I think you have the right idea by studying more before making up your mind about open borders and immigration. It’s really hard to evaluate moral solutions without knowing the facts of the matter, and unfortunately there is a lot of political spin on all sides.
In a situation of uncertainty, any utilitarian policy that requires great sacrifices is very risky: if the anticipated benefits don’t materialize, then the result turns into a horrible mess. The advantage of deontological ethics and rule/act utilitarianism is that they provide tighter rules for how to act under uncertainty, which decreases the chance of falling into some attractive, world-saving utilitarian scheme that backfires and hurts people: some sacrifices are just considered unacceptable.
Speaking of utilitarian schemes, British colonialism to the Muslim world would cause a lot of suffering, but so does current immigration policies that bring in Muslims. Why is one type of suffering acceptable, but another isn’t? Utilitarianism can have some really perverse consequences.
What if British-ruled Pakistan of 2050 was dramatically lower in crime, lower in violence towards women in both countries, and more peaceful, such that the violence of imposing that situation is offset? What if the status quo of immigration, or an open borders scenario would lead to a bloodier future that is more oppressive to women in both countries? What if assimilation and fixing immigrant isn’t feasible on an acceptable timescale, especially given that new immigrants are constantly streaming in and reinforcing their culture?
My point about British vs. Muslim rape survivors is about responsibility, not sympathy or worthiness as a human being. As a practical matter, people who live nearer each other and have shared cultural / community ties are better positioned to stop local crime and discourage criminals. Expecting them to use their local legal system to arrest imported criminals will stretch their resources to the point of failure, like we saw in Rotherham.
It’s both impractical and unfair to expect people to clean up other people’s messes. Moral responsibility and duty is a general moral principle that’s easy to translate into rule-utilitarianism. A moral requirement to bail out other people’s crime problems would mean there is no incentive for groups to fix their own crime problems.
Borders, rule of law, and nations are obviously important for utility, happiness, and preferences, or we wouldn’t have them (see ErikM’s comment also). Historically, any nation that didn’t defend its borders would have been invaded, destroyed, or had its population replaced from the inside.
Imagine we invited to LW hundreds of people from Reddit, Jezebel, and Stormfront to educate them. The result would not be pretty, and it wouldn’t make any of these communities happier. LW enforcing borders makes it possible for this place to exist and be productive. Same thing with national borders. If you cannot have a fence on your garden, then you cannot maintain gardens, and there is no incentive to make them. Which means that people cannot benefit from gardens.
Open borders are a terrible idea because they mix together people with different cultures and crime rates, causing conflicts that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Certain elements of civilization, like women being able to walk around wearing what they want, can only occur in low-crime societies.
Historically, despite some missteps, the West has been responsible for an immense amount of medicine, science, and foreign aid due to a particular civilization based on rule of law, low crime, high trust, and yes, borders. If the West had lacked those things, it would not have been able to contribute to humanity in the past. And if those things are destroyed by unselective immigration, then the West will turn into a place like Brazil, or worse, South Africa: a world of ethnic distrust, gated communities, fascist parties and women scared to travel alone in public. That doesn’t sound like a very happy place to me.
If you are hoping that the outcome of unselective immigration and open borders would be beneficial, then you would need some pretty strong evidence, because the consequences of being wrong are really scary. You would need to be looking at current events, historical precedents, population projections, crime trends, and a lot of other stuff. The early indicators are not looking good, like Rotherham-style gangs all over England, plus Sharia Patrols, and these events should result in updating of priors.
I think you have the right idea by studying more before making up your mind about open borders and immigration. It’s really hard to evaluate moral solutions without knowing the facts of the matter, and unfortunately there is a lot of political spin on all sides.
In a situation of uncertainty, any utilitarian policy that requires great sacrifices is very risky: if the anticipated benefits don’t materialize, then the result turns into a horrible mess. The advantage of deontological ethics and rule/act utilitarianism is that they provide tighter rules for how to act under uncertainty, which decreases the chance of falling into some attractive, world-saving utilitarian scheme that backfires and hurts people: some sacrifices are just considered unacceptable.
Speaking of utilitarian schemes, British colonialism to the Muslim world would cause a lot of suffering, but so does current immigration policies that bring in Muslims. Why is one type of suffering acceptable, but another isn’t? Utilitarianism can have some really perverse consequences.
What if British-ruled Pakistan of 2050 was dramatically lower in crime, lower in violence towards women in both countries, and more peaceful, such that the violence of imposing that situation is offset? What if the status quo of immigration, or an open borders scenario would lead to a bloodier future that is more oppressive to women in both countries? What if assimilation and fixing immigrant isn’t feasible on an acceptable timescale, especially given that new immigrants are constantly streaming in and reinforcing their culture?
My point about British vs. Muslim rape survivors is about responsibility, not sympathy or worthiness as a human being. As a practical matter, people who live nearer each other and have shared cultural / community ties are better positioned to stop local crime and discourage criminals. Expecting them to use their local legal system to arrest imported criminals will stretch their resources to the point of failure, like we saw in Rotherham.
It’s both impractical and unfair to expect people to clean up other people’s messes. Moral responsibility and duty is a general moral principle that’s easy to translate into rule-utilitarianism. A moral requirement to bail out other people’s crime problems would mean there is no incentive for groups to fix their own crime problems.
Borders, rule of law, and nations are obviously important for utility, happiness, and preferences, or we wouldn’t have them (see ErikM’s comment also). Historically, any nation that didn’t defend its borders would have been invaded, destroyed, or had its population replaced from the inside.
Imagine we invited to LW hundreds of people from Reddit, Jezebel, and Stormfront to educate them. The result would not be pretty, and it wouldn’t make any of these communities happier. LW enforcing borders makes it possible for this place to exist and be productive. Same thing with national borders. If you cannot have a fence on your garden, then you cannot maintain gardens, and there is no incentive to make them. Which means that people cannot benefit from gardens.
Open borders are a terrible idea because they mix together people with different cultures and crime rates, causing conflicts that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Certain elements of civilization, like women being able to walk around wearing what they want, can only occur in low-crime societies.
Historically, despite some missteps, the West has been responsible for an immense amount of medicine, science, and foreign aid due to a particular civilization based on rule of law, low crime, high trust, and yes, borders. If the West had lacked those things, it would not have been able to contribute to humanity in the past. And if those things are destroyed by unselective immigration, then the West will turn into a place like Brazil, or worse, South Africa: a world of ethnic distrust, gated communities, fascist parties and women scared to travel alone in public. That doesn’t sound like a very happy place to me.
If you are hoping that the outcome of unselective immigration and open borders would be beneficial, then you would need some pretty strong evidence, because the consequences of being wrong are really scary. You would need to be looking at current events, historical precedents, population projections, crime trends, and a lot of other stuff. The early indicators are not looking good, like Rotherham-style gangs all over England, plus Sharia Patrols, and these events should result in updating of priors.