The way injustice often undermines our agency is by shrinking the horizons of what we think is possible. We simply accept that things cannot be any other way than they are. The kind of critical thinking central to philosophical education allows us to question how things are and, often, to realize that how things are is not how they have or ought to be. Bertrand Russell, in his own impassioned defence of philosophy,
I think it’s really striking how this points out that injustice doesn’t just hurt people directly, it also shrinks what we believe is even possible. When we start to accept things as unchangeable, we lose a part of our freedom. What I like about philosophy here is that it pushes back against that, reminding us to question the way things are and imagine how things could be different.