Spinozian Ethics and Politics of Migration

This project uses the political philosophy of 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza to address key questions in the ethics of migration. I draw on Spinoza's ethical and political texts to construct a Spinozistic ethics of migration, building on his concepts of natural right, freedom, and toleration. I argue that Spinoza's concepts are flexible enough to form the basis of a theory of the rights and obligations of immigrants, a theory that moves beyond the current literature by grounding the right to migrate not in an abstract ideal of fairness, but in the imperative of the state to pursue peace.