What are the grounds and the scope of the duties that states bear towards refugees, and how can states comply with these duties in ways that enhance global justice? These are the questions that my research interest in migration ethics focuses on. Refugees flee as a response to situations of (especially severe forms of) injustice. At home, not even their most basic political, social, or economic needs and rights are met. At the same time protection of basic rights and needs is available in other parts of the world – and therefore requires migration. However, less severe situations of global injustice lead to other forms of migration as well, and duties towards refugees must be described and addressed in ways which do justice both to refugees and to other migrants and non-migrants from different parts of the globe. I argue that doing so requires (among other things) that states pay more attention also on refugees who do not succeed to migrate to their borders.

Another general and long-term research interest of mine that I will think about from time to time during my Justitia Amplificata fellowship consists in understanding the interconnections between different normative domains such as morality, politics, law, rationality, and epistemology from a perspective which puts reasons and deliberation into the center. This raises questions such as whether all domain-specific normative reasons are ultimately grounded in a common domain, and whether the premises of good deliberation differ according to the different normative domains in systematic ways. (Susanne Mantel)