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Yuichiro Mori (Hokkaido University, Japan)
Yuichiro Mori is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Law, Hokkaido University in Japan. He received a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Tokyo in March 2013. Soon after the graduation, he was appointed as a Research Associate at the Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, the University of Tokyo, in April 2013. (This career path was open to only those few students who had both achieved a top-level academic record and passed the National Bar Examination while they were undergraduates.)
During the three-year terms as a Research Associate, he completed a monograph on theories of equality. This monograph (called Research-Associate Thesis [“Jokyo Ronbun” in Japanese]) is considered to be a functional equivalence of a doctoral dissertation in the academic community in legal studies in Japan. His monograph was published as a book titled Relational Equality ("Kankei no Taito-sei to Byodo” in Japanese) from Kobundo (one of the editorial houses in Japan) in 2019.
Since his carrier as a scholar started in April 2013, he has worked with theories of equality, discrimination and global justice in the fields of legal and political philosophy. He has been awarded the Japan-Association-of-Legal-Philosophy Academic Promotion Prize twice, first in the Article section in 2017, and second in the Book section in 2020. (The double prize-winning has been accomplished by none other than him since the prize was established in 2005.) His most recent work is an article titled “Making Sense of Race-Based Affirmative Action in Allocating Scarce Medical Resources” published this year from Res Philosophica (one of the international journals of philosophy). He has also contributed the entry on “Relational Equality” to the International Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Having been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, he is now a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School, East Asian Legal Studies Program.
Defending the Universal Right to Flee against the Duty to Fight for One’s Nation
Yuichiro Mori
Fleeing is an act to which we have attributed different kinds of moral evaluations. It has been associated with virtues such as prudence. In our legal practices, the law widely recognizes an individual’s interest in fleeing from danger. At the same time, fleeing has been met with moral condemnation; it has often been seen as a sign of cowardice and irresponsibility. Law in our age sometimes restricts our freedom to flee from danger, even against an individual’s will, as we have all witnessed in the recent war in Ukraine.
Here lies the dilemma of the right to flee. Every individual has an interest in fleeing from danger to life and physical security. If so, then no one ought to be prevented from fleeing from danger. However, there are individuals who are unable to flee by themselves. Since life and physical security are equally valuable for all, including these vulnerable individuals, the government also has a positive duty of protecting all from the cause of danger (e.g., invading troops). Unless there are enough volunteers, this could mean that the government needs to coerce its able-bodied citizens to sacrifice their lives and limbs to eliminate the cause of danger (e.g., fight in the battlefields) for the protection of their vulnerable compatriots. If so, then the right to flee ceases to be universal; it would be a right only for the vulnerable (e.g., children, the elderly, and the disabled).
In this presentation, as a solution to this dilemma, I challenge a citizen’s duty to fight for his or her nation and defend the position that everyone (including able-bodied citizens) has the right to flee from danger. First, I clarify the ground and scope of the right to flee, which I defend here. Second, I examine possible arguments for the government’s restriction of the right to flee and coercion of its citizens to fight for their nation, which are based on two of the most promising contentions for political obligation (i.e., a natural duty of justice and fairness). Third, after showing the failure of these, I elaborate further on who ought to discharge what kind of responsibilities to enforce the protection of the right to flee for all in our international society. Finally, I respond to two possible objections to my position.
Here lies the dilemma of the right to flee. Every individual has an interest in fleeing from danger to life and physical security. If so, then no one ought to be prevented from fleeing from danger. However, there are individuals who are unable to flee by themselves. Since life and physical security are equally valuable for all, including these vulnerable individuals, the government also has a positive duty of protecting all from the cause of danger (e.g., invading troops). Unless there are enough volunteers, this could mean that the government needs to coerce its able-bodied citizens to sacrifice their lives and limbs to eliminate the cause of danger (e.g., fight in the battlefields) for the protection of their vulnerable compatriots. If so, then the right to flee ceases to be universal; it would be a right only for the vulnerable (e.g., children, the elderly, and the disabled).
In this presentation, as a solution to this dilemma, I challenge a citizen’s duty to fight for his or her nation and defend the position that everyone (including able-bodied citizens) has the right to flee from danger. First, I clarify the ground and scope of the right to flee, which I defend here. Second, I examine possible arguments for the government’s restriction of the right to flee and coercion of its citizens to fight for their nation, which are based on two of the most promising contentions for political obligation (i.e., a natural duty of justice and fairness). Third, after showing the failure of these, I elaborate further on who ought to discharge what kind of responsibilities to enforce the protection of the right to flee for all in our international society. Finally, I respond to two possible objections to my position.
Internationale Vereinigung für Rechts- und Wirtschaftsphilosophie /
International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy
