A selection of the best from recent issues of the Philosopher

This has led Dummett to spend much of his life fighting racism and intolerance through organisations such as the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination. However, up until now, he has never made the connection between these political views and his more abstract philosophical work. This text is intended as a corrective to this oversight: 'when invited by Routledge to write a volume looking at immigration and asylum with a philosopher's eye, I found the idea attractive'.

Dummett takes a two-pronged approach. In the first part of the book, drawing on his own philosophical work, he attempts to outline and defend some general philosophical principles. In the second part, he provides some empirical background to the development of current attitudes to immigration and racism in Europe.

Dummett is initially critical of what he regards as the self-interested and instrumentalist motives which have lain behind much governmental policy in the preceding century. For Dummett, lurking behind the egalitarian veneer of democracy has been the more manipulative principle of gaining more votes, which when applied to issues of immigration has invariably led to an insular and jingoistic policy on refugees. In many countries, this situation has been reinforced by an ideology of nationalism which has tended to define its identity in terms of race, religion or language.

Instead of this divisive situation, Dummett proposes a new consideration of issues of asylum and immigration based on a set of more ethically sound principles. The first principle he suggests is a negative one: no state ought to take race, religion or language as essential to its identity. Second, he proposes a genuine egalitarianism, which gives each individual his/her 'due' rather than their 'desert'. In particular, this principle is to apply to so-called stateless people: 'if everyone has the right to live in the country of their citizenship, a fortiori everyone has the right to live somewhere'. This should lead to a much greater acceptance of refugees by states and Dummett is critical of the great variations between states in this regard. He singles out Canada (alongside Pakistan, Ethiopia and Sudan) for credit while severely criticising the British government and its attitude to refugees. (But praises here the attitude of the Christian churches.)

Nonetheless, for Dummett, the right to enter a state of which one is not a citizen is a conditional rather than an absolute right. That is, every state is entitled to maintain a 'right to refusal'; a right to reject any particular application for asylum within its boundaries. In practice, however, he finds that this right is consistently overused and inappropriately applied. Most refusals of refugees are based on flagrant racism and xenophobia. Another common basis for refusal is the fear of being submerged by the immigrant group; again, however, Dummett finds this to be a straw man threat (backing up his claim with good demographic evidence). In reality then, he argues that although the right to refusal should be maintained by states de jure, de facto its employment is only likely to be justifiable in rare cases e.g. in the case of suspected terrorists or convicted criminals.

Having outlined his foundational principles, Dummett undertakes a more empirical analysis of the 'history' of attitudes to refugees and immigrants in European countries. Focusing especially on Britain since the late 1950s, he is scathing in his description of consistent racism and xenophobia, implicitly accepted and indeed encouraged by the policies and rhetoric of the main political parties. 

What lies behind this situation, he writes, is the assumption that immigration is in essence a threat which must be resisted insofar as is possible. This negative attitude in Britain is mirrored in the other European countries, notably France, Germany and Italy. In each, resistance to immigration is not simply theoretical but also manifests itself in the rise of the Far Right and an increased incidence of violent racist attacks. 

For Dummett, such pathological social phenomena have brought Europe to the edge of crisis:

 
 'Diverse currents swirl about Europe: currents of panic, cruelty and hatred; a strong current of obtuse selfishness, oblivious to its likely consequences; and a current of sanity and humanity. Only if this last predominates will there be hope of averting disaster for the world outside Europe and within it'. 

If nothing else, this book succeeds in articulating a clear and coherent egalitarian philosophy to resist the current trend towards intolerance and exclusionism.  

Reviewed by Jones Irwin