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The Seeley Lectures
The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens
This book explores the tension between universal principles of human rights and the self-determination claims of sovereign states as they affect the claims of refugees, asylum-seekers and immigrants. Drawing on the work of Kant's "cosmopolitan doctrine" and positions developed by Hannah Arendt, Seyla Benhabib explores how the topic has been analyzed within the larger history of political thought. She argues that many of the issues raised in abstract debate between universalism and multiculturalism can find acceptable solutions in practice.
266 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
13 people are currently reading
633 people want to read
About the author
Seyla Benhabib
67 books80 followersSeyla Benhabib is a Turkish Jewish professor of political science and philosophy at Yale, and director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a well-known contemporary philosopher. She previously taught in the departments of philosophy at Boston University, SUNY Stony Brook, the New School for Social Research, and the Department of Government at Harvard University.
She is the author of several books, most notably about the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas. She has also worked with many important philosophers and scholars, including Herbert Marcuse. Benhabib is well known for combining critical theory with feminist theory.
She is the author of several books, most notably about the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas. She has also worked with many important philosophers and scholars, including Herbert Marcuse. Benhabib is well known for combining critical theory with feminist theory.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 2, 2015
This is a particularly interesting book to read at the moment, given Australia’s rejection (in deed, if not in word) of international conventions on the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
Benhabib’s argument is situated in the history of philosophy and she provides various moral considerations on the issue surrounding how one might treat ‘the other’. She tracks this from Kant, through Arendt and Rawls, and then to her own view of the moral imperative – although all remains on much the same ground Kant would recognise. She has a very cosmopolitan view of the rights of others, but we should start, as she does, with Kant.
Kant’s work as a philosopher, in large part, involved seeking ways to prepare the ground upon which we can decide if ‘philosophy’ itself is even possible. If we lack the adequate equipment for the task – as, say, presumably dogs lack this ability – then we would be best advised to leave philosophy alone, in much the same way dogs tend to. This has lead to a lot of criticism of his work. Hegel, for instance, says that Kant wanted to understand if people could swim before they even got into the water, for instance.
All the same, and as a case in point, Kant wrote his Critic of Pure Reason essentially to answer the question ‘to what extent are the human faculties up to the task of understanding the world?’ Like I said, he didn’t muck around and liked to think about the biggest of the big questions of philosophy.
One of Kant’s major contributions is in the area of moral philosophy and the contribution he made was mainly with the book ‘Groundwork for a Metaphysic of Morals’. The question being, how can I know I am acting morally? His answer (he actually gives a three part answer, though he says each is equivalent to the other) is very similar to the golden rule – do onto others as you would have them do unto you. It is a bit more complicated than that, he was a philosopher, a bit more complicated is mandatory, but that gives a flavour if nothing else.
He also wrote a pamphlet called Perpetual Peace in which he asked how nations should respond to each other – particularly in ways that facilitate their peaceful co-existence. His answer was pretty much an application of the golden rule to international relations – treat other nations as ends, rather than means to your own ends.
He also recognised that from time to time, on a planet with limited space, we were likely to be confronted by strangers that want/need to come onto our land – either to pass through or even to stay. So, what is the moral way of dealing with such people?
To Kant the answer was that nations have an obligation to treat such people with hospitality. As Benhabib stresses (and in fact, quotes Kant himself on this point) hospitality is an odd word to be using in this context. It being something we would normally associate with giving people a cup of tea, rather than how to go about treating refugees. But Kant’s point is that people have a right to life, and while a nation has no obligation to allow such people to enter their territory so as to stay forever, Kant felt that for our actions to be moral, which, as I’ve said, essentially means treating others as we would like to be treated if we were in their circumstances, then treating the stranger with hospitality is called for.
There is much more detail to this argument – not least on the limits to this hospitality and the various ways that such hospitality can be manifest – such as helping to address the reasons why these people have had to leave their homeland in the first place and therefore overcome the need for your direct hospitality.
Kant lived at a time when the Westphalian nation state was forming (there was a treaty of Westphalia that established that the prince of a territory was in control of that territory and essentially this treaty brought about the modern notion of a nation state – that is, nations are formed around bounded areas of land and that the people within those boundaries owe their allegiance to their prince). Western colonial expansion was also underway at the time. It is hardly surprising then that Kant might say it was the obligation of nations to welcome the stranger, while somewhat overlooking the fact that Westerners were likely to be the stranger and that these Westerners were also likely to be the advance party doing reconnaissance to eventually take from you everything you own.
Arendt was from quite a different time to Kant, and spent time after the Second World War as a stateless person. Our idea of ‘nations’ is much more recent than we often acknowledge and there has probably never been a time when there was a completely consistent ‘nation’ as both bounded landmass and well-contained ‘ethnos’. Europe, for instance, has always had its Gypsies, Travelling People, Jews: that is, its outsiders. They have often both been and not been part of the ‘nation’ in the general popular understanding and in their own consciousness. Hitler stressed, for instance, that the reason why Jews were so much trouble was that they were a people without a nation. This was, in fact, his major claim against them.
The 20th century, with its various ethnic cleansings, has complicated the notion of what is a nation and how they should respond to the other – the formation of Turkey, the expansion of Nazi Germany and so on, all created massive dislocation of populations of people deemed as not belong to various ‘nations’, despite these people’s having lived in the areas for longer than living memory. The end of World War Two saw an enormous number of ‘displaced persons’. Many of them with literally no way to ‘return’ to their previous homelands, and quite possibly also with effectively nowhere to return to even if they could go. As such, these people called into question much of the premise of the Westphalian state – or, at least, called into question how such a state might respond to such people.
Benhabib’s criticism of Rawls is mostly that his view remains very much ‘nation’ centric. That is, he does not really acknowledge a couple of things that ought to be very obvious in today’s world. The first is that there is a massive relocation of human populations and that these relocations are not going to stop any time soon. In fact, climate change and endless wars are likely to accelerate this movement of people beyond our comprehension. Regardless of what the future holds, what we are already witnessing makes the nation state difficult to sustain as a kind of ever-fixed entity. One has only to buy an atlas from the 1970s…
Globalisation, the free movement of certain people, goods and money, simply doesn’t extend to poor people. However, Benhabib’s concern is that rather than our moral responsibility being exhausted by offering hospitality and then encouraging people to move on – we need to acknowledge our responsibility for the situations these people find themselves in. As a case in point, Australia was more than happy to join the Coalition of the Willing and to bomb Iraq. After Australian troops were withdrawn our foreign aid support to Iraq dropped to zero – that is, we cut spending down to nothing. In such a circumstance, and regardless of the fact that we entered the war on a lie, it seems reasonable (and perhaps even moral) to ask is it really possible to argue that we have no responsibility for the refugees fleeing the circumstances we did so much to help to create? The truly sickening twist in this story is that now that ISIL is in control of large swathes of territory there we are able to find billion dollars a year to bomb Iraq again.
There is an interesting discussion in this on how a democracy ought to respond to the strangers in their midst. When can the stranger be allowed to become a citizen? To what extent is a sovereign people required to allow the stranger rights? When, for instance, are they entitled to vote? What rights do they have to have rights? This book is, in the main, a modern day application of Kant’s categorical imperative to the rights of the stranger given the degenerating nature of the nation state. In an age where we are too keen to build walls to keep the stranger out – both physical or metaphorical walls – our basic humanity is at risk.
This book begins as I will end, with a quote from the Immigrant Workers’ Freedom Ride 2003: ‘No human is illegal’.
Benhabib’s argument is situated in the history of philosophy and she provides various moral considerations on the issue surrounding how one might treat ‘the other’. She tracks this from Kant, through Arendt and Rawls, and then to her own view of the moral imperative – although all remains on much the same ground Kant would recognise. She has a very cosmopolitan view of the rights of others, but we should start, as she does, with Kant.
Kant’s work as a philosopher, in large part, involved seeking ways to prepare the ground upon which we can decide if ‘philosophy’ itself is even possible. If we lack the adequate equipment for the task – as, say, presumably dogs lack this ability – then we would be best advised to leave philosophy alone, in much the same way dogs tend to. This has lead to a lot of criticism of his work. Hegel, for instance, says that Kant wanted to understand if people could swim before they even got into the water, for instance.
All the same, and as a case in point, Kant wrote his Critic of Pure Reason essentially to answer the question ‘to what extent are the human faculties up to the task of understanding the world?’ Like I said, he didn’t muck around and liked to think about the biggest of the big questions of philosophy.
One of Kant’s major contributions is in the area of moral philosophy and the contribution he made was mainly with the book ‘Groundwork for a Metaphysic of Morals’. The question being, how can I know I am acting morally? His answer (he actually gives a three part answer, though he says each is equivalent to the other) is very similar to the golden rule – do onto others as you would have them do unto you. It is a bit more complicated than that, he was a philosopher, a bit more complicated is mandatory, but that gives a flavour if nothing else.
He also wrote a pamphlet called Perpetual Peace in which he asked how nations should respond to each other – particularly in ways that facilitate their peaceful co-existence. His answer was pretty much an application of the golden rule to international relations – treat other nations as ends, rather than means to your own ends.
He also recognised that from time to time, on a planet with limited space, we were likely to be confronted by strangers that want/need to come onto our land – either to pass through or even to stay. So, what is the moral way of dealing with such people?
To Kant the answer was that nations have an obligation to treat such people with hospitality. As Benhabib stresses (and in fact, quotes Kant himself on this point) hospitality is an odd word to be using in this context. It being something we would normally associate with giving people a cup of tea, rather than how to go about treating refugees. But Kant’s point is that people have a right to life, and while a nation has no obligation to allow such people to enter their territory so as to stay forever, Kant felt that for our actions to be moral, which, as I’ve said, essentially means treating others as we would like to be treated if we were in their circumstances, then treating the stranger with hospitality is called for.
There is much more detail to this argument – not least on the limits to this hospitality and the various ways that such hospitality can be manifest – such as helping to address the reasons why these people have had to leave their homeland in the first place and therefore overcome the need for your direct hospitality.
Kant lived at a time when the Westphalian nation state was forming (there was a treaty of Westphalia that established that the prince of a territory was in control of that territory and essentially this treaty brought about the modern notion of a nation state – that is, nations are formed around bounded areas of land and that the people within those boundaries owe their allegiance to their prince). Western colonial expansion was also underway at the time. It is hardly surprising then that Kant might say it was the obligation of nations to welcome the stranger, while somewhat overlooking the fact that Westerners were likely to be the stranger and that these Westerners were also likely to be the advance party doing reconnaissance to eventually take from you everything you own.
Arendt was from quite a different time to Kant, and spent time after the Second World War as a stateless person. Our idea of ‘nations’ is much more recent than we often acknowledge and there has probably never been a time when there was a completely consistent ‘nation’ as both bounded landmass and well-contained ‘ethnos’. Europe, for instance, has always had its Gypsies, Travelling People, Jews: that is, its outsiders. They have often both been and not been part of the ‘nation’ in the general popular understanding and in their own consciousness. Hitler stressed, for instance, that the reason why Jews were so much trouble was that they were a people without a nation. This was, in fact, his major claim against them.
The 20th century, with its various ethnic cleansings, has complicated the notion of what is a nation and how they should respond to the other – the formation of Turkey, the expansion of Nazi Germany and so on, all created massive dislocation of populations of people deemed as not belong to various ‘nations’, despite these people’s having lived in the areas for longer than living memory. The end of World War Two saw an enormous number of ‘displaced persons’. Many of them with literally no way to ‘return’ to their previous homelands, and quite possibly also with effectively nowhere to return to even if they could go. As such, these people called into question much of the premise of the Westphalian state – or, at least, called into question how such a state might respond to such people.
Benhabib’s criticism of Rawls is mostly that his view remains very much ‘nation’ centric. That is, he does not really acknowledge a couple of things that ought to be very obvious in today’s world. The first is that there is a massive relocation of human populations and that these relocations are not going to stop any time soon. In fact, climate change and endless wars are likely to accelerate this movement of people beyond our comprehension. Regardless of what the future holds, what we are already witnessing makes the nation state difficult to sustain as a kind of ever-fixed entity. One has only to buy an atlas from the 1970s…
Globalisation, the free movement of certain people, goods and money, simply doesn’t extend to poor people. However, Benhabib’s concern is that rather than our moral responsibility being exhausted by offering hospitality and then encouraging people to move on – we need to acknowledge our responsibility for the situations these people find themselves in. As a case in point, Australia was more than happy to join the Coalition of the Willing and to bomb Iraq. After Australian troops were withdrawn our foreign aid support to Iraq dropped to zero – that is, we cut spending down to nothing. In such a circumstance, and regardless of the fact that we entered the war on a lie, it seems reasonable (and perhaps even moral) to ask is it really possible to argue that we have no responsibility for the refugees fleeing the circumstances we did so much to help to create? The truly sickening twist in this story is that now that ISIL is in control of large swathes of territory there we are able to find billion dollars a year to bomb Iraq again.
There is an interesting discussion in this on how a democracy ought to respond to the strangers in their midst. When can the stranger be allowed to become a citizen? To what extent is a sovereign people required to allow the stranger rights? When, for instance, are they entitled to vote? What rights do they have to have rights? This book is, in the main, a modern day application of Kant’s categorical imperative to the rights of the stranger given the degenerating nature of the nation state. In an age where we are too keen to build walls to keep the stranger out – both physical or metaphorical walls – our basic humanity is at risk.
This book begins as I will end, with a quote from the Immigrant Workers’ Freedom Ride 2003: ‘No human is illegal’.
February 25, 2022
I read this book in the most elegant library I have ever been to in my life. They would not lend it to you so I went over almost every day and read it there; and to be honest, if I had bought it, I would have dropped it in the middle! Not because it was bad but because it was a very difficult reading and took a lot of wrestling. It included analysis of some theories, and theorists, that I know very little about but then I grappled with it and I made through it. It draws on Kant, Arendt, Rawls, and Walzer, and discusses the ideas and notions determine the conditions of citizenship and the way a society must interact with it. It then goes over to some more concrete examples, including the data from the European Union and some controversial citizenship cases in France and Germany to make its case.
Now, the book is written in 2005, which means it does not face the debates that went around citizenship, asylum and refuge since the Arab Spring, Brexit, and Trump but it is a wonderfully thought book. I had read two articles years ago by Benhabib and I am gonna read more by her. Also, the book provides really good insights about where to go next!
Now, the book is written in 2005, which means it does not face the debates that went around citizenship, asylum and refuge since the Arab Spring, Brexit, and Trump but it is a wonderfully thought book. I had read two articles years ago by Benhabib and I am gonna read more by her. Also, the book provides really good insights about where to go next!
January 13, 2019
[review unfinished]
In this book, Benhabib outlines a series of normative arguments concerning citizenship and immigration from the perspective of discourse ethics. The book is equal parts brilliant and frustrating. Uncommonly amongst cosmopolitan theorists, Benhabib stresses the value and significance of democracy and provides sharp criticism of a seeming tendency of cosmopolitans to ignore or undermine (whether deliberately or otherwise) democracy and the democratic process itself. This is very welcome. Similarly, she offers convincing criticism of Rawls's own more communitarian approach to citizenship and migration as well cosmopolitan Rawlsians seeking to resolve the issues of immigration and citizenship within a global original position and to confine these issues to the domain of distributive justice.
The book is frustrating in that it can seem a little hodge-podge at times, and one wishes Benhabib would more fully outline what she takes to be cosmopolitan in her argument. Her claims are centred around a defence of a discourse-theoretical understanding of democracy, where democracy is meant to mediate between and contextual universal human rights and particular interests, understandings and contexts, but one gets the sense that the abstract level of discussion overlooks crucial counter-points, like how human rights are supposed to do this when they are in fact contested themselves. Similarly, Benhabib is a little to quick to dismiss the case for open borders as simply undemocratic. This seems to miss the point that the likes of Carens and others are trying to make, which is about the goal that should be aimed for. These need not be undemocratic, and can simply be a means to engage in democratic debate about the kinds of border controls a state may have. This is, however, a minor quibble as this seems to be compatible with Benhabib's vision.
Benhabib uses her discourse theoretical approach to resolve tensions between Kant's claim that outsiders are owed a duty of hospitality, but that naturalisation, the right to stay and to become a citizen in the republic is to be determined according to sovereign prerogative - a 'contract of beneficence', as well as to resolve a similar tension in Arendt's work on 'the right to have rights' being ultimately dependent on being a citizen of a state. The book culminates in a defense of a Kantian vision of 'cosmopolitan federalism' which ultimately goes further than Kant's own vision. The core of cosmopolitan federalism seems to be that first admissions are ultimately to be determined by the demos, refugees and asylees are to be granted admittance, that states must provide a clear path to citizenship and representation, and that the boundaries of the demos are to be continually reinterpreted through a series of democratic iterations moving from the particular to the universal while arguing that it is illegitimate to understand the demos as constituted by the ethnos. In this sense, the book is critical of many state practices concerning immigration and citizenship and ultimately seeks to move beyond the nation-state toward a more republican vision of the states and membership.
In this book, Benhabib outlines a series of normative arguments concerning citizenship and immigration from the perspective of discourse ethics. The book is equal parts brilliant and frustrating. Uncommonly amongst cosmopolitan theorists, Benhabib stresses the value and significance of democracy and provides sharp criticism of a seeming tendency of cosmopolitans to ignore or undermine (whether deliberately or otherwise) democracy and the democratic process itself. This is very welcome. Similarly, she offers convincing criticism of Rawls's own more communitarian approach to citizenship and migration as well cosmopolitan Rawlsians seeking to resolve the issues of immigration and citizenship within a global original position and to confine these issues to the domain of distributive justice.
The book is frustrating in that it can seem a little hodge-podge at times, and one wishes Benhabib would more fully outline what she takes to be cosmopolitan in her argument. Her claims are centred around a defence of a discourse-theoretical understanding of democracy, where democracy is meant to mediate between and contextual universal human rights and particular interests, understandings and contexts, but one gets the sense that the abstract level of discussion overlooks crucial counter-points, like how human rights are supposed to do this when they are in fact contested themselves. Similarly, Benhabib is a little to quick to dismiss the case for open borders as simply undemocratic. This seems to miss the point that the likes of Carens and others are trying to make, which is about the goal that should be aimed for. These need not be undemocratic, and can simply be a means to engage in democratic debate about the kinds of border controls a state may have. This is, however, a minor quibble as this seems to be compatible with Benhabib's vision.
Benhabib uses her discourse theoretical approach to resolve tensions between Kant's claim that outsiders are owed a duty of hospitality, but that naturalisation, the right to stay and to become a citizen in the republic is to be determined according to sovereign prerogative - a 'contract of beneficence', as well as to resolve a similar tension in Arendt's work on 'the right to have rights' being ultimately dependent on being a citizen of a state. The book culminates in a defense of a Kantian vision of 'cosmopolitan federalism' which ultimately goes further than Kant's own vision. The core of cosmopolitan federalism seems to be that first admissions are ultimately to be determined by the demos, refugees and asylees are to be granted admittance, that states must provide a clear path to citizenship and representation, and that the boundaries of the demos are to be continually reinterpreted through a series of democratic iterations moving from the particular to the universal while arguing that it is illegitimate to understand the demos as constituted by the ethnos. In this sense, the book is critical of many state practices concerning immigration and citizenship and ultimately seeks to move beyond the nation-state toward a more republican vision of the states and membership.
January 18, 2017
I'm biased--I think Benhabib is one of the most fascinating thinkers working today. In this one, she gets into the roots of political liberalism, excavating the work of Kant, Arendt, and Rawls en route to showing the compatibility between commitment to a particular place, and what she calls "cosmopolitan citizenship", a concept she takes from Kant, with modification. The upshot here is that we recognize the claims of refugees and immigrants as intrinsic to the place in which they live, as co-rational beings who require the respect accorded to being human.
From a theologian's point of view, the move to speak of religion as a form of culture gets religion into the conversation about public goods, but has the effect of bifurcation between theology and ethics, in a move also indebted to Kant. She's not as bad as Rawls on this point, who has no space for a religion that doesn't speak a public language and play the game of the most thin public reasons (as opposed to thick confessional reasons for living and acting), but she still carries that liability--that the best cosmopolitan culture is one rooted in discourse.
That aside, it's great. Just go read her.
From a theologian's point of view, the move to speak of religion as a form of culture gets religion into the conversation about public goods, but has the effect of bifurcation between theology and ethics, in a move also indebted to Kant. She's not as bad as Rawls on this point, who has no space for a religion that doesn't speak a public language and play the game of the most thin public reasons (as opposed to thick confessional reasons for living and acting), but she still carries that liability--that the best cosmopolitan culture is one rooted in discourse.
That aside, it's great. Just go read her.
September 5, 2012
Benhabib engages with traditional Western liberal thinkers to articulate a moderate cosmopolitan position from the perspective of democratic discourse ethics. Although she is at times incisive, notably in her critique of Rawls, at other times her arguments are rather weak. For instance, her misreading of Walzer makes it clear that she refuses to acknowledge that neither democracy nor human rights are culturally neutral or objectively universal. In several places, she forgoes the opportunity to challenge (and even re-inscribes the legitimacy of) the system of global capitalism which is an integral structural component of the inequalities and migratory patterns she is concerned about.
May 14, 2015
The majority of this text is Benhabib clearing a rhetorical and critical space. I found myself marveling that she needed to do all that legwork in order to simply make the point that the right to belong permanently can indeed be legally, logically and morally conceived as a human right, inherent and valuable. Her method to achieve this goal, after proving its universality, involves "democratic iterations." In other words, people in a republic discussing tensions between the in-crowd and the new folks so that they can eventually become more inclusive.
Nicely argued, not terribly mind-blowing.
Nicely argued, not terribly mind-blowing.
November 21, 2016
If you're looking for a philosophical take on immigration, this is the book for you. I'm not super philosophical, so I'm still not entirely sure I understood it in its totality, but the parts I did understand (once I reread them at least three times), were quite cool!
If analyzing Kant and Rawls and Arendt in order to address the interplay between universal human rights claims and state sovereignty brings your soul delight upon delights, then check this book out.
If analyzing Kant and Rawls and Arendt in order to address the interplay between universal human rights claims and state sovereignty brings your soul delight upon delights, then check this book out.
April 11, 2021
Benhabib makes an important argument for decoupling rights of immigrants from citizenship status and for naturalisation procedures being put on a more morally justifiable position. While her arguments questioning whether it is possible to assuage the moral debts owed to those from developing states through redistribution are weak, the rest of the volume is very cogent and correctly chews out the nationalism into which Rawls and Walzer lapse.
September 15, 2021
At times the book is a bit "philosophical", meaning that a bit of background about political philosophy is required in order to fully understand the reading (I was not very familiar with Rawls). Nevertheless, the writing of the author is really clear and illustrates magnificently the paradox between the universality claim of human rights and the practical limits democratic sovereignty in the contemporary world.
Highly recommended if you are interested in the subject!
Highly recommended if you are interested in the subject!
July 15, 2024
Spends a lot of time trying to justify how you're able to justify things, which feels pointless because the reader then in theory can just disagree with that premise and invalidate the entire argument, when the author could've just made their argument. Otherwise a good book about the cosmopolitan nature of human rights and citizenship and the difficult basis of said issues
March 13, 2022
Es una lectura urgente para quienes legislan y es una lectura importante para quienes se preocupan por la filosofía del derecho.
July 19, 2007
Seyla Benhabib! I wish I had an extra $75 to buy this book.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews