Abstract

This paper argues, against Kant, that the universal human rights of individuals in migration situations cannot be adequately respected (let alone protected) when select political and legal rights are not extended to them. Migration situations upset fairly entrenched principles of global justice. Nonetheless, the paper takes the position that some recognizably ‘Kantian’ cosmopolitan points of view are a promising corrective for deficits in Kant’s own theory. The first part of the essay introduces readers to the basics of Kant’s conception of hospitality in the context of his cosmopolitan political philosophy, and then provides a brief explanation of Seyla Benhabib’s criticisms of Kant’s theory. While evolving contexts and unforeseen developments can superannuate many prescriptions in classical philosophical texts, Benhabib’s critique is much deeper, arguing that by disaggregating permanent membership from the political rights of citizenship, the right to hospitality embodies the ‘paradox’ of democratic legitimation. Part two shows how contemporary philosophical analyses of global justice based on Kantian considerations (specifically John Rawls) manage to replicate Kant’s error. The third and fourth parts of the essay describe how some other Kantians (Benhabib and James Bohman) sidestep these mistakes by challenging some basic presuppositions pervasive in thinking about global justice. Such innovations theorize moral-political principles that any adequately hospitable civil regime must attend to concerning migration situations. These latter contributions indicate how features of the lived experience of migrants may create new ‘associative’ moral obligations within states, and explain how the absence of ‘transnational’ political rights exposes migrants to domination.