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THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE IS NOT ILLUMINATED BY THOSE, LIKE PERELMAN, WHO THINK THAT ONLY A FORMAL DEFINITION OF JUSTICE CAN BE GIVEN, OR BY THOSE, LIKE THE UTILITARIANS AND RAULS, WHO PROPOSE A SINGLE CRITERION FOR RESOLVING DISPUTES ABOUT JUSTICE. THIS ARTICLE DELINEATES THREE FUNDAMENTAL AND CONFLICTING INTERPRETATIONS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE.

States claim to have authority over prospective immigrants who have not yet been admitted but are nonetheless expected to comply with immigration law. But what could ground such an authority claim? The service conception of authority defended by Raz appears not to apply in this case. Nor can it be argued that immigrants give their consent to the state by applying for admission. Another approach appeals to the practice of reciprocity between states in respecting each other's immigration regimes, but many immigrants will fall outside of its scope. Instead, the article defends the view that the natural duty of justice requires immigrants to comply with the state's immigration regime provided that it is reasonably just. This does not require that the immigrant herself should have authorised the regime through democratic participation. However, the natural duty argument has to be qualified by recognising that some migrants can legitimately appeal to necessity as grounds for breaching the duty and entering unauthorised.

Avner de-Shalit wants cities to have their own immigration policies. On a radical reading, this would transfer control over immigrant admissions from states to cities. But can cities choose the immigrants they prefer on economic or cultural grounds, or does this discriminate unfairly against those judged to be less desirable? I argue that de-Shalit fails to apply the luck egalitarian principle consistently when discussing immigrant admissions. I also claim that there is a tension between seeing cities as the bearers of distinct cultural ethoses, and therefore as bulwarks against the homogenising effects of globalization, and disbarring them from carrying out culturally selective immigration policies. De-Shalit's own preferred model of the immigrant-friendly city – Amsterdam – appears to lack any distinct ethos, other than an ethos of welcome and cultural blending. Moreover, democratic states also have a legitimate interest in controlling immigration. They must be concerned about the consequences for social justice of admitting migrants and the political effects that follow when the migrants become citizens themselves. They must also consider the environmental impacts of population growth. Cities should play a major role in integrating immigrants, but not in admitting them.

After briefly sketching the history of liberal nationalism, the chapter distinguishes the weaker thesis that liberalism and nationalism are compatible from the stronger thesis that liberalism needs national identification in order to survive. The weaker thesis can be attacked on the grounds that liberals must be cosmopolitans, but a stronger challenge points to the discriminatory effects that national identities may have for minority groups. There will be some matters over which a collective decision must be reached, and here the majority's view must prevail. Taking the case of religion, the chapter points out that the state cannot avoid engaging with religious questions, since it has to legislate on religious matters and it is compatible with liberal principles to give some degree of precedence to the established religion, provided civil and political rights are equally protected, and other religions are accorded respect. Because national identities are not monolithic, the liberal nationalist conception of a shared identity that is accessible to everyone, including immigrants and other minorities, remains coherent.

The democratic boundary problem arises because it appears that the units within which democratic decision procedures will operate cannot themselves be constituted democratically. The study argues that setting the boundaries of democracy involves attending simultaneously to three variables: domain (where and to whom do decisions apply), constituency (who is entitled to be included in the deciding body) and scope (which issues should be on the decision agenda). Most of the existing literature has focussed narrowly on the constituency question, endorsing either the All‐Affected Interests Principle or the All Subjected Principle, but neither is satisfactory as a general solution. In particular, the former fails to explain why having interests at stake in a decision necessarily gives you the right to participate in making it, and the latter, although more plausible on that count, assumes that the domain and scope issues have already been settled. To make progress, we need to bring democratic values to bear on the boundary problem. The units we favour should be those that are likely to promote political equality and solidarity among members of the demos. Although this approach will often justify existing territorial states as sites of democracy, it can also generate arguments for making boundary changes along one or other dimension.

The chapter critically examines three strategies used to defend a human right to immigrate, understood as a universal right to cross and remain within state borders. The direct strategy looks for essential interests that could ground such a right, but the interests requiring migration are specific to particular persons rather than generic. Instrumental arguments try unsuccessfully to present the right to migrate as necessary to safeguard other human rights. The cantilever strategy holds that it is inconsistent to recognize a domestic right of free movement while denying the corresponding international right. But an extensive domestic right of free movement is necessary to protect citizens from specific threats posed by the state, which are not replicated at international level. Finally three reasons why states and their citizens may have a legitimate interest in controlling immigration are advanced: population size, cultural integrity, and the composition of the citizen body itself.

Solidarity among members of a social group must be distinguished from solidarity with outsiders. It has four main components: 1) distinguishing features that bind members together; 2) mutual concern and mutual aid within the group; 3) acknowledgement of collective responsibility; 4) limits on inequality among members. Solidarity is primarily valuable for its instrumental effects: protecting vulnerable members, constraining inequality, and fostering social trust. Five alternative explanations of society-wide solidarity are examined. The expanding circle theory envisages solidarity spreading outwards from small groups as commonalities with outsiders are recognized. The interdependence theory sees solidarity emerging as people recognize their dependence on one other for survival and well-being. The associational theory finds the source of social solidarity in active participation in social and political associations. The identity theory highlights the motivational effects of common identities, especially national identity. Finally, the institutional theory claims that solidarity is created by exposure to impartial institutions.

Although Griffin's personhood account of human rights and my human needs account are similar in certain respects, this chapter criticizes Griffin for locating human rights within ethical reasoning rather than political argument; for justifying these rights by appeal to a narrowly liberal understanding of human agency; and for failing to establish their upper limits in an appropriate way. A need account begins with the human form of life as made up of activities that are reiterated across societies, and understands human needs as conditions that must be fulfilled to be able to engage in these activities at a minimally decent level. It justifies the set of rights that best enable all agents to fulfil their needs. The chapter defends this view against Griffin's charge that needs are insufficiently determinate to ground human rights, and explain how conflicts of rights can be avoided by taking this approach.

This article reviews the recent debate on realism in political theory (including the articles in this symposium) and examines its implications for global political theory. It distinguishes two versions of realism – contrasted, respectively, with political utopianism and political moralism – and argues that the second of these realisms fails to be sufficiently realistic by the standards of the first. In particular, it exaggerates the extent of political disagreement within domestic societies and underestimates the unifying force of national identities. In international relations, by contrast, disagreement over values runs deeper, and the pursuit of national interest remains a serious obstacle to co-operation, as classical international realists insisted. Current proposals for global democracy and global distributive justice therefore run into serious difficulties over agency and legitimacy: who might have reason and capacity to create the institutions needed to deliver these goals, and how could these institutions be rendered legitimate in the eyes of global publics?

Virtually everyone believes that we have a duty to rescue fellow human-beings from serious danger when we can do so at small cost to ourselves – and this often forms the starting point for arguments in moral and political philosophy on topics such as global poverty, state legitimacy, refugees, and the donation of body parts. But how are we to explain this duty, and within what limits does it apply? It cannot be subsumed under a wider consequentialist requirement to prevent harm. Nor can it be understood as a duty of social justice that citizens owe to one another under a social contract for mutual protection. Instead it is a sui generis duty of justice that arises from the direct physical encounter between rescuer and victim, and is accordingly limited in scope. However the simplicity of the duty evaporates when multiple potential rescuers are present. Here responsibility lies with the collective as a whole until it is assigned by a fair procedure to individual members. Each individual is required as a matter of justice to discharge that share, but not more, though in the case that others do not comply, he will have a reason, and sometimes a humanitarian duty, to take up the slack.

Why has Sidgwick's political philosophy fallen into oblivion while his ethics continues to be celebrated? Not because his performance in that field was inferior, nor because his choice of topics has become outdated, nor because his conclusions were largely conservative. Instead the problem stems from the weight he attached to common sentiments and beliefs in his application of the utility principle, illustrated by his treatment of topics such as secession and colonialism. Moreover his Elements of Politics is arranged in such a way that he never has to confront the basic question of what makes states legitimate. This means that neither political moralists, who want to see the utility principle applied in more radical fashion, nor political realists, for whom the problem of establishing political order is central, find much to commend in his political philosophy.

This chapter explores the development of political theory in Oxford through the work of Cole, Berlin, Plamenatz, Taylor and Cohen, the five previous holders of the Chichele Chair. It focuses particularly on the apparent threat to political theory posed by the rise of empirically based social science. Five possible responses are distinguished: capitulation, retreat, command, attack, and collaboration. Retreat involves reinterpreting political theory as a purely philosophical enterprise: it was pursued to some extent by Berlin and wholeheartedly by Cohen. Command involves interpreting social and political theory as the master science that incorporates more specific bodies of social research: it was pursued by Cole. Attack involves emphasizing the limits of social science, especially its claims to be value-neutral and genuinely explanatory: it was pursued to a degree by Plamenatz and more forcefully by Taylor. The chapter concludes by reflecting on why the final strategy, collaboration, was not pursued by these scholars.

This chapter presents a response to the account of human rights presented in the previous chapter. It considers the chapter's objections to humanism. It argues that deciding on the proper scope of human rights involves a balancing act: on the one side, only listing rights that are essential to protect basic interests, and ensuring that the interests of the right-holder are properly weighed against the interests of others whose freedom and opportunities would be restricted by recognizing the right; on the other side, ensuring that the protection offered is adequate to protect the right-holder from various likely threats that the modern state order creates. Achieving this balance may require drawing upon both the resources found in humanist and those found in political theories.