Katie Busch is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She majors in political and moral philosophy and has interests in English and cognitive science. Katie is interested in ethical questions of entitlement, exclusion, and membership. Throughout the course of her fellowship, she will investigate historical and modern moral justifications for citizenship, specifically state special duties to citizens. She will also explore the alignment of these philosophical principles with mainstream political ideology and practice. In her free time, Katie studies perceptions of self in Philadelphia public school students, leads multinational policy research projects for Penn Policy Consulting, and tutoring in the Penn Marks Family Writing Center. She also enjoys practicing yoga and taking lots of walks.
Katherine Busch
Wolf Humanities Center Undergraduate Fellow
2021—2022 Forum on Migration
Katherine Busch
Moral and Political Philosophy
An Exploration of the Ethical Foundations of Citizenship
In order to fully understand migration, we must first examine what it means to belong. Movement is dictated by desires to reside and inhabit, and without this context we cannot fully grasp the rights of migrants as well as the political and interpersonal forces that seek to restrict their mobility. For modern nation-states, belonging is rooted in citizenship. It is only from the web of moral and political ideals surrounding what it means to be a citizen that we can fully comprehend the issues surrounding human movement. In order to contribute to this pivotal framework, I will investigate the ethical underpinnings of citizenship and how these concepts influence questions of belonging and entitlement.