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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/egp.v6i1.18188?needAccess=true
"In what follows I will defend a different reply to Carens. My reply has two parts.Firstly, I will grant the assumption, which Carens and Miller share, that the sole consideration grounding freedom of movement is the interest people have in autonomy. Even granting this assumption, I argue, we can justify requiring freedom of movement between parts of a nation state without having to accept freedom of movement between nation states. Secondly, I will argue that considerations of autonomy are likely only one of a number of important considerations that justify freedom of movement within a nation state. These other considerations, I argue, can only be used to support freedom of movement within nations and not between them. As an example, I will focus on the United States. My argument suggests that whether we focus on autonomy or on other values Carens’ challenge can be answered: we can justify requiring only freedom of movement within nations and not between them." (p.29)
"It seems me that freedom of intranational movement cannot be solely grounded inthe importance of autonomy. Several considerations suggest this. Firstly, while having more options enhances people’s autonomy, the gains in autonomy of an additional option likely have diminishing marginal returns. For instance, suppose that someone already has available to them a wide variety of jobsthat they could they take. Having one more job option will likely have a relativelysmall impact on her autonomy. Similarly, while being able to travel to more placesenhances someone’s autonomy it only does so relatively weakly if they already havemany places that they could travel to. For instance, if you can already travel to therest of the United States the additional value of being able to travel to, say, Kansas, is quite limited. And yet we think it essential that citizens be able to travel to any partof the US that they wish. If autonomy were the sole value at stake here it would be surprising that we put so much value on someone being able to travel to every lastsub-unit of a nation state, even in a large country such as the US." (p.31)
"I have argued that values other than individual autonomy are needed to explain boththe strength and the nature of our commitment to freedom of intrastate movement. In this section I’m going to argue that the needed values are associated with democracy and political equality. Members of a unitary or federal state share an overarching government. They need to be able to make collective decisions together at election time and to engage in other forms of political participation outside of the election season. In a democracy we assume that for this decision making and participation to be successful and legitimate it needs to be possible for citizens to debate together the issues at hand. Individual citizens need to be able to participate in this debate and to hear what others have to say. This can only happen if there is freedom of movement between different parts of the country. To see this, first consider an extreme case. Democracy requires, minimally, that citizens have the opportunity and ability to participate in elections. Suppose that candidates for the presidency, their aides and so on were unable to travel to different parts of the country, being required by law to stay within their home communities. In that case there would be a serious problem for the candidates of informing voters about their program and trying to convince voters of their suitability for office. Of course, in the modern world some of this can be done by using the mail service, the internet and so on. But it still seems that there would be a substantial democratic loss if candidates were not able to interact with the public through stump speeches, and so on, because voters would lose an important opportunity to gain information about the candidates. There would also be a loss in the opportunity for citizens to participate in politics by relating their concerns and ideas to the politicians." (p.32)
"Most prominent theories of democracy assume that a well functioning political system allows citizens not only the chance to interact with politicians but also the opportunity to share ideas and arguments with one another. This is one reason liberal democracies typically have strong protections for political speech." (p.33)
"The freedom of movement argument for open borders can only be defended by also defending theradical theses about democracy and equality that support the democratic and egalitarian arguments for open-borders. This is a significant result because it showsthat the freedom of movement argument cannot provide the independent support foropen borders that it is commonly thought to." (p.35)
-Adam Hosein (2013) Immigration and freedom of movement, Ethics & GlobalPolitics, 6:1, 25-37, DOI: 10.3402/egp.v6i1.18188 .
"In what follows I will defend a different reply to Carens. My reply has two parts.Firstly, I will grant the assumption, which Carens and Miller share, that the sole consideration grounding freedom of movement is the interest people have in autonomy. Even granting this assumption, I argue, we can justify requiring freedom of movement between parts of a nation state without having to accept freedom of movement between nation states. Secondly, I will argue that considerations of autonomy are likely only one of a number of important considerations that justify freedom of movement within a nation state. These other considerations, I argue, can only be used to support freedom of movement within nations and not between them. As an example, I will focus on the United States. My argument suggests that whether we focus on autonomy or on other values Carens’ challenge can be answered: we can justify requiring only freedom of movement within nations and not between them." (p.29)
"It seems me that freedom of intranational movement cannot be solely grounded inthe importance of autonomy. Several considerations suggest this. Firstly, while having more options enhances people’s autonomy, the gains in autonomy of an additional option likely have diminishing marginal returns. For instance, suppose that someone already has available to them a wide variety of jobsthat they could they take. Having one more job option will likely have a relativelysmall impact on her autonomy. Similarly, while being able to travel to more placesenhances someone’s autonomy it only does so relatively weakly if they already havemany places that they could travel to. For instance, if you can already travel to therest of the United States the additional value of being able to travel to, say, Kansas, is quite limited. And yet we think it essential that citizens be able to travel to any partof the US that they wish. If autonomy were the sole value at stake here it would be surprising that we put so much value on someone being able to travel to every lastsub-unit of a nation state, even in a large country such as the US." (p.31)
"I have argued that values other than individual autonomy are needed to explain boththe strength and the nature of our commitment to freedom of intrastate movement. In this section I’m going to argue that the needed values are associated with democracy and political equality. Members of a unitary or federal state share an overarching government. They need to be able to make collective decisions together at election time and to engage in other forms of political participation outside of the election season. In a democracy we assume that for this decision making and participation to be successful and legitimate it needs to be possible for citizens to debate together the issues at hand. Individual citizens need to be able to participate in this debate and to hear what others have to say. This can only happen if there is freedom of movement between different parts of the country. To see this, first consider an extreme case. Democracy requires, minimally, that citizens have the opportunity and ability to participate in elections. Suppose that candidates for the presidency, their aides and so on were unable to travel to different parts of the country, being required by law to stay within their home communities. In that case there would be a serious problem for the candidates of informing voters about their program and trying to convince voters of their suitability for office. Of course, in the modern world some of this can be done by using the mail service, the internet and so on. But it still seems that there would be a substantial democratic loss if candidates were not able to interact with the public through stump speeches, and so on, because voters would lose an important opportunity to gain information about the candidates. There would also be a loss in the opportunity for citizens to participate in politics by relating their concerns and ideas to the politicians." (p.32)
"Most prominent theories of democracy assume that a well functioning political system allows citizens not only the chance to interact with politicians but also the opportunity to share ideas and arguments with one another. This is one reason liberal democracies typically have strong protections for political speech." (p.33)
"The freedom of movement argument for open borders can only be defended by also defending theradical theses about democracy and equality that support the democratic and egalitarian arguments for open-borders. This is a significant result because it showsthat the freedom of movement argument cannot provide the independent support foropen borders that it is commonly thought to." (p.35)
-Adam Hosein (2013) Immigration and freedom of movement, Ethics & GlobalPolitics, 6:1, 25-37, DOI: 10.3402/egp.v6i1.18188 .
