we could at least come close to doing the right thing then, we can do so now. All it takes is the will and adequate political leadership.

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Human Rights in the Age of Ecological Breakdown

photograph of dead field of crops

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 and aimed at setting forth a list of fundamental human rights to be universally protected.

We must acknowledge the issues with the very concept of human rights: the philosophical problem of how rights are grounded; the practical problem of how they are enforced; and the definitional problem of whether certain things (like the right to private property) ought to even be rights.

Nevertheless human rights outline and afford protections for people, their life, livelihood and dignity, family, culture and community. As such, they have been, and remain, an important tool in establishing a more just world. At the core of the very idea of human rights is the recognition and acknowledgement of the basic dignity of all human beings.

Even though the international community has made significant gains in the expansion and protection of human rights in many places over many decades, human rights are now under pressure from the developing climate and ecological catastrophe. These rights’ reach and strength may be in danger of regressing as the effects of global heating and other environmental disasters worsen.

In reality, the corrosive effects of climate and ecological breakdown on human rights has already taken hold in some contexts: the root causes of the crisis, like the expansion of oil and mining interests known as extractivism, have already decimated the rights of Indigenous peoples in many parts of the world where traditional lands have been stolen, livelihoods robbed, cultures destroyed, and activists murdered.

As the crisis worsens and greater numbers of people are affected, there are many ways in which human rights could be impacted. We can think of the charter of human rights as a kind of checklist of human goods – of conditions under which human life can flourish. Considering these conditions against the inevitable, worsening effects of the climate and ecological crisis, we can form a picture of how those impacts will affect human wellbeing.

At 1C warming we are already seeing significant environmental impacts: melting ice and rising sea levels, more severe storm activity with once in a century flooding events occurring every couple of years, drought, salinity, desertification and unprecedented wildfires.  As environmental impacts take hold so too will social impacts and the capacity for many basic human rights to be met and secured will be compromised.

At 1.5C to 2C warming there will be major coastal inundation and many low-lying coastal cities will flood. Small islands will be lost. Severe storms will damage infrastructure, and less developed communities will struggle to cope. Rights like those enshrined in Article 25 pertaining to standards of living including access to food and clean water, to safe housing and medicine will be in question.

According to Article 27 “everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community.” As climate breakdown takes hold and some places become uninhabitable – for example, as small Pacific Islands sink and areas in the Central Australian deserts become too hot for human habitation, as glaciers in Northern Canada melt, indigenous peoples will be forced to abandon their lands, and a loss of tradition and cultural identity will be inevitable.

One of the biggest geopolitical and social issues the world faces due to accelerated global heating will be large numbers of climate refugees – people forced by climate and ecological impacts to abandon their homes. Experts have warned that even in the next decade tens of millions of people could be displaced by climate change.

According to Article 14, everyone has the right “to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” It is not clear that climate refugees will be considered “refugees” in the sense defined by the Human Rights Declaration which defines refugees as persons ‘fleeing persecution.’ Though being forced to flee because one’s home is uninhabitable or has disappeared beneath the tide clearly fits our general understanding of what constitutes a refugee, which rests upon the acknowledgement of persons forced to seek refuge in circumstances in which their home is no longer safe.

However climate refugee’s rights will be in question under a number of other articles outlined in the UN Declaration.

Given the current predilection of many countries, such as Australia and the United States, for draconian treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, rights such as “recognition before the law” (Article 6), the right not to be “subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile” (Article 9), and even the right not to be ” subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (Article 5) will be under pressure, and are so already.

The worsening effects of the climate and ecological catastrophe endanger the rights outlined above, and others. The upshot is that those conditions upon which human dignity is maintained and upon which human life is able to flourish will be degraded; and this degradation will be part of the erosion of society that may, if unabated, lead to the collapse of human civilization.

But human rights can be an ethical double-edged sword. While they do in general, find their basis in human dignity and flourishing, the philosophical question of how specific rights further these aims, and what specific rights should or should not be recognized in order that they be furthered, is not entirely settled.

Given that the climate and ecological catastrophe is upon us, if we as a global community are to have any hope of abating it, mass drastic action is required, some of which may be impeded by the existence of certain inalienable rights.

It could for instance be argued that the right (enshrined in Article 16) to found a family may be problematic, since each child born in a developed nation adds a significant carbon footprint. Or perhaps the right to freedom of movement (Article 13) is problematic if we factor in how much carbon pollution the aviation industry is responsible for. It might therefore be necessary, as part of a global mitigation strategy, to curtail certain rights and, for instance, restrict access to air travel.

Consider the right, (Article 19) to freedom of opinion and expression, which has been exercised, and abused, by the fossil fuel lobby for decades in a concerted, and ultimately successful, attempt to obfuscate the truth about carbon pollution and shut down attempts to prevent global heating. This effort continues unabated, as the Murdoch press are still printing mendacious untruths about the climate crisis.

In conclusion, though we need to be flexible enough in our understanding of human rights to be aware of the ways in which they can, in some situations, affect our capacity to mitigate the catastrophic effects of climate and ecological breakdown, as a legal and practical framework for improving lives and reaching social justice outcomes, human rights have been instrumental, and their role in promoting human wellbeing and protecting human dignity is now more important than ever.

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Racism, Refugees, and the Ripple Effect

photograph of barbed wire fence with camp in the distance

Trump has been embroiled in discussions about walking back or defending his latest racist behavior this past week. After saying that four congresswomen should “go back” to their countries of origin and presiding over chants of “send her back!” at a campaign rally, he tweeted Sunday that the congresswomen were “not capable of loving our Country.” 

As part of his “go back” rhetoric, Trump articulated his view that if the congresswomen didn’t like living in the US, they should leave and attempt to improve conditions in their supposedly broken countries. (Multiple late-night hosts noted the irony involved in Trump’s statements, as the congresswomen’s country is the US, which at the moment can feel broken and in need of fixing, and which, as members of congress, seems to be what these women are attempting to do.)

At the same time as he encouraged some Americans to leave, Trump rolled out new policy making it more difficult for others to leave their own dangerous countries. His administration has implemented a policy that requires refugees who have traveled through another country to have applied for asylum in that country as well. The ACLU quickly announced their intention to challenge the policy in court, and the administration instructed the southern border agents to implement it as quickly as possible before it may be blocked.

The so-called third-country asylum rule is incredibly restrictive, especially against asylum seekers at the US’s southern border. Such restrictive policies towards people seeking safety brings obvious ethical questions to the fore. There is, perhaps, a tension between a purported sovereign right to autonomy for nations to determine who will reside or travel within their borders and the rights of humans to be free from violence and persecution. These human rights can be seen to ground the right to freedom of movement between nation-states. Though international law recognizes that immigration and citizenship policies are, and should be, left up to each state, the UN has exceptions for refugees, whose basic human rights are in dire need of protection and overrule states’ right to make such policies.

Importantly, the freedom to make immigration and citizenship policies does not mean that all such policies are created equal, from a moral point of view. From a moral perspective, immigration policies that are transparent and ensure migrants have access to basic human goods are preferable to an opaque and unpredictable set of policies that makes navigating the systems that provide basic goods difficult, though both are legally acceptable.

But, beyond the legal space to determine immigration and citizenship policies is the commitment to accept refugees. This commitment is based in the idea that humans should not be condemned to suffer, when there is a place they could live without being persecuted. Many nations, including the US, have agreed to policies that commit them to accepting asylum-seekers: countries cannot force migrants who have entered their territory to return to places where their safety is under threat. This is the “non-refoulement” principle from the United Nations 1951 Convention of Refugees, and even countries that are not participants in the convention have endorsed the spirit of the principle.

Trump’s policy builds off of a crucial exception to this principle, which concerns migrants who have come through a country considered to be “safe.” Countries are deemed “safe” according to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs asylum law, pursuant to a bilateral or multilateral agreement. Currently the US only has such an agreement with Canada. Trump attempted to sign such an accord with Guatemala, but the president cancelled the trip to sign the third country agreement in order to see what Guatemalan courts ruled regarding the treaty.

In the US, asylum rates have been declining over the past six years, and this trend is on track to continue. Six years ago the denial rate was just 42.0 percent, but last fiscal year saw 70 percent of applications denied. In 2018, a particularly high spike in denials was the result of a policy shift made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions banned asylum requests on the basis of domestic violence and gang violence, though this ban was later struck down in the courts. The new third-country policy would “effectively end” asylum on the southern border.

The decline in granting asylum and other relief to refugees does not just affect the groups at our border, however. This trend in US policy has been reflected in the policies of other large and wealthy nations. For instance, the EU currently attempts to prevent asylum-seekers from reaching their shores – supporting border agents in countries like Libya that catch migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea and detain them in Africa in deplorable conditions in detention centers.

This is leading to worldwide declines in aid to those seeking relief: “It’s called a ripple effect,” says Jeff Crisp, a research associate at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University. “When the largest and wealthiest nations get away with breaking international human-rights laws, then other countries wonder, why can’t we?”

India, a country with a long history of hosting asylum-seekers, currently has 40,000 refugees from Myanmar, and now is treating them as illegal migrants. It has begun sending Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, the site of a 2017 genocide sponsored by the current government.

Similarly, Trinidad and Tobago sent 80 Venezuelans back to their devastated homeland last year, while Peru returned 40 Venezuelans for “allegedly being part of criminal gangs or for not having legal papers.”

Refugee policies are just one part of a racist and exclusionary nationalist landscape. The rhetoric that the US has engaged in bolsters other countries with similar constituencies. Hungary has explicitly praised the US’ nationalist tendencies and cited the “America First” anti-immigration policies as providing them with the support they need to enact similar attitudes within their own country. (Hungary closed its borders during the height of the Syrian refugee crisis and has rejected humanitarian pleas to take part in the effort.)

The import of human rights is being subjugated in national dialectic to the sovereign rights of a nation-state that endorses a racist identity. That isn’t the priority of international law or humane moral systems.

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Some Normative Perspectives on Borders and Asylum Seekers

In recent weeks, President Trump’s administration has shocked both Americans and the international community by separating families of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border. Two-thirds of Americans objected to these practices, many noting the likeness of forced separations and internment camps to the Third Reich. On June 20th, Trump reversed the policy with an executive order. The administration was subsequently mandated by federal judge Dana Sabraw to reunite families it separated within 30 days. However, reunification efforts will be a complex process.

The detainment and separation of young children from their families struck a chord. Many people recognized egregious moral violations in this practice. Among the protests and national outcry, a movement to abolish ICE has gained traction with support from such public figures as Samantha Bee and recent Senate candidate Chelsea Manning. Manning’s platform went so far as to propose an open border policy. While her Senate bid failed, Manning’s proposal is not so radical as it may appear. Philosophers like Michael Sandel are leading public debates on open borders.

The most common justification for selective borders come from political realism and arguments for state sovereignty. As political realism is less concerned with ethics than political theory, I will focus on other more recent normative — or how one should act — justifications for national borders (and the national interests they presumably protect).

The first normative perspective is communitarianism. Communitarian philosophy arose in critique of liberalism’s abstract individualism. Communitarians emphasize the role of particular societies in which individuals live. They argue, with some plausibility, the Hegelian insight that communities accord individuals meaning, identity, relationships and spheres of action. This philosophical perspective has a political cousin in local patriotism, grassroots movements, community organizing, and can also provide justifications for multicultural theory and policy. Collectivities, including nations, can shape and guarantee spheres of freedom for its inhabitants.

At the same time, there exist debased versions of communitarian discourses which communitarian philosophers would not endorse. The most notorious example of such was the Nazi ”Volksgemeinschaft” or ideal of a unified German national community united by race. Part of Trump’s base appears to have adopted a Nazi-lite version of Völkisch theory, articulated by alt-right spokesperson Richard Spencer’s ”white nationalism”. Trump’s well-documented racialization and criminalization of “illegal aliens” resonated strongly Spencer’s white nationalist following.

Charles Mills argued that, in fact, much of modern Western political philosophy is built on a contract for the creation and maintenance of whiteness. He identified in writers such as Kant evidence of a “racial contract”, designed to shape notions of citizenship and statehood exclusively for white access and in defense of white interests, while constructing the domain of the non-white (slaves, First Nations, and other colonized groups). Here in particular we can note the shaky foundations of colonial states’ claims to border sovereignty.

A second explicitly ethical tradition that can be used in defense of selective borders is utilitarianism: promoting the greatest happiness for the greatest number. A utilitarian could argue that a privileged nation should welcome as many refugees or asylum seekers as could be sustained with the quality of life maintained by the privileged state. Or, alternatively, a utilitarian could argue that the previous suffering or risk of the refugee is so extreme as to be necessarily improved by taking up residence in the new country. In either case, there would generally be an upper limit for the amount of happiness that the utilitarian is able to distribute in a welfare state.

An illustration of the challenge of limited resources appears in the ”Lifeboat Ethics” of ecologist Garrett Hardin. Hardin provides a simplified but cogent model of resource-conscious moral reasoning. Picture a lifeboat with capacity for sixty persons. A nautical disaster has occurred, leaving fifty people on board. One hundred more hapless souls struggle nearby to stay afloat on the ocean’s surface. Should (some of) these hapless souls be taken aboard? If so, why and under what conditions? How do we decide? Do the ones in the boat have a prior claim to the ones outside of the boat? Hardin’s example is illustrates a particular “hard choice” version of ethics in a world that is becoming an ecological catastrophe– not everyone can be saved. This approach was questioned in a later work by Diane Brzozowski (2003) which illustrated with real case studies that, on some occasions at least, it is possible to save many or all concerned.

Thus far, these defenses might arguably be used to limit immigration to some extent. But are they sufficient to limit havens for refugees and asylum seekers? What about when “Lifeboat Ethics” becomes more than a metaphor, and people’s lives or fundamental freedoms are at stake?

From some major ethical traditions, turning away people who face harm or risk in their home countries are never defensible. In the wake of World War II, the principle of non-refoulement (international law against the repatriation of refugees and asylum seekers) was established (though not strictly observed by Western states). Non-refoulement derives from the UN Declaration on human rights, enjoining state parties to commit to the dignity of individual lives and fundamental freedoms. ”Human rights’ discourses are examples of pure deontological ethics, i.e. universalizable laws that cannot be chipped away by expedience. Another example of an entitlements theory (though one more based in measurement of human welfare rather than in a legal notion of “right”) is the capabilities approach. Initially formulated by Amartya Sen, the capabilities approach was adapted by Martha Nussbaum specifically in response to limitations of Rawlsian liberal theory which limited states’ responsibilities within their own borders.

Other ethical perspectives which mandate taking responsibility for refugees and asylum seekers are humanitarian grounds. These include the cosmopolitan approach, named from an early Stoic conception of human beings as ”citizens of the world” rather than of individual states. Arguably, thinkers like Peter Singer (who discounts geopolitical difference as a ethically relevant factor in deciding whom to help) represent contemporary cosmopolitan ethics. Cosmopolitanism dictates that our obligations to others in need are not restricted to narrow local circles of concern. Another ethical tradition that is likely to include needy others outside one’s borders is “care ethics”. Carol Gilligan, the founder of care ethics, observed that that women exhibit a unique approach to responsibilities for others and selves in a relational model, an alternative to both deontological and consequentialist ethics narrowly conceived.

One of the most parsimonious ethical theories lies in one simple principle: the harm limitation. While best known under John Stuart Mill’s articulation that one’s range of freedoms is limited by ensuring a like freedoms for others, it also appears in thinkers such as Pufendorf. A more stringent version of the harm principle is seen in the “negative duty” argument taken up by some ethical philosophers. We have an obligation not to harm others by our actions or our negligence. Thus, for example, Thomas Pogge would argue that we have a negative duty to not cause global poverty by our participation in an unjust international economic order. Taken in this broad perspective, there can be many circumstances in which Western countries are directly or indirectly responsible for the harms that refugees and asylum seekers face, as Matthew Gibney points out in his book, “The Ethics and Politics of Asylum” (Cambridge 2004). Thus, if a country has an outsized portion of responsibility for global warming by causing the most carbon emissions, they are responsible for the consequences that are borne by more geographically vulnerable states and the consequent surge of refugees. Similarly, if one nation covertly installed a dictator or encouraged armed conflict, there is a direct causal relationship of harm in those who seek refuge from conflict or persecution. Gibney also argues that partial responsibility can occur (Pogge’s example of participating in an unjust economic order that creates victims and winners could be one example).

But let us imagine us a case in which the privileged destination state is assumed to be wholly uninvolved in the miseries faced by the refugee or asylum seeker. Are they responsible for the ensuing harm if they dismiss the harassed individual or family at the border? By definition, a refugee and an asylum seeker have little options. It appears that President Trump’s administration’s confessed policy of family separation as deterrence is explicitly intended harm: deter asylum seekers by making their arrival in the US as horrific as the situation they left behind. In this case, they are obviously introducing more harm into the lives of these individuals and families seeking refuge, and have justly raised international outcry. But what are genuinely ethical ways to respond to refugees and asylum seekers, supposing there to be a limited lifeboat? Is it time to abandon both the narrowly nationalist and lifeboat perspectives to realize that we are all in this together?

This question will only become more serious as Western states contend with the rapidly changing global climate and the effects of the international economic order, with all the political and ecological ramifications of a vastly unequal neoliberal globalism. It’s clear that we need forward-thinking, ethical leadership. Instead of turning the clock back to 1939, we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century critically and openly.

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The Moral Complexities of Helping Refugees

"Refugees queue for hot food in a camp on the Serbia Hungary border" by Trocaire liscensed under CC BY 2.0 (via Flickr)

Since May 2011, around 5.1 million people have fled Syria and the Assad regime. Additionally, another 6.1 million people reside as internally displaced peoples (IDPs) within Syria. Because of this, many of the surrounding countries have fronted many of the refugees, including 3 million in Turkey, 1 million in Lebanon, and another 660,000 in Jordan. What are the moral complexities surrounding these nations and what responsibility does the rest of the international community have in this crisis? Continue reading “The Moral Complexities of Helping Refugees”

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Free Speech and Passport Fraud: On CNN’s Ban from Venezuela

Progressives in the United States are decidedly against the policies and ideology of Donald Trump. And, predictably, when President Trump has displayed aggressiveness towards CNN and other media outlets, these progressives uphold the values of free speech. Yet, last month, CNN was expelled from Venezuela, a country whose socialist regime has been lauded by the likes of Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, and other visible figures of the left. There has been little (if any) uproar over this. This is at best inconsistent, and at worst hypocritical.

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Demographics, Refugees, and Immigration: What of the Expanding Moral Circle?

Anxieties over changing demographics, immigration, and refugees have been a key theme in Western politics over the past couple of years. A central flashpoint in the political debates leading up to the Brexit vote was a controversial poster from the “Leave” Campaign, depicting a line of Syrian refugees. In the United States, reports of racist taunting and vandalism have increased since the recent election. France will vote in presidential elections in 2017, and the National Front’s candidate Marine Le Pen is projected to have a strong showing. The National Front has also been associated primarily with its opposition to immigration, specifically immigration from Islamic countries. More generally, political sentiments that reject multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism, in favor of nationalism and isolationism, have grown in popularity in both the United States and Western Europe.

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Balancing Religious Freedom and Security in Germany’s Full-Veil Ban

Although nations have been dealing with international Islamic terrorism since the 1960s, Islamism’s threat has expanded over the last half-century. It has seeped out of immediate regional disputes in the Middle East and found its way directly into Western territory with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centers and the subsequent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

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Aylan Kurdi and Ai Weiwei

Under ideal circumstances, the dinghy should have only held eight people. The same could have been said of the many boats that preceded it, in search of beaches in Greece. Yet, just as those before them, the rubber dinghy left the shores of Turkey’s Bodrum Peninsula in the early hours of the morning. Among the twelve people onboard were three-year-old Aylan Kurdi and his family, refugees from the besieged Syrian town of Kobane.

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The Price of Being a Refugee

reating Refugees as the problem is the problem - Refugee Rights Protest at Broadmeadows, Melbourne by Takver via CC 2.0 (via flickr)

A recent tragedy in Austria, where 71 decomposing bodies of refugees, including 3 children, were found in the back of an abandoned truck, is yet another in the ongoing saga of Europe’s refugee crisis. Due to severe instability in much of the world today, the number of refugees seeking asylum has drastically increased.  Most come from the countries of Kosovo, Syria and Afghanistan, and some from  Iraq, Pakistan and Ukraine. In addition to the influx of refugees, the practice of  the human trafficking of refugees is on the rise as well.

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