Call for Papers: “The Ethics of Immigration in a Non-Ideal World”, Moral Philosophy & Politics 2016/2

Moral Philosophy & Politics invites contributions to a special issue that focuses on how the ethics of immigration should address non-ideal conditions, including background injustice, non-compliance by individual states and persons, as well as constraints on the political feasibility of ideally just immigration policies. The focus is on both normative questions that occur only due to non-ideal circumstances and on the impact non-ideal reasoning can have on ideal theory within the ethics of immigration.

Questions that could be addressed include, but are not limited to, the following:

– How should the ideal and non-ideal parts of the ethics of immigration fit together? For instance, if one holds that there is a right to international freedom of movement or a right to the political inclusion of resident noncitizens in ideal theory, what normative commitments follow from it for the world as it is?

– If there is a right to exclude in ideal theory, does it hold in a world with extreme and arguably unjust economic inequalities? Is there a way to incorporate the concerns of postcolonialism into the normative debate about a right to exclude?

– Is there an obligation to “take up the slack” if some states do not take in their fair share of the world’s refugees?

– What are (un)justifiable ways to enforce restrictions on immigration? What rights and duties do irregular immigrants have?

– Is it legitimate to trade-off the justified claims of would-be immigrants against the justified claims of those who have already immigrated, if a fully just immigration policy is not feasible? For instance, is it morally justifiable to restrict naturalization in order to increase the support for a more liberal immigration policy?

Papers should be submitted before December 31, 2015, and should not exceed 8000 words. The journal’s manuscript submission site can be found under: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mopp

Guest editors: Jan Brezger, Andreas Cassee and Anna Goppel

Contact: moppimmigration[at]gmail.com