Immigration, Naturalization & Supererogation:
an Argument Against Naturalization as a Moral Obligation
Maiko Kamerbeek
S1553372
Abstract
The debate on immigration is broad and controversial, but many of the academic literature on the topic is lacking philosophical analysis. In this thesis, my aim is to provide a philosophical argument against the naturalization of all immigrants. I will do so by showing that the naturalization of some immigrants is not a moral obligation but in fact supererogatory instead.
Introduction
Back in 2008, Will Smith played the role of Ben Thomas in the fictional movie Seven Pounds. Torn apart by grief and guilt as his wife dies in a terrible car accident only he survives, Thomas tries to seek redemption by helping those in desperate need. As part of his plan, he picks a group of seven people to assist them with their financial problems, and furthermore, to donate his organs to those for whom a donor organ otherwise would come too late. But his plan takes an unexpected turn as he falls in love with a near-dead woman he is assisting. In the end, he sacrifices his life so she can continue living using his heart.
The tale of Ben Thomas is as beautiful as well as fascinating. It is fascinating since Thomas' efforts are clearly of great moral value. However, when helping others while facing such high costs, one might consider such actions to be beyond our conception of what is good, or in other words, beyond the call of duty. This phrase became the standard interpretation of the concept of supererogation, which is part of a substantial philosophical debate since J.O. Urmson's publication in 1958. Supererogatory acts are of utmost moral worth but at the same time not morally obligatory. At least, that is how one intuitively tends to classify them. However, the exact definition remains highly controversial. While some argue it to be impossible to grasp the concept of supererogation into one single definition, others favor to reduce the concept into nothing more than two distinctive conditions. Whatever definition one might accept, one still needs to address a problem that resides in the nature of the concept. The problem is as follows: if the supererogatory is the morally best alternative, how can it be morally permissible? This is known as the paradox of supererogation, which is problematic since we ought to perform those actions that are morally good.
Supererogation will function as the means for contributing to another debate: that of immigration. As this debate is broad and controversial as well, my aim is to
focus specifically on the naturalization of immigrants. I consider this debate to be of paramount importance since it has been dominating political affairs for quite some time. As I see the world today, a great deal of the political debate is directly or indirectly concerned with immigration. In some cases, I believe that the discontents with immigration issues that exist today had lead to some major political shifts in the western world. Due to the massive political attention to this topic, a wide range of academic literature has been produced. However, only a relatively small part if it contains a sustained philosophical discussion (Blake, 2002, p. 225). Therefore, my aim in this thesis is to provide for a substantial philosophical argument in the debate of the naturalization of immigrants. I will defend the claim that the provision of citizenship rights to all immigrants is not morally obligatory, but supererogatory instead.
In what follows, I will start dissolving this question by paying attention to three different components divided over three different chapters. In the first chapter, my aim is to provide a clear conception of supererogation. I will address the question of what supererogation is and how the paradox can be solved. For this latter purpose, I will provide three different approaches that can serve as a possible solution. At the end of the first chapter, I will select one of the three approaches, which I consider to be the best solution for the paradox in abstract terms. At the end of the first chapter, I will have generated a workable conception of supererogation, which can be used for answering the central question.
In the second chapter, I will start exploring the current debate surrounding naturalization. My aim in this chapter is to get a better understanding of what is meant by the concept of ‘immigrants’ as stated in the central question. I will address the bottlenecks in this debate and consider several reasons for the difficulty in finding a clear solution. Then I will address three different arguments that are currently used in favor of the immigrant’s claim to naturalization. In response to those arguments, I will address the affect of the immigrant’s consent. From there, I will argue for two different cases of immigrants for which the claim to naturalization is not valid.
After it is been made clear what supererogation is and to which groups of immigrants the central question applies to, I will be able to start answering this question. In the last chapter, I will claim that what states minimally owe to immigrants is the provision of basic human rights. If this is the minimum moral requirement, it can be argued that the provision of the full package of citizenship rights is morally better and therefore beyond the call of duty. However, Showing this alone will not settle the question. By arguing that the providing the full package of citizenship rights is morally better but not morally obligatory, one could ask: why should a state not conduct the action that will bring out the most moral worth? Addressing this question is like solving the paradox of supererogation. I will apply the three different approaches, as used in the first chapter, to solve the paradox and argue which of those three serve as the best approach for solving the paradox on a practical level.
I will conclude that the provision of citizenship rights is supererogatory for at least those immigrants who migrate voluntarily or regularly to a new host country. In
such a scenario, all that a state is obliged to provide for is the protection of their basic human rights. The provision of citizenship rights is, in that case, morally better and therefore supererogatory. I will find that solving the paradox when applied to this case is not comparable to the paradox in more general terms. Therefore, I must conclude that the approach, which was considered as the best solution for solving the paradox in abstract terms, is exceeded by another solution when solving the paradox in practical terms.
I
Supererogation
In order to answer the central question, it is of vital importance to create a proper understanding of the concept of supererogation. As briefly mentioned at the outset of this thesis, the supererogatory is the action ‘beyond the call of duty’. However, this does not settle the debate on the definition of the concept, therefore, supererogation remains a highly controversial topic. Despite the controversy, I will attempt, in this chapter, to work towards a manageable definition, which can be used in the last chapter of this thesis to show that the provision of citizenship rights to all immigrants is not morally obligatory but supererogatory.
In what follows, I will address the question of what the near consensus features of supererogation are. I will present several definitions provided by a number of authors. Eventually, I will follow Alfred Archer’s (2017) position and suggest that the supererogatory is morally better and morally optional. In the next section, I will address the question of whether acts of supererogation need to be praiseworthy (Cowley, 2015) and based on altruistic intentions (Heyd, 1982). Again, I will follow Archer’s (2013, 2015) position and argue that it is not required for an act to be altruistic or praiseworthy before it is considered to be an act of supererogation.
In the last section, I will briefly introduce what is known as the paradox of supererogation. This paradox must be solved before one can proceed using the concept of supererogation. If not, the paradox will make the concept useless for my further analysis. To solve this paradox, I will present three distinct solutions. First, I will present a solution that is known as the sacrifice view. I will discuss the work presented by James Fishkin (1982) and Samuel Scheffler (1994) to address this point. Next, I will address the solution that is known as the favoring reasons view. For this solution, I will rely on the work by James Dreier (2004). Last, I will present what I call the accountability view, which was suggested by Michael Ferry (2015).
I will argue that the favoring reasons view is the best approach to solve the paradox in abstract terms. My argument for this suggestion is based on the fact that the other two solutions have fundamental problems, since these solutions can only partly solve the paradox. The favoring reasons view is, as I will argue later this chapter, not flawless either. However, the problems of this approach are not as
fundamental since it is a question about one of the assumptions that are made for this approach. However, if this assumption is correctly defended, this approach is the only one of the three solutions that can fully solve the paradox of supererogation.
What is Supererogation?
Traditionally, the classification of moral action is three-fold. This classification consists of the obligatory, permissible and prohibited. Obligatory acts are actions that are good to do and bad not to do. The permissible acts are not good to do and not bad not to do. The prohibited acts are bad to do and good not to do. Since supererogation is thought of as being ‘beyond the call of duty’ is seems that supererogation cannot be fitted into one of these categories. These actions call for a whole new category, the actions that are good to do but not bad not to do. Given this standard description of supererogation, it seems that actions of supererogation bring out the most moral worth, and would therefore logically be placed under the category morally obligatory, but are as optional as the permissible act. That makes a supererogatory act morally the best option but optional to perform. This is not in line with current moral theory since we ought to do what is good. This notion will raise problems of its own. This is what is called the paradox of supererogation, which I will discuss later this chapter. However, in this section, I will focus on the definition of supererogation. I will distinguish several aspects of supererogatory acts and question whether they are plausible criteria to formulate a definition of the concept.
In his introduction on supererogation, Christopher Cowley (2015) makes a good starting point for defining the concept. He, as most authors do, recognizes that the supererogatory acts are morally admirable and go beyond the call of duty. According to Cowley, there are two key elements to this definition. First, there is a recognizable duty placed upon a given agent in a given situation that she is able to perform. And second, there is a morally better action than the dutiful action available that can count as supererogatory (Cowley, 2015 p. 2). Another aspect of the concept is that a supererogatory act is praiseworthy to perform, but not blameworthy to omit. This is the second feature and suggests that a supererogatory action is optional since there is no blame involved in the omission. This is, however, a more response-focused way of classifying supererogation as optional (Cowley, 2015, p. 2).
Cowley describes some other elements that are, according to him, important for a good understanding of supererogation. First, he argues that the agent who performs the supererogatory act has a free choice in doing so. The agent is free to do so because she knows that retaining from performing the supererogatory act is not something to be blamed for (Cowley, 2015, p. 3). However, as far as I can see, this is in line with the second aspect of the definition described above, the aspect that makes supererogation optional. Another feature of supererogation, according to Cowley, is that an agent who is performing an act of supererogation cannot act out of self-interest (Cowley, 2015, p. 3). The agent must have altruistic intentions to perform the act.
This is in line with the argument by David Heyd (1982), which I will challenge later this chapter. A third aspect of supererogation is that it always involves a sacrifice made by the performer of the act (Cowley, 2015, p 3). For this feature, I do partly agree with Cowley. I do not agree that supererogation must necessarily involve sacrifices made by the performer. However, I do believe that in some cases a sacrifice is involved in the performance of supererogation. I will present this as one of the solutions for the paradox in the last section of this chapter. Then I will elaborate further on this aspect of supererogation.
Alfred Archer seems to agree partly on the first two aspects of supererogation that Cowley presents (Archer, 2015, 2016, 217). He notes first that all supererogatory acts are morally optional. This means that such actions are neither morally forbidden nor morally required. This will place such actions under the permissible category of the traditional classification. Note, however, that Archer differentiates from the optional definition Cowley (2015) provided. Cowley provides a response-based definition and claims that what makes supererogatory acts optional is that such acts are praiseworthy to perform but not blameworthy not to perform. This suggestion will also be challenged later in this chapter. Archer, on the other hand, provides a more action-based definition and simply qualifies the supererogatory as not required nor forbidden, and therefore optional (Archer, 2015, p.2; 2016, p. 240; 2017, p.4).
On the other aspect, Archer seems to agree with Cowley and argues that the supererogatory action is morally better than any other alternative (Archer, 2015, p.2; 2016, p. 240; 2017, p.4). To be more specific, Archer argues that an act of supererogation is morally better in comparison to the minimally permissible act. It is worth noting that the comparison being made here is not between al supererogatory acts and obligatory acts. Rather, the comparison is made between a particular act and its alternatives (Archer, 2017, p.4). If a certain act has more moral reason than all other alternatives available to the agent in a given situation than the act is considered to be morally better.
Michael Ferry (2015) seems to agree with the two definitions as described by Archer. He agrees that to define an act of supererogation, one must look into the non-obligatory nature of the act and the sense that the act is beyond the duty i.e. better than the minimally permissible act in any given option set (Ferry, 2015, p. 51). Ferry defines the morally optional aspect as the permissibility condition (PC) and the morally better aspect as the preferred act condition (PAC). In what follows I will stick to the terminology as used by Ferry.
PC: the permissibility condition of supererogation suggests that all supererogatory acts are morally optional. This means that such actions are neither morally forbidden nor morally required.
PAC: the preferred act condition of supererogation suggests that all supererogatory acts are morally better. This means that such actions are morally better than any other alternative.
Horgan and Timmons (2010) describe somewhat of the same aspects of the definition. They, however, explain the concept by splitting it up in deontic and evaluative elements. This way of explaining supererogation can be considered convenient when analyzing the paradox of supererogation, which I will address later in this chapter. When Horgan and Timmons describe supererogation they start by describing its deontic elements. Deontic elements are used to morally evaluate actions and practices and are usually expressed in terms like obligation, duty, right, wrong and optional etc. (Horgan & Timmons, 2010, p. 31). So given the permissibility condition, we can say that an action of supererogation is ‘permissible’ or optional in its deontic status. Evaluative elements are used to state moral significance to actions and practices and are expressed in terms of good, bad etc. (Horgan & Timmons, 2010, p. 31). Given the preferred act condition, we can say that an action of supererogation has a stronger evaluative status than other alternatives.
Deontic elements: elements that are used to morally evaluate actions and practices and are usually expressed in terms like obligation, duty, right, wrong and optional etc.
Evaluative elements: elements that are used to state moral significance to actions and practices and are expressed in terms of good, bad etc.
In this section, I have addressed several ways of defining supererogation. There are two aspects of supererogation that are near consensus and seem to define the concept best. This includes the fact that supererogatory acts are morally better and morally optional, or to use Ferry’s approach: acts of supererogation must meet the permissibility condition (PC) and the preferred act condition (PAC). Acts that meet these conditions are considered to have the deontic status of permissibility and the evaluative status as better than any other alternative. So in deontic terms, supererogatory acts can be classified as ‘permissible’ acts, while from an evaluative perspective such acts can be classified as the best alternative at hand. I will now challenge some of the features mentioned above that are not, in my opinion, necessary conditions of supererogation.
Details of Supererogation
In the previous section, I have discussed the features of supererogation. For an action to be supererogatory, the act must meet the permissibility condition and the preferred act condition. These are the aspects of the concept that are near consensus (Archer, 2017, p. 4). Some authors claim that other conditions have to be met as well before one can speak of supererogation. Some of these conditions were mentioned in the previous section. In this section, I will challenge the claim that supererogatory acts need to be performed out of altruistic intentions and need to be praiseworthy. The
rejection of those conditions for supererogation is essential for my further account. If not rejected, these conditions will limit the range of the potential supererogatory acts. With this more narrow definition, it would be a difficult task to show that the provision of citizenship rights to immigrants is supererogatory. Instead of facing this difficulty, I would rather broaden the concept of supererogation by accepting only the near-consensus conditions. Alfred Archer (2013; 2015) has presented arguments that challenge both the additional conditions. In what follows, I will address each of them in turn.
Challenging Altruism
David Heyd (1982) is known for being an advocate of the altruistic intention requirement (AIR). According to Heyd, for an act to be supererogatory, the agent performing the act must have the intention to benefit people other than the agent herself (Heyd, 1982, p. 136). If this requirement is to be correct, then it will limit the range of acts that can be classified as supererogatory (Archer, 2013, p. 448). Why does Heyd take this requirement into account?
AIR: the altruistic intentions requirement suggests that for an act to be supererogatory, the agent must perform this act out of altruistic intentions. The AIR is needed to make sense of the claim that acts of supererogation are meritorious. Merit, according to Heyd is an essential feature of supererogatory acts (Archer, 2013, p. 448). To challenge AIR, it is first important to get a proper understanding of the meaning of ‘merit’. An act is morally meritorious if the act itself is good. The assessment of the meritorious character of the act only takes into consideration the act itself, and not the motives and virtues of the agent. So if an act is to be meritorious, the act itself is worthy of some positive appraisal (Archer, 2013, p. 449). To assess whether an act is worthy of some positive appraisal one must take the agent’s intentions and the consequences of the act into account.
The meritorious nature of the supererogatory act is for the first part depending on the intention of the agent, not on the motivations. But if we do not take the motivations of the agent into account the question remains why we do focus on the intentions of the agent and not only on the consequences when evaluating the act. It is important to take the intentions in consideration to rule out prima facie acts of supererogation that are actually not worthy of any positive appraisal. Consider the following example:
Suppose Julie and Jane have both made a large donation to charity and, as a result, saved hundreds of people from starvation. Performing an act of this sort seems to be supererogatory. However, it turns out that only Julie intended to give money to charity. Jane meant to transfer her money between two of her own bank accounts but accidentally put the money in the charity’s account.
Jane would ideally like to retrieve the money but is unable to do so. (Archer, 2013, p. 449)
This example shows clearly how, despite the fact that both actions have the same consequences, only one of them can be classified as supererogatory when taking into account the requirement of 'intention'. Jane had no intention to benefit someone else. The positive consequences of her actions are only established by accident, and therefore the act is lacking moral merit. Given this example, it seems about right to disregard such acts from being classified as supererogatory (Archer, 2013, p. 449 – 450).
I do agree with Heyd that the meritorious nature, which consists of the intentions of the agent and the consequences of the act, is essential when considering supererogation. When the agent does not have the intention to perform the act that establishes the good consequences, then we cannot claim that this was a supererogatory act. But now the question remains whether the intentions must be altruistic or not. According to Archer, the intentions of the agent do not have to be altruistic. First, he argues, there is little theoretical support for restricting the intentions only to those that are altruistic. The reasons for including AIR as a condition for supererogation is to explain its meritorious nature. However, there is nothing in the concept of ‘merit’ that requires altruism. In fact, ‘moral intentions’ would better explain for an act being meritorious (Archer, 2013, p. 454).
Restricting to altruistic intentions alone would rule out other cases of supererogation that would be meritorious as well. There are cases that we would intuitively consider as supererogatory but do not fit the description of the AIR. Consider the following example of a prisoner being held captive by terrorists and refuses to pledge allegiance:
The prisoner is told by the terrorists to renounce his government and pledge allegiance to their cause. No one will find out about his refusal to cooperate and so doing so will not benefit those he cares about in any way. The consequences for him, though, will be terrible, as he will face torture from the terrorists. However, the prisoner is a principled and patriotic man who believes that he should not renounce his government. Out of respect for these principles, and with knowledge of the lack of good consequences for other people that will result from his actions, the prisoner refuses to renounce his government. (Archer, 2013, p. 455)
In this case, we intuitively tend to call this an act of supererogation. It seems like an honorable act to remain loyal to your government and for doing so, the act deserves some positive moral appraisal. However, his actions do not benefit anyone since no one will know about his refusal. This is a good example of how an act can be worthy of moral praise without the beneficence of people other than the agent self. In other words, this shows why the intentions of the agent do not necessarily need to be altruistic.
Instead of restricting actions of supererogation only to those that have altruistic intentions, I believe we should restrict supererogation to those actions performed with moral intentions. In that case, we consider acts that have indented to bring about some moral value as supererogatory. This will include for example the case of the prisoner mentioned above. However, it would exclude cases of prima facie supererogation in which the act has brought moral value but is lacking intention. In that case, Jane’s act in the above-mentioned example would still not be classified as supererogatory since she lacks the intention to bring about moral value (Archer, 2013, p. 457).
Challenging Praiseworthiness
It is widely claimed that there is a necessary connection between supererogation and praiseworthiness. This is called the standard analysis and means that if an act is supererogatory, the agent who performs the act will be worthy of praise for doing so (Archer, 2015, p. 239). Those who defend the standard analysis claim that this follows from the preferred action condition. Since the supererogatory act is the morally best act available in comparison to all alternatives, it is thought that the act is therefore worthy of praise. This would be correct if we assume that it is always praiseworthy to perform the morally best act available (Archer, 2015, p. 241). However, there is no such connection between the morally best act and praiseworthiness. The standard analysis does not follow straightforwardly from the fact that acts of supererogation go beyond what is required by duty. To summarize the standard analysis:
Standard analysis: Due to PAC, the performance of the supererogatory will bring out more moral worth than any other alternative. Therefore, the agent performing the act will be worthy of moral praise.
It is possible for the morally best option available to be praiseworthy, but this does not entail that there is a necessary connection between the two. To decide whether an action is praiseworthy or not, we need to make an assessment of the act as well as an assessment of the agent (Archer, 2015, p. 241). For this purpose, we need to make a distinction between intentions and motivations. As discussed earlier, an act needs to be meritorious to be supererogatory. An act is considered to be meritorious if the act is carried out with the intention to bring out good consequences. The motivations behind a specific act, however, contribute to the evaluation of the agent, but not to the act itself. We do not need to know what the agent’s motivations are to determine whether an act is good or not. Motivations can differ, but it would not affect the act itself. Take for example someone who pays her taxes intentionally. It does not matter for our evaluation of the act if she pays it because she is motivated to contribute to her society or motivated by a fear of punishment (Archer, 2013, p. 451). We still evaluate the act the same. What changes in this case, however, is the assessment of the agent. The motivation behind the action is what helps us evaluate the agent. Therefore, we
must take the agent’s motivation into consideration when deciding whether an act is praiseworthy or not (Archer, 2015, p. 241).
According to this view, it is possible for an agent to have a different moral status than the act she performs. We can evaluate an act as supererogatory but assess the performing agent, by evaluating her motivations, as not worthy of praise. In that case, one is performing the right act for the wrong reasons. This phenomenon is widely accepted to be correct (Archer, 2015, 241). There can be actions that are morally good, but due to the lack of the right motivations, cannot be considered to be praiseworthy. Let us consider the following example: Suppose John is in a situation where he decides to donate a huge amount of money to charity. He intentionally opens up his bank account page, picks the amount he wants to donate and intentionally hits the transfer button. The reason for John to do so is to attract media attention, which might boost the political campaign he is running.
According to this view, John’s action would not be praiseworthy. Although he has the intention to perform an act that will bring out moral value, and therefore is morally good, he is motivated by the wrong reasons. In such a case we can still say that he performed an act of supererogation since he, obviously, does more than morality demands. If one evaluates his intention and the consequences of the act one can conclude that his act is indeed supererogatory. However, we cannot say that we will praise him with moral worth. Since he performed the action out of self-interest, we do not assess the agent as praiseworthy. This shows that it is possible for an act to be supererogatory while not praiseworthy.
In this section, I have discussed the question of whether an act of supererogation needs to be praiseworthy and needs to involve altruistic intentions in order to be supererogatory. I have argued that acts can be supererogatory without being praiseworthy. In our assessment of supererogation, we should consider the meritorious character of it. An act is meritorious when it brings out good consequences and is done with the intention to do so. For an act to be praiseworthy, the assessment of the agent is involved as well. When the agent performs the act out of the right motivations, we can conclude the act was praiseworthy. When the agent lacks morally good motivations, we can still conclude the act performed was supererogatory, but not worthy of any praise. Second, I have argued that supererogatory acts do not need to be carried out by altruistic intentions. I have agreed on the assumption that the intentions are essential for an act being meritorious, and that only meritorious acts can be considered to be supererogatory. However, I do not agree that the intentions must be altruistic. I rather agree with Archer and argue that these intentions need to be moral. In other words, someone must have the intentions to bring out moral value. Last, I want to emphasize that I only suggest that these characteristics are not necessary conditions for supererogation. There probably will be cases of supererogation in which the performance of the act is indeed praiseworthy or in which the intentions of the agent are indeed altruistic. In short, these characteristics can be involved when it comes to supererogation, but they cannot be a necessary condition for it.
The Paradox of Supererogation
So far I have discussed what supererogation is, and what aspects of the definition can be challenged. With this settled, the paradox of supererogation can be solved. The paradox derives from the following basis. The near consensus features of the definition seem to contradict if we accept the following principle: “If an act is better supported by moral reasons than any alternative is, then it is morally obligatory” (Archer, 2017, p. 5). Archer calls this principle the good-ought tie up. The motivation for this claim is that what we ought to do morally speaking, should be determined by our evaluation of what is good, morally speaking. In other words, the deontic properties of an act ought to be determined by its evaluative properties (Archer, 2017, p. 5).
If we accept the PAC and the PC to be correct, then the following problem will arise. The PC classifies a supererogatory act as ‘permissible’ or ‘optional’, while the PAC suggests that the act has more moral reasons than any other alternative. This in itself is not directly problematic, but if we accept the good-ought tie-up principle, then the PAC does not allow for the PC to exist (Ferry, 2015, p. 51). This is what is known as the paradox of supererogation. A paradoxical concept will be useless for further analyzing. Therefore, this paradox must be solved before we can consider answering the question of whether the provision of citizenship rights is supererogatory or not. In this section, I will address three possible solutions for the paradox. I will start by addressing the ‘sacrifice view’ as described by several authors. Second, I will address ‘the favoring reason view’ as provided by Dreier (2004). Last, I will present what I will call ‘the accountability view’ provided by Michael Ferry (2015). Then, I will argue which of the three solutions is best for solving the paradox.
The Sacrifice View
First, let us consider the sacrifice view. What the morally optimal acts prevent from being morally obligatory, according to the sacrifice view, is the level of sacrifice that may be involved for the agent to perform the act. If the sacrifice is extensive enough, then it will be permissible for the agent to perform an act with lesser moral value (Archer, 2017, p. 6). This is an attractive solution for the paradox. It explains how acts of supererogation can possess the optimal amount of moral value, while still being permissible. Therefore, many authors have endorsed this view (Archer, 2017, p. 6).
Fishkin (1982) endorses this view as well. According to Fishkin, there are limits to the level of sacrifice that can be demanded as a matter of obligation and duty. Beyond that limit, an act is supererogatory. The sacrifice argument applies only to those actions that otherwise would be required (Fishkin, 1982, p. 14). When an action is not considered to be morally required, we cannot claim it to be beyond the call of duty the moment some sacrifice is involved. For this argument, a sacrifice is used as a
reversal or harm to an agent’s interest (Fishkin, 1982, p. 14). This also includes serious risks of sacrifice. There is, however, not a consistent level of sacrifice that will set limits to obligations. These limits may change for different kinds of acts and obligations. For some occasions, a greater sacrifice can be demanded, for example, when someone has consented with an obligation (Fishkin, 1982, p. 16). Last, Fishkin also considers the cumulative sacrifice as a legitimate limitation for obligations. In other words, the sacrifice view does not “distinguish the sacrifice of an individual act from the sacrifice produced by numerous acts” (Fishkin, 1982, p. 16).
Another author who can be considered to be an advocate for the sacrifice view is Samuel Scheffler (1994). Scheffler argues that the unrestricted responsibility for agents to produce the best possible outcome is objectionably demanding. One solution for this objection is to allow agents not to produce the optimal outcome when it is unduly costly or burdensome for them to do so (Scheffler, 1994, p. 20). Agents must be able to assign a proportionately greater weight to their own interests than to the interests of others. In that case, an agent must be able to choose the non-optimal outcome, as long as the degree of sacrifice is not exceeded by the degree of sacrifice necessary to promote the optimal outcome. If all the available non-optimal outcomes were ruled out on these grounds, then, and only then she would be required to promote the best overall outcome (Scheffler, 1994, p. 200).
The sacrifice view solves the paradox of supererogation by imposing limitations on the deontic term ‘obligation’. The supererogatory has the highest evaluative status, which would entail that its deontic status would be ‘obligatory’. The sacrifice view, however, makes an exception on this matter by saying that when a sacrifice is involved in performing the action with the highest evaluative status the deontic status ‘obligation’ does not follow automatically. Instead, the deontic status of the act will turn out to be permissible. This makes the involvement of a sacrifice a necessary condition for supererogation to exist if one is to accept the good-ought tie-up principle.
The Favoring Reasons View
James Dreier (2004) addresses another approach, which is known as the favoring reasons view. His solution for the paradox of supererogation is to suggest that when considering a supererogatory act, there might be other (non-moral) reasons competing with moral reasons. In other words, the moral reasons for supererogatory behavior suggest that one ought to perform the act, but there may be other reasons in play that weight in against it. Then, the difference between a supererogatory act and an obligatory act is that in case of the latter, the other (non-moral) reasons do not weight in heavy enough to consider the act as a non-duty. Thus, the weight of other (non-moral) reasons determines whether an act is considered supererogatory or obligatory (Dreier, 2004, p. 149).
Suppose you are riding a bus and as the doors are about to close, the hat of the lady sitting next to you blows out the window. You leap up and bound out to the street just as the doors close, sprint down the block to grab the hat, turn and race after the bus, catching it after four blocks as it stops at a traffic light, and hand the hat through the open window to its owner. (Dreier, 2004, p. 147) In this example, fetching the hat is a commendable action. From the moral point of view, one must perform this act. But the performance of this act is permissible because other reasons might be involved. When you are taking the bus to the airport to catch your flight, and you really cannot get out to fetch the without the certainty to be late for your flight, it is permissible to omit the supererogatory act. There are many more reasons one can come up with. Even if you are not fetching the hat simply because it is not your hat and therefore not your problem, it remains permissible to stay seated. In that case, the rational non-moral reasons come in play and weights in heavier than the moral reasons.
However, not fetching the hat would still be a moral failure. Although there are rational reasons to stay seated, morality demands us to go through all the trouble and fetch the hat. But is omitting the supererogatory act really a moral failure? According to Dreier, this is not the case. There might be at least two points of view to morally assess an action. One can assess an action in accordance with the virtue theory, and adopt the point of view of the beneficent agent. From this perspective, there is much to speak in favor of supererogation and nothing to speak against it. This point of view tells us what is better and what is worse and commands us to strive for perfection. Everything less than perfect is a moral failure. One can, however, adopt another point of view: the view of justice, for example. From the point of justice, there is not much that will speak in favor of supererogation. Performing acts of supererogation do not make the agent more just (Dreier, 2004, p. 149). This last perspective tells us what is wrong and demands us not to fall below this threshold.
This might offer a solution for the paradox of supererogation. Dreier argues that when one is considering the wrongness of not performing the supererogatory act, one might consider this from the perspective of justice, while one is considering what would be better, one might consider this from the perspective of the beneficent agent (Dreier, 2004, p. 149). From the point of justice, it would be permissible to omit the supererogatory action. However, from the point of the beneficent agent, the performance of the act does seem to have more moral worth.
One might ask then, how to adjudicate between those two perspectives? Dreier argues that one should not. We don’t need one distinct moral perspective. Indeed there must be some point of view from which one can consider all reasons together. But this point of view does not need to be moral. In other words, one can adopt several views of morality, which indicate that an action is better to do according to one view on morality and not wrong not to do on the other. One can eventually choose to rely on one of the moral perspectives that she is considering. This suggests that the paradox of supererogation is not a contradiction but rather a conflict of different moral perspectives. When justice weights in heavier than beneficence, we
can consider the act to be morally better but permissible. In that case, it is no moral failure to omit the act (Dreier, 2004, p. 150).
The Accountability View
A less straightforward solution to the paradox is the accountability view, as suggested by Michael Ferry (2015). He argues that this problem of supererogation arises for taking too narrow a view of the reasons that can influence an act its deontic status. In the current debate, authors tend to evaluate acts by the direct moral reasons involved. However, as Ferry argues, there are also reasons that govern the way in which people respond to the performance or non-performance of moral acts. These reasons govern the attitudes people express in response to moral acts. Attending to them will show that supererogatory acts are indeed a moral failure, but not a failure of obligation (Ferry, 2015, p. 49).
Ferry argues that we can distinguish between those acts that we ought to do and those acts that we are obliged to do. In principle, we are ought to do what brings out the most moral worth. However, the acts that bring out the most moral worth, and therefore the acts that we ought to do, can only become an obligation when we can be held accountable for omitting the act. If one cannot be held accountable, morality still demands us to perform the act, but the act will not be obligatory. In that case, the omission of the act is a failure of morality, but permissible to omit. Since supererogation considers those acts that bring out the best moral worth but are permissible, one must show that the supererogatory acts are those acts for which one cannot be held accountable. In that case, supererogation would be a failure of morality but not a failure of obligation.
Before I proceed I will address briefly what is meant with holding someone accountable. Ferry makes several different distinctions in his explanation. There is a distinction between 'finding' and 'holding', 'holding' and 'morally holding', 'responsible' and 'accountable' and last, 'normative' and 'predictive expectations'. I will address each of them briefly. We speak about 'finding' someone responsible when we believe someone is causally responsible for the act. When speaking about 'holding' someone responsible it involves relating to the agent as one who is morally responsible for the act (Ferry, 2015, p. 54). When speaking of 'morally responsible' more conditions have to be met then only believing in the causality between the agents and the act. The act must be morally significant, intentional and uncoerced (Ferry, 2015, p. 54). When speaking of 'responsibility', this can consist of a positive responsibility as well as a negative one. While speaking of 'accountability' someone owes an account in case of omission. There is a distinction between punitive sanctions as a way of holding someone accountable and other reactions to moral behavior that are not (Ferry, 2015, p 55). Last, there is a difference between normative and predictive expectations. We can expect someone to behave according to social norms or we can expect it to rain tomorrow. The former is a normative expectation for which someone can be held accountable when omitted (Ferry, 2015, p. 55).
So how can someone hold somebody else accountable? This is done through speech acts. When performing a speech act, there is more involved than just uttering words. A speech act has an illocutionary force (it asserts a belief) and it has perlocutionary effects (the listener may act in accordance with its asserted beliefs) (Austin, 1962). Speech acts are governed by norms. Some of those norms involved provide the speaker with the entitlement to perform the speech act. In fact, everyone has an entitlement to assert a true belief. However, when the assertion is followed by a demand - i.e. to have normative expectations - this will not be legitimate in every case. In contrast to the universal entitlement to assert a true belief, not everyone has the entitlement to make demands in accordance with the assertion of the speaker’s belief. The legitimacy to do this derives from a certain normative authority. Demanding normative expectations via a speech act commands the listener to behave in some way. By making the demand, the individual with the normative authority is placing the listener under the obligation to perform the act. If the listener will not fulfill the obligation, she can be held accountable for this failure by virtue of the normative authority that the speaker has (Ferry, 2015, pp. 56-57).
Who exactly does possess the normative authority? This depends on the norm in question and on the reasons one might have to enforce it. Some of the obligations that follow from the demands derive from the narrow social role that the speaker has. Other obligations, however, are more universal and can be enforced by members of the moral community (Ferry, 2015, p. 57). For example, a mother can put her child under an obligation by virtue of the normative authority that she has as a mother. In case of such a relation, the parent possesses the normative authority over her child by virtue of acting in this specific role. In that case, the demand is not backed by a pre-existing norm but rather by the social status of the speaker.
However, in the case of a mother beating her child, there is no specific authoritative social relationship needed between the mother and a member of the community to provide the latter with the normative authority to demand the mother to stop (Ferry, 2015, p. 57). In that case, the violation of a universal norm provides every single individual with the normative authority to put the violator under the obligation to stop. In the case of the mother beating her child, the speaker can place the mother under the obligation to stop by virtue of the norm that adults not ought to beat their children. The function of the demand, in this case, is to point out the pre-existing norm and its reasons, and to highlight that she has an obligation to respect the norm and will be held accountable when she will continue violating it (Ferry, 2015, p. 57).
In case of an obligation, there must at least be someone who has the entitlement to the normative authority that is needed to make a demand and have the normative expectation that the listener will follow this demand. If the listener omits the obligation, the speaker can hold the listener accountable for it. In case of a supererogatory act, there is no obligation. The supererogatory is permissible, which means that there is no one with the normative authority to put someone under the obligation to perform the supererogatory. When someone does indeed places someone else under the obligation to perform the supererogatory, this will be an illegitimate demand. Therefore, the speaker cannot hold the listener accountable (Ferry, 2015, p.
58). This means that only those acts that cannot be demanded by virtue a specific social position or by virtue of a universal norm can be supererogatory. For example, no one has the social authority, nor is there any universal norm, to commands me to run into a burning building and save the one inside. This means there will be no one that has the normative authority to make this demand and hold me accountable for it. Therefore the action will not be obligatory for me. However, despite there is no failure of obligation, the omission of saving the person inside the burning building would still be a failure of morality.
Which View is best?
Now the three different approaches to the paradox have been discussed, one might ask which of the solutions can best solve the paradox? I will start answering this question by criticizing each approach. Then, I will argue that, in my opinion, the favoring reasons view is the best one. First, I will start with the sacrifice view. What this view suggests is that the deontic properties must indeed be determined by the evaluative properties as long as there is no sacrifice involved in the performance of the act. So if an action brings out the best moral worth, and the agent performing the act does not have to make a sacrifice, this action must be obligatory. However, the moment there is a sacrifice involved in performing the act, the deontic properties might not be determined by the evaluative properties anymore. As I see it, the sacrifice view adds an extra condition on the definition of obligation: actions that bring out the most moral worth are obligatory, if, and only if there is no substantial sacrifice involved. I will call this extra condition the sacrifice-threshold. As long as the level of sacrifice is below the threshold, the deontic status of an act is determined by its evaluative status. The moment that the level of sacrifice is above the threshold, the deontic status will be permissible, no matter what the evaluative status is.
The problem with this view is that it can only partly solve the paradox. In other words, it can only solve those cases of supererogation in which the level of sacrifice is above the sacrifice-threshold. This will leave those cases of supererogation, in which the sacrifice level is below the threshold, unsolved. For example, when Jane decides to forgive Lisa after she had done some terrible wrong to Jane, there is no substantial sacrifice involved. However, the decision to forgive Lisa for her terrible deeds is in fact not obligatory, since Jane had every right not to forgive Lisa. However, to choose to forgive Lisa is the best evaluative alternative. In such cases, the sacrifice view cannot explain why the act is permissible and at the same time brings out the most moral worth.
The accountability view is, in my opinion, not completely satisfying as well. It claims that an act’s deontic status is not determined by its evaluative status, but by other conditions. An act can only become obligatory, the moment that one agent can hold another agent accountable for the performance. This means, that acts of supererogation are those acts that do indeed bring out the most moral worth but remain permissible due to the fact that there is no agent in the possession of the
normative authority to hold other agents accountable for the omission. However, this view also faces the problem that it can only partly solve the paradox. It accepts that the omission of the supererogatory is, in fact, a moral failure. Although morality does not dictate the deontic status of an action, it still demands us to carry out those acts with the best evaluative status. When the supererogatory is omitted it might not be a failure of obligation, but it is a failure of morality. I believe this is problematic since the core element of the concept ‘permissible’ is that there is no wrong done in case of omission, not even from a moral perspective.
Intuitively, there are examples of supererogatory actions that are not considered to be failures of morality. For example, when one of your colleagues is collecting €10 from every co-worker to buy a good-bye present for the boss, it is not obligatory to pay more than €10. Nevertheless, paying €20, instead of €10, will be more charitable and therefore morally better. However, no one can hold you accountable and oblige you to pay more than the €10. Therefore, ‘paying more’ can be considered to be an example of supererogation. Since no one can hold you accountable for paying more than €10, the accountability view would say that paying more is not a failure of obligation. However, since paying €10 is not the act that brings out the most moral worth, it is still a failure of morality.
But is not paying more than €10 truly a moral failure? In this situation, we can suppose that the higher the amount is that is donated, the more moral worth will be generated. If the only way to avoid moral failure is to perform the action with the best evaluative status, one must donate all her spare money. However, such a donation will make you more virtuous, this cannot be what morality demands of us. In other words, it simply cannot be that morality always demands us to bring out the most moral worth. Some actions must be permissible from a moral point of view as well. If I am right, and there are cases that are permissible from a moral point of view while generating the most moral worth, the accountability view cannot offer an explanation for its existence. If my argument were to be rejected, it would mean that we have to accept an extremely demanding sense of morality.
The third solution, the favoring reasons view, deals with the problems that the other solutions have to cope with. While the other two approaches can only partly solve the paradox, the favoring reasons view can solve the paradox for every case. This approach does not put another condition on the ‘obligation’. What this solution suggests is that we adjudicate between different moral perspectives. Virtue theory commands us to become perfectly virtuous agents. Therefore, one should perform those acts that have the best evaluative status. On the other hand, there is the theory of justice that commands us not to fall below a certain threshold. In other words, it commands us not to do the forbidden. When deciding what to do we might have an all –things considered view, but eventually, we have to choose what we might do according to one of these perspectives. Therefore an action can be considered the moral best alternative from a virtuous perspective, but the same action might be permissible instead of obligatory from a justice perspective. When the principles of justice weigh in heavier than the principles of virtue theory, we might decide that it is permissible to perform the act with the best evaluative status.
Because there is not a certain condition that is to be met, this approach can solve the paradox for every case of supererogation. Besides, it can also explain why it is not a moral failure when the supererogatory is omitted. However, there is one issue that this approach cannot explain. Why should the perspective of justice weigh in heavier than the perspective of virtue theory? I believe that the answer is in line with the point made in the previous paragraph. When virtue theory would weigh in heavier than justice, morality would become way too demanding. If this is the case, morality will lose a great deal of its value, I believe.
But even if this argument is to be rejected, this problem of the favoring reasons view is not necessarily a fundamental one. The problems that the other views show are in the outcome of the solution. All the arguments and assumptions of the other two solutions will lead to an unsatisfying conclusion. The problem of the favoring reasons view, however, lies not in the conclusion, but rather in one of its assumptions; the assumption that justice might weigh in heaver than virtue. One can probably easily overthrow this assumption. But just as easily as it can be overthrown, it can also be defended. A successful defense will at least provide us with a solution for the paradox that is applicable for every case of supererogation. Therefore, I believe, that despite the fact that the favoring reasons view is not flawless, it is the best solution at hand to overcome the problem that the paradox of supererogation generates.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have attempted to provide for a definition of supererogation and to solve the paradox it entails. First, I have addressed several ways of defining supererogation. There are two aspects of supererogation that are near consensus and seem to define the concept best. This includes the fact that supererogatory acts are morally better and morally optional, or to use Ferry’s approach: acts of supererogation must meet the permissibility condition and the preferred act condition. Acts that meet these conditions are considered to have the deontic status of permissibility and the evaluative status as better than any other alternative. Second, I have discussed the question of whether acts of supererogation need to be praiseworthy and need to involve altruistic intentions in order to become supererogatory. I have argued that acts can be supererogatory based on the act and the intention itself. This way of assessing actions will allow for supererogatory acts that are not worthy of praise. Second, I have argued that supererogation must involve meritorious actions. Indeed, the intentions of the agent are essential for moral merit. However, the notion of merit does not require the intentions to be altruistic. Last, I have addressed what is known as the paradox of supererogation. I have provided three different ways to approach this paradox. First, I have discussed the sacrifice view. Second, I have discussed the favoring reasons view. Last I have discussed the accountability view. However none of these solutions is
flawless, I do believe that the favoring reasons view is the best way to approach the paradox of supererogation in abstract terms.
II
Who to Naturalize?
One of the most common examples used in the discussion of naturalization is the migration of Turkish guest workers to Germany in the 1960s (Blake, 2002, Carens, 2013, Miller, 2008, Wellman, 2011). The guest workers were temporally employed to fill up job applications that the citizens of Germany back then did not want to, or could not, carry out. At first glance, this seemed to be a win-win for both parties. However, problems arose when the Turkish guest workers stayed for such an extensive period of time that their social life was primarily centered in their new host country. Especially newborn children, who were born and raised in Germany, did not have any strong connection to their parent’s country of origin. This raised the question: is the situation of the guest workers in Germany still on a temporary basis? If not, do these people deserve to become citizens of Germany at some point? This is the question of naturalization and it has become a prominent point of discussion within the debate of immigration.
There are many more examples to appoint beside the Turkish guest workers, and many different cases of immigrants to consider. In this chapter, my aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of this debate. With this overview in mind, I will differentiate between different groups of immigrants when it comes to naturalization. I will argue that in the case of irregular immigrants and voluntary immigrants it is not unjust to deprive them of access to citizenship. This argument will be vital for my further account, as I in the last chapter, will use these two cases to argue that for these specific groups the provision of citizenship rights is supererogatory.
I will start this chapter by addressing the problems that occur when considering naturalizing immigrants or not. I will address Michael Blake's (2003) view on the equation between moral equality and political equality. This shows why liberal theory is not sufficient to deal with questions of immigration. Then, I will address David Miller's (2008) view on equal citizenship and the conception of the nation-state as a self-determining political community. This will show what the problematic aspects are when considering naturalizing all immigrants. In the next section, I will address three arguments that will advocate for the immigrant’s claim to citizenship. I will present Joseph Carens' (2013) argument of democratic legitimacy and social membership. Next, I will present Christopher Wellman's (2011) argument on relational equality. Then, I will discuss a response to these arguments as presented by Michael Blake (2002). In the last section, I will address two cases of immigrants for whom it is not unjust to deprive them of citizenship rights according to David
Miller (2016) and Kieran Oberman (2017). The overall position I defend in this chapter will be that I agree for the most part on the arguments in favor of naturalization. However, I do agree with Blake, Miller and Oberman that not all immigrants can make a moral claim on citizenship.
The Complications of Liberal Theory and Immigration
At this point, liberal theory cannot deal adequately with concerns of immigration. This difficulty is two-fold. First, the liberal theory endorses the principle of moral equality for all persons who share a common humanity. This means that no person or group of persons can be arbitrarily excluded from the reach of justice (Blake, 2003, p. 225). Second, liberal theory is, for the most part, construed in the context of the nation-state. This means that the liberal theory is primarily concerned with the principles of justice for the hierarchical relation between political power and the community that creates such power. The combination of this has resulted in the fact that liberal theory condemns the arbitrary inequalities of treatment by the political institutions of the state. This is what Blake calls the framework of political egalitarianism (Blake, 2003, p. 225). But this only concerns principles to justify political power for those who are subject to the state’s institutions.
The difficulty arises when those principles have to be applied for agents who are not formally subject to same political institutions. Especially when an immigrant has managed to enter a state and live, legally or illegally, on its territory. This immigrant will inevitably become part of the political community, but lacks the same status as other agents in this community to be treated by the principles of political egalitarianism. But why should the state not just grant those immigrants the formal status of citizenship? The nation-state, as I see it, is construed to make a clear distinction between those who belong and those who do not. Some individuals do have rights and obligations in one state and some individuals in another. Nation-states are sovereign political entities and can determine, to some extent, whom to take into its community and who not.
With the state as a sovereign political entity and principles of political egalitarianism that only concerns those who belong, it is not clear how to treat agents that are not chosen to be part of the political community but nevertheless live on the state’s territory. In other words: it is difficult to formulate principles of justice for those who are not subjects of the state. Therefore, it is difficult to provide for a clear answer to what a state owes to immigrants.
So Blake's argument on political egalitarianism provides us with an explanation for the struggle with discussing matters of immigration. David Miller (2008) provides an explanation for why the solution of simply admitting immigrants is a hard one to accept. Miller seems to agree on Blake's notion of political egalitarianism, which he calls equal citizenship. This is the idea that every member of society must enjoy the same rights and responsibilities so that this community can
create one single status of citizenship. This is a one-class status, which no member of society can legitimately be excluded from (Miller, 2008, p. 375).
However, Miller identifies another aspect of this equality principle that makes the topic of immigration complicated. The principle of equal citizenship imposes a considerable demand on the public policy of the state. A state must, for example, make sure that all citizens have the same equal opportunities, can enjoy the same social rights and are motivated to take their responsibilities as a citizen seriously. So all inequalities of this sort, and more, among citizens are considered to be a problem and need to be addressed by state its policy. Ensuring the equality of these matters is something that is demanding for the receiving state (Miller, 2008, p. 375). However, the magnitude of such demands is not necessarily problematic. It is, and I tend to agree with Miller on this, that the number of immigration rise and the cultural backgrounds are more diverse. It makes sense to agree that ensuring equal civil, social en political rights to a growing number of immigrants with very different cultural backgrounds is a difficult task, which might become costly too. It is not my purpose to elaborate on this point of view in this thesis; I just tend to agree with it from a common-sense intuition.
A second consideration is the claim that the nation-state is the embodiment of a distinct set of cultural values and a national culture (Miller, 2008, p. 375). Partly, the legitimacy of the state derives from the promotion and protection of this distinct national culture and values. However, it turns out that this task becomes even more difficult as a result of the following reasons. This is for the first part the result of a growing global culture that makes the preservation of a distinct national culture a precarious task. Second, the task must be performed in a time where the classic nation-building techniques have been banned out by the principles of liberal theory. States are committed to tolerate the co-existence of different cultural groups within its boundaries. But what will the effect of immigration be in the preservation of the national culture? Since new immigrants will be the bearers of their own distinct culture, adopting them will raise the problem to which extent such individuals must be integrated into the national culture and to which extend their own cultural values must be tolerated. And on the other hand, to which extent a state can expect its own subjects to adapt to the new immigrants (Miller, 2008, p. 375-376). In any way, the influx of immigrants will cause a more diverse cultural mix within the boundaries of the state, which will eventually change the national culture in some way. If the state’s legitimacy derives, partly, from the preservation of the national culture, the legitimacy of the state is in jeopardy when taking in too many different immigrants in a short time.
In this section, I have attempted to show first, why liberal theory is not able to provide us with clear answers when it comes to naturalization. This is because the immigrants do have a claim to be treated as equal agents. However, they are not subjected to the state institutions, so they cannot make strong claims to be treated as equals from a political perspective. Second, I have attempted to show some possible challenges that states are facing when considering naturalizing immigrants. First naturalizing places considerable demands on the host society. Second, the
naturalization of immigrants makes the state’s task to preserve a distinct national culture more difficult.
Three Claims for Citizenship
Not to naturalize immigrants who live on the state’s territory seems to be illegitimate by virtue of the liberal principles. As discussed above, a second-class citizenry is considered to be unjust. However, what liberalism condemns is the allocation of different rights of citizenship to different members of the state (Blake, 2002, p. 276). What is far from obvious is the claim that non-citizens can make against a state. This section, I will turn to arguments that non-citizens might use to attain the status of citizenship. Joseph Carens (2013) is a strong advocate for the naturalization of immigrants and presented some of the most promising arguments. In this section, I will discuss both of them. Besides the arguments presented by Carens, Christopher Wellman (2011) presents another considerable argument, which I will discuss as well. The first argument rests on the principles of democratic legitimacy. A democratic government obtains its legitimacy by the fact that those who are subjected to it can use the electoral process to remain in control of the formation of political power. Citizens of a state have political rights, which allows them to elect government representatives that shape the law in conformation with the will of the majority. If individuals are subjected to the state's law but cannot participate in the electoral process, the state’s power is not legitimately democratic (Carens, 2013, p. 50). Therefore, to meet the demands for a legitimate democracy, every individual who is of age and is subjected to the state’s laws must have a say in the construction of those laws. In other words, access to citizenship for all individuals who are subjected to the state’s power is a necessary condition for a democracy to be legitimate (Carens, 2013, p. 50).
The second argument rests on the principle of relational equality offered by Wellman (2011). This concept suggests “that our principal equality related concern must be to avoid inequalities that leave people vulnerable to oppression, and doing this requires attending not just to the magnitude of any given inequality but also the relationship within which it occurs” (Wellman, 2011, p. 135). When considering inequalities, one must not only think of the differences on itself but must also explicitly consider how agents relate to each other and if this relationship is equal or not. When a family travels by plane, there is nothing wrong with the fact that some passengers travel by economy class while the family travels by business class. This, however, might become (intuitively) wrong when the father of the family travels by business class while the rest of the family travels by economy class. It is because of the relation between the family members that the unequal means of travel appears to be wrong. The same goes for citizens and non-citizens. There is nothing wrong with the fact that citizens living in state X do not possess citizenship rights in state Y. In that case, the citizen living in state X is not disadvantaged by the lack of citizenship
