Chandran Kukathas and Matthias Risse in Favour of Relatively Free Immigration - Literature review Example

Immigration Free immigration is the right to move and reside within and outside the borders as well a right to live in any country of one’s choice. The aim of this paper is to summarize and analyze Kukathas and Risse’s arguments in favor of immigration and to evaluate differences in their defenses in relation to free immigration. According to Risses, people should be allowed to move freely as a way of honoring their right of equal ownership. As per Kukathas argument, people should consider immigration as global rather than a national issue in order to understand the morality of allowing open borders. However, the concept of communal wealth has been greatly advanced mainly among third world countries. As such, they have codified natural resources in international treaties such as seas to allow sharing the resource regardless of the area of origin. Immigration is an important mechanism to eradicate poverty since it permits movement from the region where there are few labor opportunities to areas where there are many opportunities to improve living standards. However, if a person cannot cause harm the security, property and health of citizens in their immigration country. Then they should be given access to these countries to exploit surplus resources, which may not be available in their mother country. However, although one has a right to freedom of movement, they ought to adhere to State’s procedures of immigration. According to Risse argument, on egalitarianism is on the fact that everyone across the globe is entitled to an equal share of exploiting natural resources in the world. He argues that the existence of natural resources was not achieved through efforts of an individual thus no one has the authority to prevent others from exploiting them (Risse 28). The argument holds that, human beings have the right to sharing natural resources equally regardless of their origin. The staggering level of inequality among different countries would therefore not be a reason to bar someone from getting to a foreign land. Human beings are born into the world independently and equally and, therefore, no one made a choice on where to be born. Therefore, a citizen of a third world country cannot be held responsible for the fact they were born in a poor country since they never choose where to be born. Based on this fact, it follows that they are morally permitted to enter into a foreign country provided they are going to acquire anything that is rightly theirs. In his argument, Risse purports that since countries such as United States and Germany are rich in natural resources compared to other countries (Risse 25). They are obliged to permit entry of residence from poor countries in order to enhance equal distribution of natural resources since they are perceived as universally owned. On the other hand, kukathas argues that, Libertarianism is a moral concept that argues in favor of allowing people to engage freely in various activities without coercion (Kukathas 210). It stipulates that people should be left free to do whatever they feel is right provided there is sufficient evidence they cannot cause harm to others. Moreover, Risse states that, the fact that United State is well-endowed in terms of resources; they should not deny citizens from less well-endowed countries opportunities to exploit resources that are not exhaustedly utilized by residents. However, Kuthakas also contribute to the point by arguing that, developing countries lack economic opportunities, which make them commercial, impaired as opposed to their developed wealthy countries. This situation forces residents to migrate to rich countries in search for opportunities to make ends meet. However, if rich countries impose immigration restrictions, it becomes difficult or even impossible for foreigners especially from third world countries to immigrate to these wealthy nations. Considering most third world countries face extreme poverty, the best way to improve their citizens’ living standards is by allowing residents to move to other countries with surplus job opportunities. Therefore, denying such people the right to migrate is similar to condemning these third-world citizens to poverty and poor living standards. Kuthakas also argues that free movement enhances the right of individuals to exchange their belongings, freedom for movement and requires the government to protect these individual rights from the violation. Insiders’ rights to hire foreigners are limited when the government has absolute power concerning immigration policies. For example, suppose an engineer from China desires to hire an expert from Brazil, the government should not have right to prohibit him from this engagement. It is because barring the Brazilian from coming to China would be a violation of the engineers rights as well as those of the Brazilian right to freedom of movement. Therefore, State’s absolute power over immigration policy may violate individual citizens’ rights by the fact that it interferes with insiders’ property rights. To invite freely outsiders’ in their country, while foreigners are denied freedom of movement. Ressie also argues that, restricting freedom of movement leads to obvious inefficiencies in a country and should not be encouraged in any State. One of the major problems of limiting freedom of movement is that it leads to economic degradation especially for less well-endowed nations particularly when their citizens are denied right to move to foreign countries. For instance, restricting a Jamaican the right to utilize their talent in China would have negative implication on their income. Similarly, when a state justifies that females can only work as nurses while male should work as doctors, would deprive many excellent female doctors, and male nurses opportunity to exploit their expertise. Similarly, when a country excludes outsiders, they fail to capitalize on their talent and skills of outsiders by locking them out from benefitting from the robust opportunities available (Kukathas 221). Given this, it is evident that people would be far much better if they were given an opportunity to utilize their talents in foreign countries since there are many opportunities as opposed to their country Furthermore, libertarian suggests that States dominion over immigration policies is incompatible with the notion that individual rights should always be unlimited. However, State’s rights would be violated in case individual rights are perfect and absolute. For example, a person freedom of movement does not mean that they have right to enter a foreign country without due authorization. They must be authorized by the relevant authority in order to be allowed entry to a country since rights of the majority are always perfect and absolute over individual rights. Conversely, an insider would have well to invite outsiders into their country provided their rights are complete and pure (Kukathas 211). However, if it is a criminal offense to attract foreigners to a country, a property owner cannot be allowed to do so since rights of the State as whole dominate individual rights. Kukathas furthers urges that, the general condition of the society that people are living in is right, they always prefer to visit foreign countries to seek further education, tourism and in search for greener pastures. He argues that international movement facilitates overall economic growth by allowing movement of specialized labor, skills from areas with underutilized labor probably to lack of opportunities to areas with greater opportunities (Kukathas 219). Thus, the global effect of immigration is constructive considering that it facilitates the movement of labor from less productive region to the high productive area, which consequently improves living standards. In support of this, Ressie argues that natural resources in the planet are subject to human exploitation. Thus, immigration policies that deny people access to resources are immoral and should not be encouraged in a free society. In addition, his argument stipulates that all human beings have equal ownership of natural resources regardless of their country of residence. He further, argues that all humans have a natural right of collective ownership of the earth resources and that people should use the planet resources equally to satisfy their needs. However, although human beings have the right to own more than they need, everything must be used for the common benefit of everyone. For example, if someone decides to fence off a land that is more than necessary to feed their family, they are at liberty to it and are permitted to secure it. Therefore, despite the fact that humans use the land to meet their everyday needs, there are property conventions that give the right to acquire and use natural resources like land. Therefore, this would suggest that all countries should allow free immigration in order to recognize and give people from less well-endowed countries in terms of natural resources a chance to exploit surplus natural resources in blessed countries. Moreover, one should note that, there is right to own and use various natural resources like land. Therefore, no one is allowed to trespass those properties possessed and being used by others to satisfy their needs. However, Ressie says that, in uncontrolled immigration rarely occurs but it has the adverse effect on unemployment on the indigenous residents of a country. Therefore, despite the unemployment fear it is justifiable for wealthy countries to do away immigration barriers as a method of boosting economic growth in developing nations. In conclusion, the argument on joint ownership of natural resources permits immigration across the globe considering that no one has a rightful claim to ownership of natural resources. Wealthy countries like United States ought to do away with immigration restrictive regulations in order to allow free movement of labor and people. That is people from less productive countries in order to harmonize income inequality, which results in overall poverty eradication. On the other hand, libertarian concepts promote free movement of people across countries provided that there is sufficient evidence they will not injure or harm others. Furthermore, the utilitarian principle perceives the act of restricting free immigration as a factor that leads to inefficiency in some countries, especially those with fewer resources. Furthermore, according to Kukathas, wealthy countries should allow residents of less developed countries into their territories in order to improve overall global living standards. On the other hand, Risse advocates for natural resources to be used equally to the benefit all humans regardless of their countries and regions of residence. Works Cited Kukathas, Chandran. The case for open immigration, in A. Cohen and C. Heath Wellman (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics,(2005), pp. 207-220. Print. Risse, Mathias. On the morality of immigration, Ethics and International Affairs, 22 .1 (2008), pp. 25-33. Print. Read More