Santa Sabina College Philosophy and Religious Education Teacher Andrew Costantino recently delivered an excellent Ethics Olympiad (Australia’s Ethics Bowl) case analysis presentation. The primary case: Is It OK to Punch a Nazi? The primary metaphor: baking and eating cookies!
- cookie ingredients (chocolate chips, an egg, brown sugar, etc.) = case presumptions and facts
- the recipe (mix, bake at 350 degrees for 12 mins) = construction of the argument
- the eating experience (bland, burnt or perfecto) = the argument’s consequences and implications
Could there be a more delicious way to explain argument construction and analysis? Brilliant!
Costantino also considers and explains subject-centered approaches to ethics, providing substantial analysis from the perspective of Virtue Ethics, action-centered approaches, including Deontological Ethics such as Kantianism, and consequence-based theories, including Utilitarianism.
He does a nice job dividing Kant’s Categorical Imperative into the Humanity Principle and Universality Principle – much better labels than The First and Second Formulations (which I’m guilty of using). And is careful to explain how Utilitarianism should take into account long-term consequences (as suggested by Rule Utilitarianism), and can morph into preference-satisfaction Utilitarianism, as promoted by world-famous Australian moral philosopher, Peter Singer.
Whether you’re a coach, competitor, judge or fan, the vid’s almost certainly worth your time. Thanks to Andrew for putting it together, and thanks to Matthew Wills with Ethics Olympiad for recording and sharing it with the EthicsBowl.org community.
For the record, Dr. Chris White taught me the ‘cookie’ approach so he deserves acknowledgement for this idea.