Bradley Hillier-Smith | University of St Andrews (original) (raw)
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Papers by Bradley Hillier-Smith
Journal of Controversial Ideas, 2024
Rindermann et al.'s article concludes that certain refugees may have a lower IQ and as a result m... more Rindermann et al.'s article concludes that certain refugees may have a lower IQ and as a result may not provide as significant an economic contribution to host states compared to the average citizen, and so may be an economic cost. This commentary first casts doubt on this conclusion. It then, and most importantly, demonstrates that even if this conclusion were true, it would be irrelevant insofar as it would have no moral or legal significance in mitigating or defeating obligations towards refugees. The commentary shows that any normative view that IQ and economic contributions can mitigate or defeat obligations to provide protection has unacceptable implications. The commentary then demonstrates that legal and moral obligations to refugees are in no part contingent on IQ and economic contributions and to suppose otherwise would simply represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature, grounds, and weight of obligations towards refugees. Hence, supposed IQ or economic contributions are entirely irrelevant to, and cannot undermine the strength of, refugees' claims to protection nor states' obligations to provide it.
Routledge eBooks, Jun 17, 2024
Journal of Social Philosophy, Jul 21, 2022
Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, Jun 13, 2020
here are currently around twenty-six million refugees worldwide who have been displaced from thei... more here are currently around twenty-six million refugees worldwide who have been displaced from their countries of origin due to war, violence, and systematic human rights violations, and who seek adequate safety and security elsewhere.1 Almost unanimously, theorists working on moral obligations to refugees adopt what I term the Duty of Rescue Approach. This approach conceives of Western states as innocent bystanders overlooking the humanitarian crisis of global displacement as it unfolds, and holds that such states have a moral duty to help refugees if they can do so at little cost to themselves.2 However, this dominant theoretical approach is limited since it fails to here with the duty of rescue born by individuals in emergencies" (Miller, Strangers in Our Midst, 78); "States have an obligation to assist refugees when the costs of doing so are low" (Gibney, The Ethics and Politics of Asylum, 231). Carens suggests that we have a duty to admit refugees simply because "they have an urgent need for a safe place to live and we are in a position to provide it" (The Ethics of Immigration, 191). 3 James Souter is another important exception. Souter argues that Western states have stringent duties of reparation to refugees whom they have caused to be displaced through military intervention or through supporting repressive regimes; see "Towards a Theory of Asylum as Reparation for Past Injustice," 2.
Moral philosophy and politics, Apr 20, 2023
Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories... more Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories through harmful practices of border violence, detention, encampment and containment that serve to prevent and deter refugee arrivals. These practices are ostensibly justified through an appeal to a right to control borders. This paper therefore assesses whether these harmful practices can indeed be morally justified by a state's right to control borders. It analyses whether Christopher Heath Wellman's account of a state's right to freedom of association, which represents the most restrictive account of a state's right to control borders available in the literature, can extend to justify current harmful practices against refugees. If not, then no available justification will be able to do so, and thus contemporary harmful practices used against refugees cannot be justified by a state's right to control borders.
Moral Philosophy and Politics
Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories... more Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories through harmful practices of border violence, detention, encampment and containment that serve to prevent and deter refugee arrivals. These practices are ostensibly justified through an appeal to a right to control borders. This paper therefore assesses whether these harmful practices can indeed be morally justified by a state’s right to control borders. It analyses whether Christopher Heath Wellman’s account of a state’s right to freedom of association, which represents the most restrictive account of a state’s right to control borders available in the literature, can extend to justify current harmful practices against refugees. If not, then no available justification will be able to do so, and thus contemporary harmful practices used against refugees cannot be justified by a state’s right to control borders.
Moral Philosophy and Politics , 2023
Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories... more Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories through harmful practices of border violence, detention, encampment and containment that serve to prevent and deter refugee arrivals. These practices are ostensibly justified through an appeal to a right to control borders. This paper therefore assesses whether these harmful practices can indeed be morally justified by a state's right to control borders. It analyses whether Christopher Heath Wellman's account of a state's right to freedom of association, which represents the most restrictive account of a state's right to control borders available in the literature, can extend to justify current harmful practices against refugees. If not, then no available justification will be able to do so, and thus contemporary harmful practices used against refugees cannot be justified by a state's right to control borders.
Journal of Social Philosophy , 2022
The dominant philosophical approach to understanding the moral duties that states in the Global N... more The dominant philosophical approach to understanding the moral duties that states in the Global North have toward the 26 million refugees worldwide is what we can call the Duty of Rescue Approach. 1 According to this approach, states in the Global North (hereafter Northern states) are mere innocent bystanders overlooking the humanitarian crisis of refugee displacement unfold, and these states have moral duties to rescue refugees from this situation, at least if such states are able to do so at little cost to themselves. 2 Serena Parekh's recent normative analysis (2017, 2020) has sought to challenge this dominant approach. Parekh highlights certain Northern state policies and practices used in response to refugees while they are displaced and suggests that refugees endure extensive harms as result of such policies and practices, including the harms of containment and encampment, and their being prevented from accessing adequate refuge. These harms, Parekh argues, are an injustice. Thus, for Parekh, certain Northern states, far from being mere innocent bystanders, are responsible for injustice against refugees. In this article, I fully endorse Parekh's claims that refugees endure certain harms as a result of Northern state practices, and that such harms constitute an injustice against refugees. Yet, I will explore how we ought to understand this injustice. I contest Parekh's claim that the harms refugees endure as a result of Northern state practices are, and ought to be understood as, a structural injustice-an unfortunate, unintended unjust outcome resulting from structural processes (call this Parekh's Structural Injustice Approach). Instead, I contend that these harms are, and ought to be understood as, a direct injustice against refugees-an unjust outcome directly resulting from specific and avoidable policies enacted by relatively unconstrained actors (call this the Direct Injustice Approach). I argue that Parekh's Structural Injustice Approach fails to accurately capture the causal and normative relations between Northern state practices and the
Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy
Most theorists working on moral obligations to refugees conceive of western states as innocent by... more Most theorists working on moral obligations to refugees conceive of western states as innocent bystanders with duties to aid refugees if they can do so at little cost to themselves. This paper challenges this dominant theoretical framing of global displacement by highlighting for the first time certain practices of western states in response to refugee flows such as border violence, detention, encampment and containment which may make us question whether states who engage in such practices are indeed innocent. This paper provides the first normative analysis of these practices by seeking to classify them as either doing or allowing harm and invoking the fundamental moral imperative central to core common moral commitments - not to harm innocent people - to suggest that certain western states are not merely failing to aid refugees and allowing harm to come to them, but are instead responding to their calls for aid by harming them.
Journal of Controversial Ideas, 2024
Rindermann et al.'s article concludes that certain refugees may have a lower IQ and as a result m... more Rindermann et al.'s article concludes that certain refugees may have a lower IQ and as a result may not provide as significant an economic contribution to host states compared to the average citizen, and so may be an economic cost. This commentary first casts doubt on this conclusion. It then, and most importantly, demonstrates that even if this conclusion were true, it would be irrelevant insofar as it would have no moral or legal significance in mitigating or defeating obligations towards refugees. The commentary shows that any normative view that IQ and economic contributions can mitigate or defeat obligations to provide protection has unacceptable implications. The commentary then demonstrates that legal and moral obligations to refugees are in no part contingent on IQ and economic contributions and to suppose otherwise would simply represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature, grounds, and weight of obligations towards refugees. Hence, supposed IQ or economic contributions are entirely irrelevant to, and cannot undermine the strength of, refugees' claims to protection nor states' obligations to provide it.
Routledge eBooks, Jun 17, 2024
Journal of Social Philosophy, Jul 21, 2022
Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, Jun 13, 2020
here are currently around twenty-six million refugees worldwide who have been displaced from thei... more here are currently around twenty-six million refugees worldwide who have been displaced from their countries of origin due to war, violence, and systematic human rights violations, and who seek adequate safety and security elsewhere.1 Almost unanimously, theorists working on moral obligations to refugees adopt what I term the Duty of Rescue Approach. This approach conceives of Western states as innocent bystanders overlooking the humanitarian crisis of global displacement as it unfolds, and holds that such states have a moral duty to help refugees if they can do so at little cost to themselves.2 However, this dominant theoretical approach is limited since it fails to here with the duty of rescue born by individuals in emergencies" (Miller, Strangers in Our Midst, 78); "States have an obligation to assist refugees when the costs of doing so are low" (Gibney, The Ethics and Politics of Asylum, 231). Carens suggests that we have a duty to admit refugees simply because "they have an urgent need for a safe place to live and we are in a position to provide it" (The Ethics of Immigration, 191). 3 James Souter is another important exception. Souter argues that Western states have stringent duties of reparation to refugees whom they have caused to be displaced through military intervention or through supporting repressive regimes; see "Towards a Theory of Asylum as Reparation for Past Injustice," 2.
Moral philosophy and politics, Apr 20, 2023
Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories... more Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories through harmful practices of border violence, detention, encampment and containment that serve to prevent and deter refugee arrivals. These practices are ostensibly justified through an appeal to a right to control borders. This paper therefore assesses whether these harmful practices can indeed be morally justified by a state's right to control borders. It analyses whether Christopher Heath Wellman's account of a state's right to freedom of association, which represents the most restrictive account of a state's right to control borders available in the literature, can extend to justify current harmful practices against refugees. If not, then no available justification will be able to do so, and thus contemporary harmful practices used against refugees cannot be justified by a state's right to control borders.
Moral Philosophy and Politics
Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories... more Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories through harmful practices of border violence, detention, encampment and containment that serve to prevent and deter refugee arrivals. These practices are ostensibly justified through an appeal to a right to control borders. This paper therefore assesses whether these harmful practices can indeed be morally justified by a state’s right to control borders. It analyses whether Christopher Heath Wellman’s account of a state’s right to freedom of association, which represents the most restrictive account of a state’s right to control borders available in the literature, can extend to justify current harmful practices against refugees. If not, then no available justification will be able to do so, and thus contemporary harmful practices used against refugees cannot be justified by a state’s right to control borders.
Moral Philosophy and Politics , 2023
Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories... more Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories through harmful practices of border violence, detention, encampment and containment that serve to prevent and deter refugee arrivals. These practices are ostensibly justified through an appeal to a right to control borders. This paper therefore assesses whether these harmful practices can indeed be morally justified by a state's right to control borders. It analyses whether Christopher Heath Wellman's account of a state's right to freedom of association, which represents the most restrictive account of a state's right to control borders available in the literature, can extend to justify current harmful practices against refugees. If not, then no available justification will be able to do so, and thus contemporary harmful practices used against refugees cannot be justified by a state's right to control borders.
Journal of Social Philosophy , 2022
The dominant philosophical approach to understanding the moral duties that states in the Global N... more The dominant philosophical approach to understanding the moral duties that states in the Global North have toward the 26 million refugees worldwide is what we can call the Duty of Rescue Approach. 1 According to this approach, states in the Global North (hereafter Northern states) are mere innocent bystanders overlooking the humanitarian crisis of refugee displacement unfold, and these states have moral duties to rescue refugees from this situation, at least if such states are able to do so at little cost to themselves. 2 Serena Parekh's recent normative analysis (2017, 2020) has sought to challenge this dominant approach. Parekh highlights certain Northern state policies and practices used in response to refugees while they are displaced and suggests that refugees endure extensive harms as result of such policies and practices, including the harms of containment and encampment, and their being prevented from accessing adequate refuge. These harms, Parekh argues, are an injustice. Thus, for Parekh, certain Northern states, far from being mere innocent bystanders, are responsible for injustice against refugees. In this article, I fully endorse Parekh's claims that refugees endure certain harms as a result of Northern state practices, and that such harms constitute an injustice against refugees. Yet, I will explore how we ought to understand this injustice. I contest Parekh's claim that the harms refugees endure as a result of Northern state practices are, and ought to be understood as, a structural injustice-an unfortunate, unintended unjust outcome resulting from structural processes (call this Parekh's Structural Injustice Approach). Instead, I contend that these harms are, and ought to be understood as, a direct injustice against refugees-an unjust outcome directly resulting from specific and avoidable policies enacted by relatively unconstrained actors (call this the Direct Injustice Approach). I argue that Parekh's Structural Injustice Approach fails to accurately capture the causal and normative relations between Northern state practices and the
Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy
Most theorists working on moral obligations to refugees conceive of western states as innocent by... more Most theorists working on moral obligations to refugees conceive of western states as innocent bystanders with duties to aid refugees if they can do so at little cost to themselves. This paper challenges this dominant theoretical framing of global displacement by highlighting for the first time certain practices of western states in response to refugee flows such as border violence, detention, encampment and containment which may make us question whether states who engage in such practices are indeed innocent. This paper provides the first normative analysis of these practices by seeking to classify them as either doing or allowing harm and invoking the fundamental moral imperative central to core common moral commitments - not to harm innocent people - to suggest that certain western states are not merely failing to aid refugees and allowing harm to come to them, but are instead responding to their calls for aid by harming them.