After more than six months of planning, in March of 2018 Bob and Joanne Ladenson moderated an “Ethics Bowl and Democratic Deliberation” panel discussion at the annual Association for Practical and Professional Ethics conference in Chicago. I was honored to be invited to chronicle that event.
Alluding to the devolving state of American civil discourse, Bob opened by remarking that the session “has a special urgency and immediacy” in 2018, a time when personal insults and disregard for history and facts have become routine at the highest levels. How did we get here?
Panelist Paula McAvoy from the University of Wisconsin argued that while American politics has always involved mudslinging, the watershed moment marking the beginning of the current decline was passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This empowered the federal government to more forcefully intervene on the behalf of minorities, which disrupted the White-led status quo, undermining the gentlemen’s agreement the major parties had previously maintained, pushing Democrats further to the left and Republicans further to the right.
Dr. McAvoy went on to argue that growing income inequalities since the 80s exacerbated middle-class insecurity, which has driven resentment towards immigrants and racial tension.
In contrast, panelist Deborah Mower from the University of Mississippi offered the rise of political talk radio in the 90s, and its “valorization of righteous indignation” as a primary source of the current political environment. Not necessarily disagreeing, Dr. McAvoy added how Newt Gingrich led this approach initially via C-SPAN, positioning the Republicans as an “opposition party” with an uncompromising approach.
On ethics bowl as a partial antidote, Dr. McAvoy called the events “one of the best forms of ethics education I’ve ever seen,” and Dr. Mower touted how ethics bowl incentivizes engagement with people of opposing views both during preparation (so teams can come to an internal consensus), and during competition (to ensure a good score).
With benefits not limited to the competitors, Dr. Mower explained an innovative way her Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl team has expanded its influence – a “Great Debate” mock bowl that invited faculty, the broader student population, and even the local community to watch her team debate Mississippi’s celebration of April as Confederate Heritage Month. The crowd got an opportunity to witness spirited, yet respectful and intelligent discussion of a very controversial issue, and the team plans to hold a second event of the same sort, this time debating whether “the standard of consent for sexual relations should be an affirmative yes.”
Providing the perspective of an educator and bowl enthusiast at a school with a large Hispanic population, panelist Scott Dick, a teacher and ethics bowl coach from Chicago’s Pritzker College Prep High, explained some of the disadvantages underprivileged schools face. While some enjoy a dedicated philosophy class, his ethics team is only able to meet once per week, a problem especially common in public schools across the country.
On how to handle the sometimes silly and extreme views high school students entertain, such as eating the poor to stave off poverty, Mr. Dick recommended empathy and patience. “You have to engage at their level and play at their level.”
A panelist adding additional local context was Bart Schultz, author, longtime ethics bowl supporter, Senior Lecturer in the Humanities, and Executive Director of the Civic Knowledge Project at the University of Chicago. Among the programs Mr. Schultz oversees is Winning Words in which students lead discussions at south side Chicago inner city schools on philosophical topics including applied ethics. (For background on Mr. Shultz’s work on The New Chicago School of Philosophy click here.)
Mr. Schultz praised former Chicago Alderman Leon Despres for his ability to consistently discuss tough issues with respect and precision, and cited the work of Danielle Allen in asking how the ethics bowl format might be modified to even more effectively model and encourage respectful deliberation. One audience member suggested using questions that more intentionally steer teams in morally enlightening and fruitful directions.
With opening remarks from each of the panelists on the table, the group welcomed a friendly critique from an audience member that ethics bowls, with their emphasis on thoroughly appreciating various angles, may be creating “fence sitters” as opposed to committed advocates. The worry is that when citizens are aware of just how complex tough issues are, they’ll be less likely to confidently act.
Dr. McAvoy lent some support to the critique by citing studies that have shown that when citizens are presented with competing messages on an issue, voting rates actually decrease. Mr. Schultz agreed that “paralysis by analysis” could indeed be one result of learning too much about an issue once believed simple and clear.
However, Dr. Mower responded by arguing that activism and enlightenment are not mutually exclusive – that you can be a passionate activist and civil, thoughtful. And Mr. Dick argued that regardless of how thoroughly his high school ethics bowl team covered a given issue, his students never had a problem choosing and confidently arguing for a particular stance.
IEB organizer and former competitor Rachel Green offered a related worry: “Might ethics bowl suggest all views are equally good?”
Dr. Mower explained that it’s never the ethics bowl community’s intent to suggest ethics is a subjective matter, though ethics professors can attest that this is a common early response from students sometimes overwhelmed by competing, and seemingly equally strong positions for the first time.
Greg Wright, a professor and ethics bowl enthusiast from Utah, shared a specific issue he’d faced in teaching applied ethics generally – that of religious students sometimes being wary of philosophical ethics. It was suggested that Notre Dame philosopher Robert Audi’s basic argument – that Christ’s Golden Rule gives us good reason to think through public policy questions using reasons anyone can appreciate, regardless of their faith or lack thereof – is sometimes convincing, and worth giving a try.
Audi’s argument is essentially that if we desire to treat others as we would like to be treated, then we can’t base our laws on religious reasons alone. Were we to find ourselves in the religious minority, we wouldn’t want to be coerced by laws according to a faith we did not share. Studying philosophical ethics, and doing ethics bowl, are therefore ways to develop the capacity to reason through tough issues from a perspective anyone can appreciate, regardless of their faith or lack thereof.
Last, longtime IEB coach and bowl organizer Pat Croskery added commentary on ethics bowl’s contrast with debate – how he finds it reassuring that teams are able to acknowledge, absorb and reframe other teams’ positions, indicating genuine engagement and understanding, and providing hope for America’s political future, and for ethics bowl’s role in leading us in a more civil direction.