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Intentional (Nation‐)States: A Group‐Agency Problem for the State’s Right to Exclude
Author(s) -
Joseph Matthew R.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/japp.12410
Subject(s) - agency (philosophy) , intentionality , denial , state (computer science) , normative , politics , group (periodic table) , political science , epistemology , law , sociology , psychology , philosophy , mathematics , psychoanalysis , chemistry , organic chemistry , algorithm
Most philosophical defences of the state’s right to exclude immigrants derive their strength from the normative importance of self‐determination. If nation‐states are taken to be the political institutions of a people, then the state’s right to exclude is the people’s right to exclude – and a denial of this right constitutes an abridgement of self‐determination. In this article, I argue that this view of self‐determination does not cohere with a group‐agency view of nation‐states. On the group‐agency view that I defend, a nation‐state is the kind of group‐agent that does not supervene on the intentionality of member/citizens. If we think that a nation‐state is an intentional group‐agent in its own right, then we should think that self‐determination resides with the institutions of the state rather than with the citizens. If nation‐states do not supervene on the intentionality of citizens, then it is unclear why citizens might have the right to control membership in the state as a feature of self‐determination.