From the Borders of Normativity to the Normativity of Borders: Outline of the Conditions for a Realist Case for Free Movement

This thesis addresses three central questions. The first is: how should one approach ethics of immigration? My answer to this question involves arguing that a key - perhaps the key - element underpinning differences amongst approaches is the underlying account of practical normativity. Thus, a way of developing a fruitful approach involves exploring debates on practical normativity. The second question becomes how should practical normativity be understood? In answer to second question, I argue that practical normativity should be understood in a Humean fashion: practical normativity is underpinned by desires. I specify this further by defending Bernard Williams's reasons internalism. I argue that reasons internalism, in spite of much criticism, is a robust and accurate account of the way practical normativity works. This leads to the third and final question: how could reasons internalism inform political ethics and the problem of first-admissions in the ethics of immigration? In answer to this last question, I argue that reasons internalism should make us sceptical of cosmopolitanism, but it also gives reason to be sceptical of Rawlsian statism and similar moralising and legalistic approaches to political ethics. Given this, I characterise an internalist political theory as a form of political realism. I then develop an internationalist and internalist approach to political ethics by drawing on insights from the tradition of political realism, Rousseau scholarship, and virtue ethics. I argue that this approach need not undermine the case for free movement, for which several attractive arguments have been put forward by thinkers from a range of different traditions. Rather, it constrains the way the case should be made, lending much-needed direction and clarity to the case for free movement and suggesting a way for defenders to move the case beyond a primary focus on moral or ethical argument. The thesis culminates by outlining the conditions for a realist case for free movement in the form of five guiding principles for free movement advocates.