The Ethics of Refugee Policy. By Christina Boswell.

Abstract

The aim of this book is to find a satisfactory philosophical framework within which to ground the duties on western states to assist refugees. In Chapters 1 to 5, Boswell reviews a number of established frameworks, from utilitarianism to social contract theory, and finds them all unsatisfactory. Her dissatisfaction stems largely from her criticisms of liberal universalism, the overarching family to which they belong. Liberal universalists perceive ethical principles to be external to the values of existing societies. In its purest form, liberal universalism demands moral impartiality between individuals, so that each person must give equal weight to the claims of others irrespective of whether they are specially related to them. When applied to the question of duties to refugees, Boswell contends that liberal universalism makes very high, potentially infeasible, demands of western states, as it calls on them to expand their assistance to refugees enormously, when they are already reluctant to meet their current obligations. It demands that western states do more, but fails to say how these states can become motivated to do more. When western states refuse to live up to its high ideals, liberal universalism can only condemn them as selfish. Such condemnation, Boswell argues, bolsters the impression of a conflict between national interests and ethical duty and, in her view, this plays into the hands of those who oppose further assistance to refugees.