This post was prompted by a news item from the Los Angeles Times: “46 people believed to be migrants found dead in Texas tractor-trailer.”
Be it by land or water (the number of the latter being far more numerous than the former), these deaths are not accidents, unavoidable, or some senseless misfortune (leaving aside forced migration during war for now, which is a special case). They are a predictable result of inhumane, cruel, and unnecessary immigration policies. With the ecological and economic havoc caused by global warming, the migratory results of which we are already witnessing, matters will only worsen. We should not turn a blind eye, put our heads in the sand, or indulge in deliberate denial, however tempting during such troubled times as ours, when the scale and scope of our environmental, political, and economic problems can feel daunting if not overwhelming. These are our fellow human beings who want many of the things that most of us need and desire, first and foremost to live a life that reflects a commitment from those who possess the requisite influence and power to demonstrate a principled and practical concern for their welfare and well-being, to recognize their right to life, to show fundamental respect for one of the historical aims of Liberalism: meaningful individual and collective responses to universal human dignity, the inherent dignity of human beings. Consider, for example, the following from Allen Buchanan:
“Whether or not the notion that the international legal human rights system is grounded in and serves to affirm the inherent dignity of humans is a central feature of the system [I happen to believe it is an axiomatic presupposition of the system], it is surely at least a desideratum for a justification of the system that it can make sense of this notion given its prominence. [….] [T]he relevant notion of dignity can be understood to include two aspects. First, there is the idea that certain conditions of living are beneath the dignity of the sort of being that humans are. [….] Let us call this first aspect of dignity the well-being threshold aspect. The second aspect of dignity is the interpersonal comparative aspect, the idea that treating people with dignity also requires a public affirmation of the basic equal status of all and, again, that if they are not treated in this way they suffer an injury or wrong. [….] The well-being threshold aspect of dignity concerns whether one is doing well enough for a being of the sort one is; it makes no reference to how one is treated vis-à-vis others. The interpersonal comparative aspect has to do with whether one is being treated as an inferior relative to other people. The point is that one’s dignity can be respected in the well-being threshold aspect and yet may be compromised in the interpersonal comparative aspect.” — From Buchanan’s The Heart of Human Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013): 99-100.
Some Relevant Bibliographies
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