If This Isn’t Racism, What Is? The Politics of the Philosophy of Immigration

Abstract

Alison Jaggar (2020) recommends a radical break with a dominant approach to the philosophy of immigration shared by both liberal cosmopolitans and liberal nationalists. This paper is intended as an exploration of Jaggar’s conclusions and as an attempt to carry them further. Building on her critique, I argue that the characteristic questions asked by both cosmopolitans and nationalists appear inappropriate when seen against the political reality of immigration. In the last part of the paper, I argue that liberal nationalist contributions in particular have problematized immigration and immigrants in ways not fundamentally different from those seen on the racist right.