She has written extensively on the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas, as well as on the topic of human migration.
[6] She held the Spinoza Chair of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam in 2000[7] and was a Tanner Lecturer at UC, Berkeley in 2004.
In 2012 she was awarded the Dr. Leopold-Lucas Prize by the University of Tübingen in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of theology, intellectual history, historical research and philosophy, as well as the commitment to international understanding and tolerance.
[9] In 2014, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from Georgetown University[10] and the Meister Eckhart Prize for her work on the subject of identity.
She has one daughter from her first marriage with the historian Wolf Schäfer and is now married to author and journalist Jim Sleeper.
Benhabib argues that in democratic theory it is assumed that every single person should be able to determine their own life.
For example, the first condition is violated within several cultures, such as the Kurds in Turkey or the Roma in Eastern Europe.
Thus, at present there seems to be no examples of states practicing a perfect version of Benhabib's system of mixing pluralism with cosmopolitanism.
Benhabib takes this right as a starting point which resulted in her thoughts about migration and refugee problems.
Benhabib goes further than Kant, arguing that the human right of hospitality should not apply to a single visit, but in some cases to long-term stays.