ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the ways that contemporary philosophers have tried to grapple with the moral issues connected to refugees and the ways that philosophers have understood our moral obligations to refugees. Seyla Benhabib, Joseph Carens, and Matthew Gibney take a much broader approach and argue for much more extensive obligations to refugees. Benhabib argues that we have robust moral obligations to non-citizens, including refugees, who want to become members of our polities. While Christopher Wellman makes a compelling case for the right of states to exclude refugees for asylum and resettlement, his analysis fails to acknowledge the current global reality of mass displacement and the result that some country or countries cannot exercise the right to freedom of association. The model of disaggregated citizenship would help us to overcome what Aleinikoff calls the “membership bias” on the part of Western states, the assumption that what refugees want most is membership in a new state.
