Just Migration, Within and Into Europe
Plenary Keynote
of the Philosophical Workshop: Justice and Beliefs about Justice in Europe
by Philippe van Parijs
Professor and director of Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics, University of Louvain / Visiting Professor, KU Leuven / Visiting Professor and Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford
For the left in rich societies, there is no more cruel dilemma that the tension between maximal generosity towards the weakest among the insiders and maximal hospitality towards the many outsiders who are keen, indeed sometimes desperate, to immigrate.
When endeavouring to determine what immigration policy our country or the European Union should adopt, we should not deny or hide or minimize this dilemma. Nor should we yield to whatever democratic majorities happen to demand. We need a clear conception of what a just world would be like and a pragmatic, no-nonsense, opportunistic approach to the measures that could take us closer to it in the messy world we live in.
The ETHOS project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under grant agreement No. 727112