A Philosophical Examination of Social Justice and Child Poverty

This book is open access under a CCBY license.
 
Child poverty is one of the biggest challenges of today, harming millions of children. In this book, it is investigated from a philosophical social justice perspective, primarily in the context of modern welfare states. Based on both normative theory (particularly the capability approach) and empirical evidence, the authors identify the injustices of child poverty, showing how it negatively affects the well-being of children as well as their whole life course. But child poverty is not 'given by nature'. It is avoidable and there is certainly the moral duty to alleviate it. Therefore, Graf and Schweiger develop a normative theory of responsibilities, which clarifies the moral role of different agents in the poor child's environment: the family, the state and many others, that have so far been neglected in philosophical theories. They conclude their book by sketching how their theory can be extended to global child poverty and what it means to show equal respect and concern for every child  - no matter where and in which context they were born.

Gunter Graf is a PostDoc researcher at the Center for Ethics and Poverty Research where he works in the project group for 'Social Justice and Child Poverty'. He is also a research fellow at the international research centre for social and ethical questions (ifz) in Salzburg. He mainly works in political and social philosophy, with a focus on the capability approach and its relation to poverty and children.

Gottfried Schweiger works at the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, where he is the principal investigator of the project 'Social Justice and Child Poverty' funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). His main areas of interest and research are social and political philosophy.

1Introduction: Philosophy and Child Poverty
2Social Justice for Children – A Capability Approach
2.1The Currency of Justice
2.2Selecting Functionings and Capabilities for Children
2.3Sufficiency and Equality
2.4Conclusions: Criticizing Injustices
3The Injustice of Child Poverty
3.1Concepts and Measures of Child Poverty
3.2The Ill-Being and Ill-Becoming of Child Poverty: Physical and Mental Health
3.3The Ill-Being and Ill-Becoming of Child Poverty: Social Inclusion and Education
3.4The Subjective Experience of Child Poverty
3.5Conclusions
4Responsibilities for Children in Poverty
4.1Attributing Responsibilities to Agents of Justice
4.2Important Agents of Justice and their Responsibilities
4.3The Family and the State
4.4Conclusions
5Advancing our Approach to Global Justice for Children
5.1Conclusions
6References