Decolonizing Anglo-American political philosophy:
The case of migration justice

Alison Jaggar (Birmingham)

Abstract

International migration is increasing not only in absolute terms but also as a percentage of the global population. In 2019, international migrants comprised 3.5 percent of the global population, compared to 2.8 percent in the year 2000. Over the past two decades, a philosophical literature has emerged to investigate what justice requires with respect to these vast migrant flows. My article criticizes much of this philosophical work. Building on the work of Charles Mills (2015), I argue that the terms in which many Anglo-American philosophers presently debate migration justice neglect and even obscure consideration of the ways in which current migration flows may be shaped by Euro-American colonialism and neo-colonialism. Such exclusions produce systematic biases in much of our philosophical literature. To develop less biased understandings of migration justice, I propose that Anglo-American philosophers should revise our methods and our conceptual frameworks to enable exploring the possible extent and ethical implications of colonial and neo-colonial influence. This is one part of the much larger task of decolonizing our political philosophy.

Biography

Alison M. Jaggar is College Professor of Distinction in the Departments of Philosophy and of Women and Gender Studies and a faculty associate in Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. She is also a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Birmingham, UK and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the 1970s, Jaggar was a pioneer in feminist philosophy and a founder of the discipline of critical gender studies. She is the author and editor of many articles and books and is recipient of many awards and fellowships. She has been primary investigator in a project to develop a metric capable of revealing the gendered dimensions of global poverty. Her recent work on gender and global justice disrupts neo-colonial, gendered and racialized assumptions about transnational divisions of labor and migration. Currently, Jaggar is working on a co-authored book tentatively titled Undisciplining Moral Epistemology: Justifying Moral Claims in a Diverse and Unequal World.

The inaugural address and symposia for the Joint Session are published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, which is published digitally and in hardcover every June. The Supplementary Volume is sent to subscribing members of the Society in categories 4 and 5.

Members in other categories can purchase the hardcover Supplementary Volume from the Online Shop. Volumes will also be available at the registration desk during the conference.

Subscriptions to the Supplementary Volume also includes online access via Wiley Online Library (please note that one-off purchases of the hardcover volume do not include membership or online access).

Learn more about the Supplementary Volume, including info on how to subscribe to the 2019 edition.

Latest Release: View the abstracts and full papers for the 2018 Supplementary Volume XCII