Do you believe it's an immigrant's obligation to assimilate?

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

August 2, 2023

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min read

Question: Do you believe it's an immigrant's obligation to assimilate?

Answer: Yes and no. If one is immigrating to a basically decent country, then yes, one has an obligation to abide by the basic principles that make that decent country a decent country. Beyond that though, no. A basic principle of decent countries is liberty; the right to adopt all sorts of particular lifestyle choices, whatever they are; to speak whatever language you want, dress how you want with respect to religion, music and hundreds of other things.

One had no obligation in a decent, free country to assimilate to the particular lifestyle choices of other people, even a majority of people in that country. One has only an obligation to assimilate, rather to say, the principles of individual rights and to live by those.

About the author:

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Stephen R. C. Hicks is a Professor of Philosophy and a Senior Scholar for The Atlas Society.

He is author of The Art of Reasoning: Readings for Logical Analysis (W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Scholargy, 2004), Nietzsche and the Nazis (Ockham’s Razor, 2010), Entrepreneurial Living (CEEF, 2016), Liberalism Pro and Con (Connor Court, 2020), Art: Modern, Postmodern, and Beyond (with Michael Newberry, 2021), Eight Philosophies of Education (2022), and Lectures on the Philosophy of Politics (Spanish translation, Publicaciones del Orden Espontáneo, 2026). He has published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Review of Metaphysics, and The Wall Street Journal. His writings have been translated into 20 languages.

He has been Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Visiting Fellow at the Social Philosophy & Policy Center in Bowling Green, Ohio, Visiting Professor at the University of Kasimir the Great, Poland, Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University, England, and Visiting Professor at Jagiellonian University, Poland.

His B.A. and M.A. degrees are from the University of Guelph, Canada. His Ph.D. in Philosophy is from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

In 2010, he won his university’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

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