Alex's point is excellent.
I recall, though, that when Tom Palmer was studying at Oxford a few years
ago he told me of a philosopher there -- David Miller, at Nuffield
College -- who wrote a book recognizing that universal values are
inconsistent with the modern welfare state. Rather than reject the welfare
state, Miller, apparently, rejects universalist values -- adopting, if I
understand Tom correctly, a species of nationalism.
For the record, Tom found Miller's argument to be wholly fallacious.
Don Boudreaux
Foundation for Economic Education
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Alex Tabarrok
> Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2000 12:36 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Morality and Immigration
>
>
> I am giving a talk today in which I point out that virtually every
> moral theory implies open borders are moral and immigration controls
> immoral. Here are the theories I deal with.
>
> 1) Natural Rights ala Nozick, Rand etc.
>
> 2) Utilitarianism
>
> 3) Contemporary redistribute the wealth liberalism (ala the John Kenneth
> Galbraith quote mentioned earlier).
>
> 4) Analytical liberalism (Rawlsian veil of ignorance arguments.)
>
> 5) Christianity (kindness to strangers)
>
> I think the arguments for open borders under each of these moral
> theories should be pretty clear for list readers but I will spell them
> out if anyone is interested. My point here is that this is all very
> surprising. After all, these moral theories disagree on just about any
> other issue! Each of these moral theories, however, has a univeralist
> claim. That is, it takes equality seriously in some sense and does not
> recognize the arbitrary and accidental place of birth to be
> determinative in any important way which is why it supports open
> borders.
>
> Yet, despite the fact that these are all big-time moral theories the
> implications are clearly not accepted by most people - or at least most
> people are willing to ignore the implications. What does this tell us.
> 1) Moral theory counts for nothing, 2) We are still tribalist but are
> working away from that, 3) We have the wrong moral theory. 4) ?
>
> Alex
> --
> Dr. Alexander Tabarrok
> Vice President and Director of Research
> The Independent Institute
> 100 Swan Way
> Oakland, CA, 94621-1428
> Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040
> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
