Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

510--- --- ------------- ----Appendix IIstate, too, forms a concrete legal community that imposes specialobligations on its members. Economic immigrants, more thanasylum seekers, confront members of the European states with theproblem of whether one can justify the priority of special membership-basedduties over universal obligations that transcend stateboundaries. I will recapitulate this recent topic of philosophicaldiscussion in five steps.(a) Special obligations are owed by specific persons to other specificpersons who "are close" to them as "members," such as members ofone's own family, friends and neighbors, and fellow citizens ofone's political community or nation. Parents have special obligationstoward their children, and vice versa; consulates in foreigncountries have special obligations toward their own citizens in needof protection, and these in turn have obligations toward theinstitutions and laws of their own land. In this context, we thinkprimarily of positive duties, which are indeterminate insofar as theydemand acts of solidarity, care, and commitment in ways thatcannot be fixed in exact terms. One cannot reasonably expect thateveryone should provide help on every occasion. Special obligations,which arise from the fact that one belongs to particularcommunities, can be understood as socially ascribing, and subs tan-. tively specifying, such naturally indeterminate duties.Utilitarians have attempted to ground special duties in themutual benefit that members of a polity gain from one anotherthrough their reciprocal services. Even nations and states areconceived as such "mutual-benefit societies."21 According to thismodel, each member can expect that the long-term profit gainedthrough exchange relationships with the other members is proportionalto the services he himself contributes in his interactions withothers. On this basis, one can justify a reciprocity of special dutiesand rights, which prohibits, for example, the underprivileging ofguest workers. Of course, this model cannot ground any dutiestoward members who cannot contribute as much (e.g., the handicapped,the ill, and the elderly) or toward those in need of help(e.g., foreigners seeking asylum) . The instrumental ethnocentrismof reciprocal benefit expectations would suggest an immigrationpolicy that granted entry to foreigners only if there were reasonableprospects that they would not burden the existing balance of