On the other side of xenophobia: philoxenia as the ground of refugee rights

Abstract

The question of Australia's moral responsibilities to onshore asylum seekers is typically framed in terms of the assessment of governments’ responsibilities towards competing international humanitarian and national interests. Our paper invites us to rethink the starting assumptions of this approach. We argue for the adoption of a conception of ‘unconditional hospitality’ as our ethical guide to receiving Australia's onshore asylum seekers. To this end, we elaborate a Greek-Australian concept of ‘philoxenia’ as a form of unconditional welcoming of uninvited strangers and we discuss the implications of its adoption in relation to the issues of political sovereignty and maintenance of border controls. We argue that, in the current situation, Australians should distinguish between the moral principles that should guide our assessments of liberal governmental policies, and the principles that should guide the Australian people acting in their capacity as citizens.

From the application of the concept of philoxenia to Australian political life, we derive the political maxim ‘act as if there were no borders’. We suggest that this maxim can serve to guide Australian citizens in making their ethical decisions and demands upon the state in a less than ethical world order.