Debating the Ethics of Immigration: Is There a Right to Exclude?

Do states have the right to prevent potential immigrants from crossing their borders, or should people have the freedom to migrate and settle wherever they wish? Christopher Heath Wellman and Phillip Cole develop and defend opposing answers to this timely and important question.

Christopher Heath Wellman is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis and Professorial Fellow at CAPPE, Charles Sturt University. He works in ethics, specializing in political and legal philosophy. His most recent book, coauthored with Andrew Altman, is A Liberal Theory of International Justice.

Phillip Cole is Professor of Applied Philosophy at the University of Wales, Newport. He has written extensively on the ethics of migration, including Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration. He is currently writing a book on the ethics of emigration.