Anton Dolmatov Awarded 2026 William James Award
Anton Dolmatov was awarded the 2026 William James from the APA for his paper ‘Equal Opportunities for Future Citizens’. The prize was for the best paper in the area of American philosophy that is both (a) written by a philosopher who received their PhD within five years of the beginning of the calendar year in which the paper is submitted, or is a graduate student, and (b) accepted for inclusion in the Eastern Division program by the program committee through the normal process of anonymous-reviewing. Anton describes his paper as follows:
At the Eastern APA 2026, I presented a paper called “Equal Opportunities for Future Citizens” defending the claim that immigration restrictions on the rights to enter and stay are wrong because of their impact on naturalized citizens who were once subject to them.
All naturalized citizens were at some point non-citizens, and their lives often continue to be influenced by the immigration restrictions that once applied to them. If the long-term effects of these policies prevent naturalized citizens from becoming fully equal citizens, then, I argued, the state should not have introduced them. This is so because states have a duty to guarantee all their legal citizens full equal citizenship in the substantive sense, which includes ensuring equal economic opportunities. Achieving this requires that all citizens have equal access to education and the same opportunities to gain professional experience. Yet immigration restrictions on the right to travel and reside, as well as limitations on access to benefits and jobs, curtail the opportunities to acquire qualifications of non-citizens, including those who will become naturalized citizens. According to the argument, these restrictions are wrong because of their effects on a relatively small group of non-citizens – future citizens. Yet it is impossible to distinguish this group from all other non-citizens, so it is impossible to design immigration restrictions that would not apply them. This is why most immigration restrictions in general must be abandoned. So, the argument I have presented provides indirect support for open borders.