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President's Dream Colloquium on Justice Beyond National Boundaries
Do Fellow Citizens Have Special Obligations to One Another?
Watch the Recorded Web Stream
Recorded on January 17, 2013
About the Lecture
It is commonly thought that compatriots have special responsibilities of distributive justice to one another. More specifically, while justice requires that we respond to absolute poverty wherever it occurs, many believe that relative poverty creates duties of justice only (or at least
especially) when it occurs among fellow citizens.
In this paper, I survey the most prominent arguments in defense of this standard claim. After
suggesting that there are good grounds for retaining this view, I argue that they cannot justify anything like the status quo. Finally, I consider the implications of these theoretical reflections for the more concrete issue of contemporary immigration policy.
Lecture Topics
About the Speaker
Kit Wellman is the Chair and a Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. His most recent writing is concerned with the social and political philosophy of immigration, borders and human rights.