eyes, the preference for which is often seen in racial terms (‘blond hair and blue
eyes’). If one blue-eyed person acts favourably towards another blue-eyed person
there is a high likelihood that the allele (gene variant) for blue eyes will be
reproduced because blue eyes are a recessive phenotype, that is, you normally need
two copies (alleles) of the gene to have blue eyes. In so doing you might well be
helping somebody who is genetically closely related to you. This is because it is
estimated that the genetic mutation giving rise to blue eyes appeared relatively
recently (6,000–10,000 years ago). However, you may prefer blue eyes for aesthetic
reasons, or because for men it slightly increases the certainty that their children are
their own (normally, two blue-eyed mates should produce a blue-eyed child), or
because the relative rarity of blue eyes makes them valuable.Immigration
How we justify the nation – or indeed if we justify it at all – will determine the
question of who can be admitted to it and the criteria for membership of it. Without
endorsing the substantive claims of hard ethnic nationalism outlined in the last
section it is useful to use the distinction between genes, individuals and groups to
elucidate this debate. We have to imagine viewing the world from one of three
perspectives: (a) the gene – what matters is the survival of a gene (or an
interconnected set of genes: a genotype); (b) the individual – it is individual human
beings that matter; (c) the group, which in this case we will take to be a territorially
bound group of people in possession of, and subject to, a state. Given each
perspective, which type of immigration policy would be justified?The group
If the group is what matters then an immigration policy should be fashioned that
maintains the survival of the group beyond the deaths of its individual members.
This is very close to Herder’s position. The group does not need to have a biological
reality but it does have a cultural reality. It follows that there would be a strongly
assimilationist immigration policy and a hostility to multiculturalism (discussed in
Chapter 15). The preference would be for jus sanguinis(determination of citizenship
by family), but jus soli(citizenship by place of birth) would also be possible for
those who can prove their ability to assimilate. Skills-based immigration might be
possible, but culture is more important than economic growth, so the business
community could not be allowed to push for a very liberal immigration policy.The individual
If we take the individual as the basic unit of value then we might come to several
competing policy conclusions:
(a) Open borders: as Carens (1995) argues, if individuals are morally equal then
there should be no controls on migrants.Chapter 12 Nationalism 275