The deep underlying idea is that if we have to choose a social and political arrangement without knowing the position that we may occupy in society, we will choose fair principles to govern our social and political institutions. My teacher had our class re-enact a scenario very much like this one in class. We discussed the principles that would govern our imagined society before we picked our fate out of a hat. Until that point in my young life, I had never thought about justice in that way. The power of this exercise contributed in no small way to my becoming a philosopher. I have recreated a similar activity in various classes I have taught. The discussion it generates among students is reliably superb, but the best moment is when students discover their fate – whether they end up being a doctor or a garbage truck driver or a poor young mother – and have to reckon (at least for that class period) with their principles. Many philosophers have persuasively criticized Rawls’ use of the original position as an argumentative tool. But we often forget, I think, how successfully it harnesses the power of the imagination to construct an alternative vision of what society could be like.

Philosophy must also aim at a remedy—it must be constructive. This requires that it be both critical and imaginative. In order to do this, a philosophical education should go beyond showing students how to be critical thinkers: it must also teach students to imagine how the world could be different than it is and, in so doing, to consider better ways for them and the world to be.

An Antidote to Injustice by Jennifer M Morton Picture yourself as a young mother with two children. You enrol in university to obtain a bachelor’s degree, hoping to give yourself a better chance at a job that pays a living wage. Maybe you receive government loans to pay for tuition, and rely on your family’s help, but you still don’t have enough to pay for living expenses and childcare. So, you continue working at a job that pays slightly above minimum wage while taking a full load of courses. Every day you wake up early to get the children ready for school and commute an hour or more to university. After class, you pick up your children from school. If you’re lucky, you can drop them off with a relative while you go to work. By the time you return home in the evening, you are tired, but still have many pages to read and assignments to complete. This is your gruelling daily routine. Now, ask yourself: what could philosophy do for you?