Philosopher Fernando Teson will present a talk based on his book, co-authored with Loren E. Lomasky (Cory Professor of Philosophy, University of Virginia), Justice at a Distance: Extending Freedom Globally.
The current global-justice literature starts from the premise that world poverty is the result of structural injustice mostly attributable to past and present actions of governments and citizens of rich countries. As a result, that literature recommends vast coercive transfers of wealth from rich to poor societies, alongside stronger national and international governance. Justice at a Distance, in contrast, argues that, with the exception of immigration restrictions, global injustice is largely home-grown by foreign leaders restricting their own people’s freedoms, and that these native restrictions to freedom lie at the root of poverty and stagnation. The book emphasizes free markets in goods, services, and labor as an ethical imperative, freeing people especially in impoverished countries to pursue their personal projects, and as the one institutional arrangement capable of alleviating poverty. Justice at a Distance is supported by a robust economic literature and covers poverty, trade, immigration (including the brain drain argument), the nature of states, war, and aid. The talk will focus mostly on the economic and moral argument for free trade and liberal immigration.
About the Speaker: Fernando Tesón, a native of Buenos Aires, is the Tobias Simon Eminent Scholar at Florida State University College of Law. He is known for his scholarship relating political philosophy to international law (in particular his defense of humanitarian intervention), political rhetoric, and global justice. He has authored Justice at a Distance: Extending Freedom Globally (Cambridge University Press, 2015) [with Loren Lomasky]; Rational Choice and Democratic Deliberation (Cambridge University Press 2006) [with Guido Pincione]; Humanitarian Intervention: An Inquiry into Law and Morality (3rd edition fully revised and updated, Transnational Publishers 2005); A Philosophy of International Law (Westview Press 1998); and dozens of articles in law, philosophy, and international relations journals and collections of essays. Before joining FSU in 2003 he taught for 17 years at Arizona State University. He has served as visiting professor at Cornell Law School, Indiana University School of Law, University of California Hastings College of Law, the Oxford-George Washington International Human Rights Program, and Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has dual U.S. and Argentine citizenship.
