Justice, for our children: using non-ideal theory to talk to children about injustice

Abstract In this paper, I investigate how parents should talk to their children about injustice. In doing so, I use the non-ideal theory debate in political philosophy to show how the questions traditionally asked there can give substantive guidance to parents. I also contribute to that debate by showing how attention to injustice conversations (a) leads us to ask new questions and develop new modelling tools; (b) can help us to resolve the questions traditionally asked in the debate in a more direct way; and (c) can serve as a model for bringing together substantive and methodological questions in non-ideal theory.