One of ethics bowl’s many benefits is its power to expand our concern beyond our narrow self-interests. This guest essay by Ethics Bowl China founder, Leo Huang, explores how it can also foster a cosmopolitan attitude.
When we first started the Ethics Bowl in China, we envisioned two possible directions. One, reach out to high school students already interested in philosophy, ethics, or debates, and provide them yet another opportunity to discuss issues they might have encountered in debate tournaments, speech contests, and classrooms (although, unlike debate, Ethics Bowl stresses constructive discussion, as opposed to debate-like “crossfires”). Or what if we targeted those with no prior experience in debates, philosophy, or ethics, especially students from marginalized communities, from areas with less abundant educational resources? Wouldn’t the Ethics Bowl experience mean more to them? Admittedly, at that time, we took the first route, which was simply an easier path for an inaugural program looking for expansion and recognition.
As the program now nears its third year, the thought of reaching out to that second group returns. As we were pondering the plans and visions for the new season, we started asking ourselves: now that we are becoming familiar with the logistics of organizing large-scale programs and have reached some recognition within the country, does including students of that second group deviate from what we’ve been doing in the past years?
For students who have not encountered debate or philosophy, the Ethics Bowl, both in terms of its format and the issues discussed, would be quite an eye-opening experience. The Ethics Bowl will give them opportunities to discuss issues they might have never thought about, with people they have never encountered, who might hold completely unexpected perspectives. Simply put, for them, the Ethics Bowl opens minds.
But isn’t that the same for those students who do have some experience in debate, philosophy, or ethics? It seems unfair to say that because of their experience and knowledge, they won’t need any “mind-opening.” After all, don’t we all make judgments according to our own sets of values and beliefs? Can one claim to have considered all the possible perspectives of an issue, and to have made judgments without a single bias? It seems unlikely. Or that might not even be theoretically possible, depending on how we define “bias.”
Thus regardless of which group of students we target, the ultimate goal seems to be the same – to open minds, to broaden our concerns, and to understand multiple perspectives. And that is more so if we do the Ethics Bowl not just in our own community, but in a much larger one – an international Ethics Bowl community.
In an international community where each of us comes from widely different backgrounds, it’s even more difficult to claim that we are still able to be as comprehensive in our considerations as we are in smaller communities. There’s an interesting short story by O. Henry that features a “cosmopolite” who claims to be “a citizen of the world,” bragging about his life spending time all around the globe, as if he’s “impartial to cities, countries and continents as the winds or gravitation,” while in the end, ironically, he “got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he comes from.”
To become a “global citizen” is indeed an honorable goal, but it isn’t as easy as it appears – reading “global news” on social media is one way, though it doesn’t seem enough, if we consider the nature of news reporting. So the Ethics Bowl might be one way to further this cause. Within the carefully designed collaborative and constructive framework of the Ethics Bowl, we discuss issues that truly address global differences, and hear from peers from a variety of backgrounds, articulating their positions authentically and spontaneously with an appreciation for diverse points of views.