The Distributive Justice Game - Education
A Classroom Exercise to Teach Principles of Justice
THE PROBLEM
Distributive justice (the allocation of societal benefits and burdens) is
an important concept in philosophy and the social sciences. There are
many possible principles of distribution (seven are considered here);
the challenge is to determine which principle is most fair. An
important approach to settling this question was proposed by John
Rawls in his influential book, A Theory of Justice. To facilitate student
learning about distributive justice and Rawls’ ideas, the game creates
a simulation of decision-making in what Rawls calls the original
position behind a veil of ignorance. Students, represented by avatars,
debate possible principles of justice and choose one to determine
which 20% of the group will be selected to attend college.
Fig.1. A virtual instructor guides students
through the classroom exercise.
THE PROJECT
Fig.2. The game introduces students to concepts
associated with distributive justice.
This project converted a pencil and paper classroom exercise into an
interactive 3D classroom experience in which students are
represented by avatars that are randomly assigned personal
characteristics of relevance to college admission. Without knowing
their own characteristics, students must vote to arrive at a preferred
principle of justice that is, in turn, used to identify the 20% of the
avatars that best meet that selection principle. In the course of
playing the game, students come to understand the differences
among the principles of justice and the strengths and weakness of
each through discussion, debate and selection by voting. Students
also learn Rawls’ approach to principle selection and have the
opportunity to test his ideas against their classroom experience.
THE OUTCOME
Fig.3. Student avatars are selected for college
based on a chosen principle of justice.
Collaborator: Howard Cohen
Students: Lucas Phillips, Don Lail
The Distributive Justice Game – Education has been piloted in
selected Introduction to Ethics courses, an Honors course and a
graduate course in Education. 90% of the surveyed students
indicated that the game was more engaging and educational than a
typical classroom lecture. Instructors report that the game produced
fruitful discussions and increased student interest in questions of
distributive justice. Based on the effectiveness of this game as a
classroom learning tool, a new variant of the game simulates a
commission that is tasked with fairly distributing $100 million in a
community that has suffered ill effects from a nearby plutonium
production plant. This variant was produced for advanced placement
high school students who were studying issues related to the safety
of nuclear materials used for military and energy purposes.
CENTER FOR INNOVATION THROUGH
VISUALIZATION AND SIMULATION
Purdue University Calumet
2200 169th Street, Hammond, IN 46323
219-989-2765
This research was partially supported by U.S. Department of Energy Grant DE-NA000741 under the administration of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
www.purduecal.edu/civs
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