Liberal Self-Determination and Immigration

Luara Ferracioli (University of Sydney)

In this essay, I aim to develop one of the building blocks of a complete liberal theory of immigration by defending an account of the state’s right to exclude which has the resources to explain what is wrong with discriminatory exclusion in the area of immigration—that is, exclusion on the basis of morally arbitrary features, such as gender and race. Like other liberal partialists, I appeal to a right to self-determination to justify a state’s right to exclude. But unlike these theorists, I do not appeal to the alleged psychological harm of insult. My focus is instead on the liberal aspect of self-determination and the surprising ways in which liberal principles constrain the state’s right to both include and exclude prospective new members.