3.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter and the previous one both advance the argument for the Priority of Disadvantage Principle (just immigration policies may not avoidably harm social groups that are already unjustly disadvantaged) by subjecting competing views to critique. Chapter 2 examined approaches to immigration justice that are nationalist, by which I mean that they are premised on the idea that states should favor the interests of their own citizens over those of foreigners in their immigration policy choices. This chapter's concern is for cosmopolitan approaches to immigration justice.

Cosmopolitan approaches to immigration justice share with nationalist approaches the feature of being substantive moral positions. That is, both cosmopolitan and nationalist approaches hold that universal principles of justice constrain states' selection of immigration policies. The difference between cosmopolitan approaches and nationalist approaches is in the content of the universal principles of justice that each holds delimit states' moral discretion to choose immigration policies. In contrast to nationalist approaches, cosmopolitan approaches to immigration justice maintain that states may not favor the interests of citizens over those of foreigners in the selection of immigration policies. From a cosmopolitan perspective, a person's nationality is morally irrelevant in itself.

In this chapter, I distinguish between two major types of cosmopolitan approaches in terms of their substantive policy recommendations: inclusive and exclusive. The most well known cosmopolitan approaches to immigration justice have been of the inclusive variety, holding that states should eliminate entirely or mostly restrictions on immigration.