The University of Findlay is proud to have been home and host to the Ohio Regional High School Ethics Bowl since 2016, four years after its foundation in 2012. Matt Stolick, professor of philosophy, has organized this event since its inception, inspired by his initial experience of the event as a judge, and realizing the Ethics Bowl is an effective and fun way to teach ethics.
As a qualifying Regional Competition of the Parr Center’s National High School Ethics Bowl program, the Ohio Regional makes use of the same format, rules, and regulations as the National Ethics Bowl. Information and registration for the Ohio Regional at https://nhseb.org/). After the annual Regional Competition (usually in January) our Ohio Regional winner advances to the NHSEB Regional Divisional Playoffs hosted by the Parr Center via NHSEBOne. Winners of Divisional Matches will advance to the NHSEB National Championship held in Chapel Hill each April. For more information on the NHSEB, or for assistance starting a team at your school, please contact us at [email protected].
What is an Ethics Bowl?
An Ethics Bowl is a competitive yet collaborative event in which students discuss real-life ethical issues. In each round of competition, teams take turns analyzing cases about complex ethical dilemmas and responding to questions and comments from the other team and from a panel of judges. An Ethics Bowl is not a Debate: students are not assigned opposing views; rather, they defend whichever position they think is correct, provide each other with constructive criticism, and win by demonstrating that they have thought rigorously and systematically about the cases and engaged respectfully and supportively with all participants. Data from program surveys shows NHSEB participation teaches and promotes ethical awareness, critical thinking, civil discourse, civic engagement, and an appreciation for multiple points of view. In short, the goal of the Ethics Bowl is to do more than teach students how to think through ethical issues: It is to teach students how to think through ethical issues together, as fellow citizens in a complex moral and political community.
Ethics Bowl vs Debate
While the Ethics Bowl activity may look similar to various speech and debate formats from a distance, the core skills and values emphasized by the
National High School Ethics Bowl are quite different than those emphasized in debate. Here are a few key differences between the activities (as summarized by the North Carolina High School Ethics Bowl website):
- The Ethics Bowl format takes great care to emphasize high school students’ developing moral and political agency with respect to their own views, beliefs, and judgments. Unlike in many forms of speech and debate, students participating in an Ethics Bowl are not assigned particular propositions to defend, and the
case based design of the format de-emphasizes “pro vs. con” reasoning in favor of complex issues which are nuanced, multi-faceted, and admit many forms of reasonable disagreement. The views that students end up advancing in response to these case prompts—and, importantly, their reasoning for the claims involved—are entirely of the students’ own design and development. This element of the format is designed to take seriously students’ roles as serious moral thinkers in their own right, and as sources of authentic claims and knowledge in their communities.
- Debate formats are often adversarial in nature, focusing on subduing the opposing position with superior rhetoric or argumentation. Rather than this kind of approach which prioritizes rhetoric, the Ethics Bowl prioritizes underlying reasoning in a collaborative format. The goal, rather than “winning the argument” in the conventional sense, is to work with the “opposing” team to move toward a solution or analysis of a case which is true or reasonable, or has the benefit of generating new ways of thinking about an issue. This approach is meant to model deliberative, non-adversarial democratic decision making—a project-based task geared toward learning together, navigating disagreement, and building consensus where possible. Rather than on the extent of their persuasiveness where judges are concerned, students are evaluated on the structural quality of their reasoning, sincere and empathetic engagement with the reasonable views of their peers, and their grappling with tough and nuanced issues. In this way, Ethics Bowl balances its competitive and collaborative aims.
- Unlike in some forms of debate, but very much like in life, changing your mind in response to new considerations or arguments is not, on balance, a bad thing in Ethics Bowl. Rather than indicating that a participant is insufficiently committed to the task or analysis, responsibly shifting or revising one’s position can clearly illustrate the collaborative process of learning and truth-seeking that lies at the heart of the Ethics Bowl format, and of democratic deliberation.
How the Ethics Bowl Works
Ethics Bowl matches feature two teams meeting head-to-head to discuss and evaluate case studies which feature tricky moral questions or dilemmas. These cases typically come from one of the NHSEB’s annually released case sets—one for Regional Competitions each September, and one for the National Championship each April. Each match will also have three judges and one moderator in attendance, and spectators are encouraged as well.
To open the first half of the match, copies of the first case and question will be distributed to the judges and teams.
The moderator will then read the case number, title, and a question for competition (neither judges nor the teams will know in advance which case will be presented or which question will be asked).
the first half then proceeds as follows:
1. Moderator Period: A moderator will start the match by introducing a case from the set (which students have prepared in advance) and asking a question that the discussion will address (which they have not).
2. Presentation Period: After the case and question are introduced, Team A will have up to two minutes to confer, after which any member(s) of Team A may speak for up to five minutes in response to the moderator’s question, based on the team’s critical analysis. Team A must address the moderator’s question during the time allotted.
3. Commentary Period: Next, Team B will have up to two minutes to confer, after which Team B may speak for up to three minutes to comment on Team A’s presentation.
4. Response Period: Team A will then have up to two minutes to confer, followed by three minutes to respond to Team B’s commentary.
5. Judges’ Period: The judges will then begin their ten-minute question and answer session with Team A. Before asking questions, the judges may confer briefly. Each judge should have time for at least one question. Judges may ask more questions if time permits.
This process will repeat in each respective half of the match, with the teams switching places (i.e., the team which presented in the first half will play the commenting role in the second, and so on). Upon the conclusion of each half of the match, judges will score each team based on the following criteria.*
- Team’s
Presentation on the Moderator’s Question: Is the presentation clear and systematic? Does it address some central moral dimensions of the case? Does it indicate awareness of and responsiveness to opposing viewpoints?
- Responding Team’s
Commentary: Is the commentary constructive? Does it advance the conversation by offering opportunities for clarification, questions for the presenting team, etc.?
- Presenting Team’s
Response to Commentary: Does the presenting team take seriously and adequately reply to the comments from their respondents?
- Presenting Team’s
Responses to Judges’ Questions: Are judges’ questions answered effectively, clearly, and responsibly?
- Each team’s display of
Respectful Dialogue throughout the match: Is each team committed to the central values of the competition—collaboration and the pursuit of truth rather than, say, combativeness or belittling rhetoric?
* For a full account of all NHSEB procedures and guidelines, see the current National High School Ethics Bowl Rules Manual and other supporting documents (https://nhseb.org/).