Reconceiving Our Community: A Cosmopolitan Case for Open Borders

Abstract

In this thesis I present a cosmopolitan case for open borders. First, I examine the U.S. border policy of the last several decades and challenge its cost-effectiveness and impact on undocumented immigrants. Then I tackle the undergirding assumption of the U.S. border policy, namely, that the political state is morally entitled to control its borders, by examining the most prominent argument on either side of the debate. In light of this discussion, I challenge the legitimacy of the undergirding nation-state system in our world and argue for a more global conception of community and world-order through the cosmopolitan accounts of the ancient Stoics, Immanuel Kant, and Jürgen Habermas.