Section Days abstract book 2010.indd - RUB Research School ...

TWO PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES OF THE MORAL
SIGNIFICANCE OF STATE BORDERS
Thomas Weitner
Fakultät für Philologie; Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany
e-mail: thomas.weitner@rub.de
Most people, especially politicians, attach great moral weight to state boundaries. Concerning
issues of economic, foreign or immigration policy, it is taken for granted that the interests of
our compatriots take priority in comparison to the interests of foreigners. Following this
maxim, foreigners are excluded from the territory of a state, the scope of social security
systems like health care and unemployment insurance is limited to fellow countrymen and the
right to vote is denied to non-citizens, to name only a few examples.
Philosophers usually invoke two conflicting theories in order to justify the moral significance
of state borders and the priority for compatriots, respectively. The theory of instrumental
value says, that state borders carry moral weight only in a derivative sense. According to this
approach, the state-system, ideally conceived, is a better means to protect the basic human
rights of every person globally than any other political system (e.g. a world state). All special
duties to compatriots can therefore be reduced to general moral duties, which we owe in
principle to anyone in the world. On the other hand the theory of intrinsic value argues, that
the relationship between the members of a state is of moral importance. Since we do not share
this relationship with foreigners, there are special duties to fellow citizens, which are not
reducible to general duties.
I try to resolve the dispute between the two views by demonstrating, that neither of them is
sufficient to give us a plausible justification of the moral significance of state borders by
itself. While the theory of instrumental value is well-suited in the field of human rights, the
theory of intrinsic value is more useful when it comes to the field of justice. Therefore, both
of them have to be combined, in order to yield a robust philosophical theory, which can
justify at least some degree of national partiality.