Author: Matt Deaton

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Introducing NHSEBAcademy

Our friends at the Parr Center have been busy, recently launching the brand new all-online NHSEBAcademy. The best part? Live, Zoom-based bowling clinics. The first two are scheduled for later this week (register here). Depending on how interactive they are, this could be a game-changer. But wait, there’s more!

I believe that’s our friend Kyle Robertson at UC Santa Cruz featured on the organizer kit image. Looking good, Kyle!

The Library contains zip files packed with material tailored for teams, coaches, judges and organizers. You can download the current NHSEB rules and guidelines, case pool, score sheet and rubric (coaches and teams – don’t overlook those scoring criteria!), and even moderator scripts. Resources planned for future release include a guide to coaching a bowl during COVID (tip: buy a webcam), a manual for organizers interested in growing their bowl (I have an older version from my time as the original NHSEB Director of Outreach – email if you can’t wait for the new one), and “Ethics Bowl in Class: Resources for the Classroom and Beyond.”

The Theater includes an “Ethical Reasoning Toolkit” playlist beginning with a vid by Yale’s Kelley Schiffman. Prof Schiffman deftly distinguishes between descriptive and normative claims, and is followed by an exploration of the nature and moral implications of consent. While the consent vid uses the language of rights far too much (rights claims are too clunky for quality ethics bowl work), it’s redeemed by a cookie-eating illustration. Cookies cure all, and since we’re bashing rights claims, I hereby proclaim a universal human right to Toll House chocolate chip lovers cookies.

The second playlist, “Arguing About Morality,” begins with a vid similar to the descriptive vs. normative distinction from the first list, only this time delivered by John Corvino and focusing on facts vs. opinions. Corvino next overviews how arguments by analogy work, and how to analyze them. Arguments by analogy are common and persuasive – a team’s entire bowling strategy could be built on them (a possible strategy for my own team…).

The library and theater are certain to benefit teams, coaches, judges and volunteers. But the most welcome, innovative and value-adding feature is NHSEBAcademy Live.  

NHSEBAcademy Live is a new series of specially-designed online events for NHSEB students, coaches, organizers, and volunteers. These programs will provide new ways to engage with Ethics Bowl content, mechanics, and skills. Our full schedule of events is below, and more will be added throughout the Fall and Winter in the lead up to NHSEB Regional Season.

NHSEBAcademy.org/live

First up is a new ethics bowl clinic scheduled for Thursday, Oct 22nd from 3-4:30 EST and Saturday, Oct 24th from 4:30-6 EST (the second will be a repeat of the first). The workshops promise to cover “presentation techniques, responsive commentaries, practice Q+A sessions, and more.” Registration is required and will enable access to the Zoom link. If you check it out, let us know how it went. We may digitally bump into one another at the Saturday session.

Thanks, UNC, for this innovation. Looking forward to all the Academy has to offer. Readers can check it out via the menu at NHSEB.unc.edu or by clicking here.

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2020-2021 NHSEB Case Pool Released

A brand new NHSEB case pool was released today, and the topics are promising. There are cases on mask wearing, police de-funding, TikTok, and my favorite — Tiger King!

We’ll begin sharing initial analyses soon. But guest posts are often the best posts, so if you or your team would like to claim one of the cases (not Tiger King – I got dibs), shoot me an email (matt (at) mattdeaton.com) and we’ll get your thoughts posted soon.

Check out the cases via nhseb.unc.edu -> Cases or directly here. And happy analyzing, you cool cats and kittens!

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Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! Update

Huge thanks to the organizers, judges, coaches and competitors who’ve already agreed to submit or who’ve submitted write-ups for Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! From founders Bob and Joanne in California, to organizers Richard and Rachel in Utah, Fred in Baltimore, Leo in Shanghai, Jeanine in Michigan, Matthew in Perth, Greg in Texas, Matt in Ohio, Alex in Oregon, Roberta in New York, Alex in North Carolina and George in Florida, to judges Tim, Andrew and Dirk in Australia, as well as Ted, Rob and Claire in Portland, to coaches Michael in Washington and Lance in Tennessee, it’s great to have so much support this early. Thanks to all!

I’ve attempted to invite all National High School and Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl organizers (well, almost all — still a couple of names left on this very long list), so if you haven’t received an email, please check your spam folder and/or please contact me directly.

I’m asking organizers to nominate judges, coaches, moderators, participants and others they think might be able to contribute. However, ethics bowl organizers are notoriously busy people, especially with this COVID-corrupted semester underway, and most are understandably preoccupied with trying to figure out how to best host their bowl via Zoom. (I understand bowl leadership is ahead of the game on this, which is very good news – maybe everyone can relax?) So I hereby personally invite anyone sharing a love for ethics bowl, including you, to answer the following:

1) Why were you initially attracted to ethics bowl and why do you continue to support it?

2) What do you see as ethics bowl’s primary benefits?

3) What’s your vision for ethics bowl’s future?

4) Anything extra you’d like to add?

Nothing fancy or complete required. I’ll simply be pulling key quotes from submissions as I write the book. Please send your responses and any questions to matt (at) mattdeaton.com by October 31st.

Thanks in advance. The world needs to know why ethics bowl is such an impactful and awesome event perhaps now more than ever. It’s Ethics Bowl to the Rescue!, and there’s no reason we should keep that good news to ourselves. Cheers, Matt

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Australian Cookie Ethics

C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me

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.

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Show Your Work

Math teachers often require students to show their work. Even if your answer is correct, they want to see how you got it to confirm that you understand why.

Showing your work in Logic class looks like this… (Logic is only slightly more fun than this suggests)

Showing your work is even more important with theoretical mathematics where the correct answer is unknown. (I imagine problems involving infinity and that “i” symbol I vaguely remember from Calculus…) The transparency enables mathematicians to progress through unknown territory together. Were one to exclaim, “Eureka, X = -12.4!” the rest would rightly reply, “Great. But please explain why. Please show your work.”

Philosophy is similar to theoretical mathematics in this way. The correct answer is often unknown or disputed. Philosophers need to articulate their assumptions, logical moves, caveats and reasoning. That way others can consider their premises’ plausibility, the logical catalysts’ strength etc. – to judge whether the proposed conclusion truly makes sense. And if not, it helps them see how they might repair the reasoning chain to arrive at a better-defended position.

Part of making a good ethics bowl presentation entails explaining how your team arrived at its position. That way the other team and judges can fairly evaluate your view. It’s not enough to simply share your position. You need to thoroughly and clearly divulge the reasoning that got you there.

This exposure can feel intimidating. “What if we’ve made a mistake? They’ll know!” But it’s the only way to demonstrate that your position is worth others’ rational assent. Even if the judges agree with your conclusion (that prison labor is wrong or euthanizing healthy pets is OK or whatever), they need to understand how your team got there. They need to be able to verify the quality of your argument.

So show your work. Not only in math class, and not only in philosophy papers. But at all stages of ethics bowl – your initial presentation, your commentary on the other team’s argument, and during the judges Q&A.

And feel free to show your work in informal political and moral discussions as well. Don’t simply endorse candidate X – explain why you prefer candidate x over candidate y. If your reasons are truly good, maybe you’ll win additional support. If they’re not, finding out and changing your mind before it’s too late is a good thing. And maybe (just maybe) you’ll start a trend. Imagine that – a world in which people clearly explained their positions and modified them (rather than simply reasserting them, only louder) when proven wrong.

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Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! (made possible by YOU)

Wouldn’t it be nice if the Ethics Bowl community had a concise, accessible, fun book to gift prospective coaches, competitors, judges and sponsors? A book that explained in plain, relaxed language why ethics bowl’s collaborative, mutually respectful approach is exactly what the world needs, possibly now more than ever? A book that weaved together stories and quotes from competitors, coaches, organizers, judges, moderators – quotes from you?

Wish no more! Introducing Ethics Bowl to the Rescue!, coming early 2021, with your help. With support and endorsement from ethics bowl creator Dr. Bob Ladenson, we cordially invite you, dear ethics bowl participant, organizer, volunteer or fan, to share why you love and continue to support ethics bowl. Nothing fancy required. The plan is to share the many benefits of ethics bowl into chapters on topics such as:

  • Civility
  • Friendship
  • Social Change
  • Self-Knowledge
  • Public Speaking
  • Critical Thinking
  • Moral Development
  • Personal Confidence
  • Philosophical Appreciation

Don’t worry that you’re not involved or advanced or impressive enough to contribute – it doesn’t matter if you’re a first-year Jr. High bowler or a tenth-year Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl organizer, the reigning National High School Ethics Bowl champs or the last-place team from our smallest Regional – there’s a place for your input in Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! and I’d love to include it.

I’d even love to include input from Australia’s Ethics Olympiad and Ethics Slam – ya’ll might get your own chapter 🙂

If you’re not sure what to say, a funny or heartwarming ethics bowl-related story would be fan-freaking-tastic. Or simply share from the heart what ethics bowl means to you.

The book will be affordably available (Amazon’s cut + printing costs) in paperback for those who still like to hold physical books, and also in open-source PDF (and Kindle, Apple, etc. if I can figure out the conversion…) for free that the community will be welcome and encouraged email, host, post and otherwise share as they see fit.

Submission Window: July 1st – October 31st, 2020

Email Submissions to: matt(at)mattdeaton.com (<- replace “(at)” with “@” – the parentheses are a crude spam deterrent). Or if you prefer, simply post in a comment here.

Again, don’t think of this is a complete essay, or an academic (stuffy) article, or even an ethics argument. But rather a relaxed telling that I’ll pull from and incorporate into a book that explains why more people should try ethics bowl.

Questions welcome. And feel free and encouraged to share this widely. Organizers, please tell your volunteers and coaches. Coaches, please tell your teams. Teams, get to writing 🙂

Thanks in advance, and looking forward to reading why you continue to love and support ethics bowl, just like me, Matt

You can’t say no to SuperSocrates…
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2020 (Virtual) Ethics Bowl Summit Invite

This week our friends at the Parr Center announced a virtual ethics bowl celebration scheduled for mid-June – the 2020 Ethics Bowl Summit.

“[T]he NHSEB invites you to join in a review, recognition, and celebration of some of the extraordinary things our community has accomplished this year! The 2020 Ethics Bowl Summit is scheduled for 7pm (ET) on the evening of [Saturday] June 13, 2020 and will feature exciting updates and developments from NHSEB leadership, perspectives from students, coaches, and organizers across the U.S., and, of course, recognition of our regional winners, case competition winners, national finalist teams, and more!”

The event will be viewable via live stream on YouTube and on the NHSEB’s social medial platforms. Full information will be posted at NHSEBonline.org. So mark your calendar, and hope to see you there (online).

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Write a COVID Case for the Michigan Bowl?

Organizers of the Michigan High School Ethics Bowl invite you to write a COVID-themed case for the 2020-2021 season.

Art by Raphael. Captions by A2Ethics.

From an email distributed by A2Ethics late May, “There are so many ethical dilemmas we are witnessing and going through… [W]e urge you to include the moral dimensions of what is happening. Or not happening… to broaden and embolden your diary and journal-keeping by: Writing an ethics case study for the 2021 Michigan High School Ethics Bowl. Now is a perfect time to practice risky thinking–during a time of extreme risk. What political philosopher Hannah Arendt calls ‘thinking without a banister.’” 
 
If you’d like to submit a COVID-themed case for consideration, visit https://www.a2ethics.org/write-contributing-ethics-bowl-case-study 

And don’t be shy! Maybe you’ve never written a case before. Maybe your case won’t be selected. But simply giving it a shot will make you a better writer, a better bowler, and probably a braver, more action-oriented person. Somebody’s case has to be chosen. Why not yours?

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Zoom-based Olympiad Success

This past Tuesday evening, having grown bored of Adam Sandler’s Uncut Gems (Waterboy is more my style), I decided to call it a night around 11:30. Checking my email one last time, I saw a message from Ethics Olympiad director Matthew Wills from 9:55: “The Olympiad is beginning…”

I was confused. I’d been honored to be invited to serve as a judge for the online event. But it was scheduled for the following evening – Wednesday, May 27th at 10 p.m. Tennessee time, which would be 11 a.m. in Perth. My error became apparent when I realized that while it was still Tuesday, May 26th in Tennessee, it was in fact already Wednesday, May 27th in Australia…

I sent a quick apology, and wrestled with whether to hide or log on. My better side won the debate and I quickly joined the Zoom meeting (not taking time to change out of my blue jammies) to see if there was anything I might be able to do, and if nothing else, to apologize via video.

Matthew was all smiles and graciousness, per usual – not the nervous wreck that organizers sometimes devolve into, especially when their judges flake out…

Smartly, he’d pre-recruited a backup, just in case, and everything was progressing as planned. He asked if I’d like to sit in on one of the heats in a Zoom break-out room.

Surreal seeing the sun shining when it’s near midnight(!). Yay, technology.

It was for a match between Santa Sabina College and St. Peters Girls Academy. The teams were together at their respective schools, judges Rosalind Walsh and Jennifer Duke-Wonge appeared to be in their offices, and so too was moderator Theo Stapleton.

Considering the NHSEB case, “Is it OK to Punch a Nazi?” the teams were both well-prepared, and quick on their feet. They were respectful and engaged, and did a nice job sharing the floor, taking turns to elaborate on and clarify their arguments. The judges asked excellent questions (homing in on key aspects of the teams’ positions, but doing so in a friendly way), and Theo did an expert job keeping everyone on track – a wonderful balance of professionalism and warmth.

Zoom proved a superb platform. The video quality was great, and as far as I could tell, hardly glitched at all. My own connection was via a smartphone hotspot, which I worried might not be able to keep up. But it did without issue, and so did everyone else’s – a mini miracle I’m still impressed to witness.

The result of the event, which featured 8 teams from 8 different schools, was that St Peters Girls Adelaide, Santa Sabina College Sydney and The Kings School Sydney advanced to participate in the China Australia Ethics Olympiad on June 25th. Congrats to all three, and to the other teams who were all very close in the final scores.

Kudos to Matthew for doing such a nice job with the event. The participants appeared to enjoy themselves and grow from the experience. And this COVID-driven transition to online Ethics Olympiads (and Bowls) will no doubt continue to expand opportunities for international collaboration. There’s something reassuring about seeing teams on the other side of the globe (made apparent by the fact that it’s midnight where I am, yet I can see sunlight out the classroom window behind a team) think through cases addressed next door. There’s also something special about how Australians can say “cheers” with such authenticity…

And if you yourself are invited to participate in an international Ethics Olympiad, pay special attention to not only the local time, but the date. Don’t get sucked into bad movies on Netflix. And maybe be on standby the day before and after with a polo and sports jacket, just in case.

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Introducing NHSEB Online

Last week National High School Ethics Bowl Director Alex Richardson shared the following with regional organizers. Reprinted here in full (with complementary video) Alex outlines the move of NHSEB online, includes links to several engaging resources, and (unless I’m misreading – have messaged Alex to confirm) expands inclusion beyond winners of the regional bowls to all NHSEB participants(!).  May 8th UPDATE: Alex confirmed — the new online resources are open to all NHSEB Regional participants! Kudos to UNC for making these changes to sustain (and grow!) ethics bowl during this challenging age of COVID.

I hope you are all staying safe and healthy during what is shaping up to be a challenging time for us all.  

My team at the Parr Center and I have been working hard in the past few weeks to bring parts of the NHSEB experience online in the wake of the cancellation of our National Competition due to COVID-19. Today, I’m thrilled to introduce you to NHSEBOnline, a new slate of programming to engage our students virtually and keep up the conversations that make our activity what it is.  

The program will include three central initiatives: (1) asynchronous online Discussion Threads which allow students to engage each other in conversation about an abridged Case Set via video, audio, and text-based messaging, (2) weekly Group “Huddles” where students can discuss problems and prospects with NHSEB staff and volunteer organizers via videoconference, and finally (3) a virtual Ethics Bowl Summit in late May which will bring together students, organizers, volunteers, and parents from across the country to recognize and feature our National Finalists, celebrate with all of our students, and close out the 2019-2020 season! More information about format and scheduling for the Summit will be released in the coming weeks.   I hope you’ll share this message and the video above with your coaches and students. Registration for participants is now open. We are also continually looking for volunteer organizers to help out with the administration of the program and planning for the end of the year. Your help is most welcome! Conversation is the essence of this activity, and I’m so excited to see it continue, particularly during the complex and challenging times we find ourselves in.

I hope you’ll join us in this experiment, and encourage your students and coaches to do the same.

Alex Richardson,  Director, National High School Ethics Bowl, Parr Center for Ethics, UNC Chapel Hill