UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES FILOSÓFICAS

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas
Proyecto Violencia y Filosofía (PAPIIT IN401415)

Dra. Olivia Custer
Autora de L’éxemple de Kant
Bibliotéque Philosophique de Lovaine, 2012

Wildly divergent positions on the appropriate response to the current migrant crisis in Europe refer  to  same  the  distinction,  one  between  the  (good)  refugee  who  must  – both  the  law  and  morality  demand  it  – be  we lcomed  and  the  (bad)  economic  migrant  who  must  – reason  understands  that  reality  requires  it  – be  turned  away.  The  consensus  seems  just  as  broad,  and  variously  motivated,  that  this  distinction  is  less  and  less  tenable.  In  this  paper,  I  propose  to  make  sens e  of  this  apparently  paradoxical  situation  as  an  expression  of  a  complicated  relation  to  the  Kantian  legacy.  Revisiting Kant’s Perpetual Peace , I will argue that an outlandish proposition can be discerned there  which should inflect our understanding of thi s legacy. It might also suggest a response to Etienne  Balibar’s challenge to political philosophy to take on the fact of a type of violence which resists all  conversion.