For more evidence go to
Contention1.com
Debating Morality & Immigration
Debating Morality & Immigration
About This File
Introduction From The Coach
About The Author
Intro Readings on Moral Philosophy
Basic Moral Vocabulary
Two Main Sides
Consequentialism/Utilitarianism
Deontology/Categorical Imperative
Rawls & The “Veil of Ignorance”
Immigration Evidence
Pro
Restrictions Immoral**
Restrictions Bad – Global Commons
Restrictions Bad – Justice
Restrictions Bad – Freedom
Restrictions Bad – Con = Burden of Proof
Restrictions Bad – Human Rights
Restrictions Bad – Discrimination
Restrictions Bad – Jesus
Restrictions Bad – Racism
Restrictions Bad – Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance
A2: Right to Exclude (Wellman)
Con
Restrictions Good – Sovereignty
Restrictions Good – Association/Demos
Restrictions Good – Right to Exclude
Restrictions Good – Right to Stay
A2: Arbitrary
A2: Fairness
A2: Freedom
A2: Justice
A2: Poverty – Right to Stay
A2: Right To Stay = Expensive
General Morality Evidence
Consequentialism/Util Good
Consequentialism Good – Conflicting Values
Consequentialism Good – Global Problems
Consequentialism Good – Policy-Making
Consequentialism Inevitable
A2: Need Absolute Standards
A2: Good Intentions/Intervening Actors
Deontology Good
Deontology First
Deontology Good – Survival Focus Bad
Deontology Good – Comparative
Deontology Good – Ows Extinction
Deontology Good – Rights
Deontology Good – Morality
Util Bad – Equality
About This File
Introduction From The Coach
Debate often requires you to make arguments about the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, important and unimportant. In order to do so effectively, debaters have long been students of ethical and moral philosophy. Learning about the philosophers and ideas covered here will help you make better framework & impact arguments – on this and every other topic you may encounter.
This file is designed to help get you started in that direction.
The first section is some background reading designed to explain the most common vocabulary and concepts of moral philosophy in simple, everyday language. This section is completely general, but will be helpful information if you want to get the most out of the rest of the file.
The second section includes some topic-specificmorality evidence about the immigration topic.
As Yale Law Professor Peter H. Schuck has noted, morality is an especially potent part of debates about immigration:
(“The Morality of Immigration Policy,” Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository, January 1, 2008,
“There is something in us that likes to moralize about immigration, to view it as an activity as to which strong normative views, including feelings of right and wrong, not merely prudence or wisdom, are both natural and appropriate. This moralizing impulse in public policy assessment is hardly unique to immigration. Nor am I suggesting that moral considerations actually dominate immigration policy outcomes. In fact, the role of such arguments in any particular situation depends on many factors. Instead, I simply mean that moral claims are inevitably a part, and sometimes an important or even decisive part, of the lingua franca of immigration debates.”
As Professor Schuck explains later in his article, immigration policy is a topic of moral concern and strong feeling because it involves the competing interests of many different groups of people. He continues:
Immigration policy involves numerous actors and interests other than the immigrants themselves and their families: the local, regional, and national communities in the states of origin;8 the communities in the receiving states; the identity and ethos of these communities; the immigrants' competitors for jobs, space, social services, status goods, and so forth. The impacts on these groups are enormous at both the macro and micro levels. Some of these impacts are beneficial, some are detrimental, and some are both simultaneously. Judgments about benefit and detriment depend, among other things, on the units of analysis that the analyst employs and the distributive calculus for assessing those effects across those units. The evidence strongly suggests, for example, that immigration is, on balance, beneficial to the United States as a whole, yet makes some individual Americans-and immigrants-worse off, particularly at the lower socioeconomic levels. Because a serious consequentialist analysis shows that immigration's effects are vast, difficult to define, and perhaps impossible to measure, such an analysis is inevitably controversial and vulnerable to criticism, which further encourages critics of any particular position to aggressively join the debate. And when they do so, they are likely to employ moralistic arguments as well as fact-invoking, consequentialist ones. Such critics will use these moralistic arguments in order to exploit the empirical uncertainties and to draw on the persuasive power of claims that seem more disinterested and that appeal to our highest ideals and most elevated self-conceptions.
Moral questions about immigration policy are highly complex. Important points of reference center on some key questions:
1) The question of perspective. Often, immigration policy is debated at the national level. If this is the perspective, the question will often take the consequentialist form: “do our legal barriers help or harm our society?” However, such an approach may not be entirely appropriate. For one thing, this semester’s topic does not single out a specific country. Second, the question itself overlooks the that our legal barriers might have on human beings outside of our country.
2) The question of competing rights (entitled protections). There are many important rights that are common in debates about immigration (freedom of movement, freedom of national self-determination, freedom of individual self-determination).
3) The question of balancing rights with other important values, like safety and security. What’s more important: freedom or safety/security?
4) The question of concept vs. reality. Many of the rights and potential dangers that can come from immigration (terrorism, disease, etc) are considered at a theoretical level. In reality, some arguments are stronger than others. An important part of the debate will be working to match the moral theories up with the rest of the evidence in the debate.
To make things as clear as possible, we can start by saying there are some general schools of thought (2 pro, 1 con):
1)Legal barriers are wrong because they restrict freedom.
2)Legal barriers are wrong because they materially harm people (i.e. poverty).
3)Legal barriers are justified because communities have the political right to decide who does or does not join.
Consider the following diagram:
To this list, we might also add that the con can make a case that legal barriers bring material benefit to people inside and outside of a given country. So, we could thus say:
4)Legal barriers are justified because a world without restrictions would cause more suffering/violence than the status quo.
These moral arguments can definitely be complicated, but they are very very important questions to decide as you make a strategy for debating on this topic.
After the immigration-specific section, there are some cards to help you with the more general consequentialism vs. deontology debate. These cards will be helpful on this topic – and, not to be repetitive, virtually all other topics you can imagine.
As always, this file – and the evidence it contains – is a starting point. It would be impossible to represent all of the moral arguments within the debate about immigration – let alone try to cover the entire history of moral philosophy -- in this simple file. After reading through the file, I hope you will go out and do some additional research and exploration on your own!
In closing, let me quote another of the authors I read when researching this file. His advice is also my own:
AlexanderTabarrok, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, 2000
(“Economic and Moral Factors in Favor of Open Immigration,” Independent Institute,
Let me conclude with this thought. I understand the purpose of the talks over the next couple of days is to help you prepare for debates. In those debates, I understand, that regardless of your actual views some of you will take the pro-immigration side and others the anti-immigration side. That is fine and appropriate. Whichever side of the debate you speak on, however, I would ask you at the end to of the day to ask yourself where lies the Truth. And please remember that this debate involves the lives of real people, often desperately poor people who seek only to come to this country to make for themselves and their family a better life. I would ask you also to take morality seriously, and ask yourself by what right, by what moral theory is it justifiable to place heavily armed guards at the border to capture, imprison, and sometimes kill these people? If you do, I think you will find that no moral theory can justify such a monstrous social policy.
Good luck and happy debating,
Durkee
About The Author
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Intro Readings on Moral Philosophy
Basic Moral Vocabulary
Background reading:
Chapter 1: What is “Morality?,” A Free Introduction to Moral Philosophy by James W. Gray, Sept 6, 2010,
What does “morality” mean?
Morality involves what we ought to do, right and wrong, good and bad, values, justice, and virtues. Morality is taken to be important; moral actions are often taken to merit praise and rewards, and immoral actions are often taken to merit blame and punishment.
What we ought to do – What we morally ought to do is what's morally preferable. It's morally preferable to give to certain charities and to refrain from hurting people who make us angry; so we morally ought to do these things.
Sometimes what we ought to do isn't seen as “optional.” Instead, we often think we have moral duties (obligations). It might not be a moral duty to give to any charities, but it seems likely that we often have a duty not to hurt people.
Nonetheless, what we ought to do doesn't just cover our obligations. It's possible to do something morally preferable that's not wrong. For example, we can act “above the call of duty.” Some actions are heroic, such as when we risk our life to run into a burning building to save a child. Some philosophers call actions that are above the call of duty “supererogatory” rather than “obligatory.”
Right and wrong – Something is morally right if it's morally permissible, and morally wrong if it's morally impermissible. For example, it's morally right to help people and give to certain charities, but morally wrong to kill people indiscriminately.
Good and bad – “Good” and “bad” refer to positive and negative value. Something is morally good if it helps people attain something of positive value, avoid something of negative vale, or has a positive value that merits being a goal. For example, food is good because it is necessary to attain something of positive value because it helps us survive; and our survival could have positive value that merits being a goal. Something is morally bad if it makes it difficult to attain something of positive value, could lead to something of negative value, or has a negative value that merits avoidance. For example, starvation is bad because it could lead to suffering; and suffering could have negative value that warrants its avoidance.
Something has “instrumental moral value” if it is relevant to achieving moral goals. Food is instrumentally good because it helps us achieve our goal to survive; and starvation is instrumentally bad when we have a goal to avoid suffering, and starvation makes it more difficult for us to achieve this goal.
We take some of our goals to be worthy as “moral goals” for their own sake rather than being instrumental for the sake of something else. These goals could be taken to be worthy for having positive value (or help us avoid something of negative value)—what Aristotle calls “final ends” or what other philosophers call “intrinsic values.”
Imagine that someone asks you why you have a job and you say it's to make money. We can then ask why you want to make money and you can reply that it's to buy food. We can then ask why you want to buy food, and you can reply that it's to survive. At this point you might not have a reason to want to survive other than valuing your existence for its own sake. If not, then we will wonder if you are wasting your time with a job. All of our goals must be justified at some point by something taken to be worthy as a goal for its own sake, or its not clear that any of our goals are really justified.
Final ends – Final ends are goals that we think are worthy. Pleasure, survival, and knowledge are possible examples of goods that should be taken to be promoted as final ends. Some final ends are also meant to help us avoid something of negative value, such as our goals to avoid pain and death. The goals of attaining these goods are “final ends.” It is possible that final ends are merely things we desire “for their own sake” but some final ends could be better and of greater importance than others. Aristotle thought that our “most final end” or “ultimate end” is happiness and no other good could override the importance of happiness. Final ends seem relevant to right and wrong. It seems morally right to try to achieve our final ends because they are worthy. All things equal, it seems morally right to try to attain happiness and survive.
Intrinsic values – Intrinsic values are things of positive or negative value that have that value just for existing, and some philosophers think Aristotle's truly worthy final ends have intrinsic value. The main difference here is that final ends could merely be psychological—what we take to be worthy goals, but a goal has intrinsic value only if it really is worthy. Some people might have “final ends” but actually be wrong about what goals are worthy of being final ends. We can desire intrinsic values “for their own sake,” many think it's rational to often try to attain things that are intrinsically good, and whatever is intrinsically good is good no matter who attains it. For example, if human life is intrinsically good, then survival is good for every person. Intrinsic value plays the same role as final ends—we think it's often morally right to try to achieve goals that help people attain intrinsic goods and we morally ought to do so. However, intrinsic values can conflict. If pain is intrinsically bad, that doesn't mean we should never allow ourselves or others to experience pain because there might be intrinsic goods that can be attained as a result of our pain. For example, homework and learning is often painful, but the knowledge attained can help us live better lives and could even be intrinsically good for its own sake.
Justice – Justice refers to our interest in certain ethical issues such as equality, fairness, and merit. It is unjust to have slavery or to have different laws for different racial groups because people should be equal before the law, it's unfair, and racial groups don't merit unequal treatment before the law. It is just to punish all people who break the law equally rather than let certain people—such as the wealthy—break certain laws that other people aren't allowed to break. Additionally, it's unjust to punish the innocent and to find the innocent guilty in a court of law.
Virtues – Some people are better at being moral than others. It's important that we know the difference between right and wrong, attain the skills necessary to reach demanding moral goals, and find the motivation to do what is morally preferable. For example, courage is a virtue that involves knowledge of right and wrong, skills, and motivation. Courage requires us to endanger our personal well being when doing so is morally preferable, to have skills that make it possible to endanger our personal well being in many situations, and to have the motivation to be willing to endanger our well being when we ought to do so.
Praise and blame – We often think that moral behavior merits praise and immoral behavior merits blame. It often seems appropriate to tell people who have done good deeds, such as saving lives, that we appreciate it and that what they are doing is good; and it often seems appropriate to tell people who have done something immoral that we don't appreciate it and that they did something morally wrong. Additionally, it generally seems appropriate to hold people responsible for their actions and let them know that their actions could have been different.
Reward and punishment – One way to hold people responsible for their actions is to reward and punish them for their behavior, and this often seems appropriate. We could give gifts or return favors to people who help us, and break our friendship or ignore those who do something immoral. For example, a company that scams people should be held responsible and punished by consumers who decide to no longer do business with that company. Sometimes punishments could be severe and could seem immoral in any other context. For example, it might be morally justified to throw murderers in prison even though it would be an immoral example of kidnapping and imprisonment in many other contexts. We can't just throw anyone in prison that we want.