Ideal vs Realist Approaches to Migration: The Case Against their Convergence

ABSTRACT: In response to criticisms from those concerned with action-guiding normative prescriptions, there is a growing tendency in the literature on migration to bridge the gap between ideal and realist approaches to migration by showing how both can converge to similar normative verdicts in the here and now (Carens 2019; Miller 2016). More specifically, the charge often directed to ideal theories of migration is that they are utopian because they commend transitions from the current unjust state of affairs to an alleged fully just state of affairs that are too far from the concerns and preferences of peoples in the here and now (Miller 2008). Those who subscribe to ideal theories respond that ideal theory can treat such concerns and preferences as contextual feasibility constraints on approximating justice from the here and now. Hence, they argue, ideal theorists can espouse those reforms and policies that are feasible given these contextual constraints (Carens 2019). Convergence between ideal and realist perspectives is therefore reached, according to this view, not based on whether such reforms are fully just but on what is the only commendable course of action on the grounds of justice given prevailing feasibility constraints. In this paper, I argue that the conclusion that there is such convergence is too quick. There are at least two sets of cases where an ideal theory should not commend a move from an unjust state of affairs to a more just state of affairs that approximates a fully just state of affairs. This thesis is supported by drawing a distinction between approximating a fully just state of affairs and achieving a fully just state of affairs and by showing that the approximation of a fully just state of affairs does not always facilitate the achievement of a fully just state of affairs. This suggests I argue that the path to a fully just state of affairs can be blocked by reforms that maximally approximate a fully just state of affairs in the here and now. Using an example from the migration literature, I show that not only a concern for achieving a fully just state of affairs but also a more moderate concern for the reduction of global inequalities, by, for instance, increasing levels of migration in the here and now, can lead to a temporary decrease in the levels of global inequality in the near future and yet to even higher levels of global inequalities in the long term than those currently observed and anticipated. Therefore, also the dilemma between global and domestic justice in the literature on migration ultimately depends on the nature of the causal paths available at any given point in time, regardless of whether one takes an ideal or a nonideal approach. I conclude that both those who subscribe to utopian theories of justice and those who espouse comparativist approaches have reasons to be sceptical towards unqualified calls for convergence between more ideal and more realist approaches to theorising about migration.