Ethics Bowl Creator Bob Ladenson with another legend, Max Minshull – the only high schooler to organize a HSEB while still a student.
Ethics Bowl creator Bob Ladenson recently published an article in The Philosopher’s Magazine outlining benefits of and lessons from Ethics Bowl.
Benefits include “experiential education for open-mindedness” which participants gain by thinking through difficult, controversial, and as Bob puts it, often “highly viewpoint dependent” cases.
Another is “deliberative thoughtfulness” attained via “serious effort to understand [others’] views from the inside – to comprehend the key concerns motivating the viewpoint, and, at least to some extent, appreciating the force of those concerns.” Bob considers this ability to understand and empathize with those who disagree with us central to a stable, respectful democracy, and I agree.
The article also includes tips on how to offer stellar case commentary, even when your team agrees with the other’s conclusions, as well as a cool sample case on whether and how medical professionals should treat prisoners subjected to waterboarding and other “advanced interrogation techniques.”
If you’ve not had the pleasure of chatting with Bob or reading his work, the article is an easy, quick way to appreciate Ethics Bowl from the original founder’s perspective. Check it out here – and thanks to the Phil Mag editors for spreading the good word!
This article is a continuation of a limited series by Deric Barber. To read the first article click here.
Serious fun—Meyerland’s Madison Price, Isabel Reynoso, Aiden Zider, and Claire Cabral enjoy every minute of the Middle School Ethics Bowl, even the short break between rounds 1 and 2.
Following the debate, I continued my search for a worthy extracurricular activity for my students. It just so happened that Houston was holding its first High School Ethics Bowl. I called the director, Adam Valenstein, and asked if I could observe.
What I found was that when students discussed each case scenario, the teams were not assigned a side to persuade. Rather they created the best solution and shared it.
After Team A’s initial presentation, I listened to Team B’s commentary, and then they began by saying, “Yes, we agree with your stance…” I was amazed; they were agreeing with the other team.
They went on to ask for more clarification on how the first team came to their conclusion and the floor was yielded so the first team could further explain their stance. They began working together to find the best answer. All so courteous. I came to discover later that there are points given for “civil discourse.” The teams practiced civil discourse and were scored for their civility.
As the day went on, I continued to be impressed by the students, their discussions and decorum. Eventually I connected with Valestein, “What do you like best about Ethics Bowl?” His answer was immediate, “It teaches them to listen.” This was the opposite of debate, which teaches them to speak. I saw the profound value in this listening practice because people who listen with a critical mind are what the world needs, and Ethics Bowl is the format that teaches precisely this.
The following year, I went back and started the first Ethics Bowl middle school team at my school, even though there were no other middle school teams for competition. Valestein brought his high schoolers to scrimmage with us that first year. The next year I grew my team and got other middle schools in the area to form teams. The following year we hosted the first Middle School Ethics Bowl (MSEB).
The MSEB has since grown across the nation. The Squire Family Foundation, The Ethics Institute at Kent Place School, regional coordinators, ethicists, and I have come together to form the National Middle School Ethics Bowl Executive Committee to consider the competition’s format, include more middle school teams, secure further funding, and host a National MSEB event. The Ethics Institute at Kent Place, during the pandemic, was able to host the first National Middle School Ethics Bowl online.
Meanwhile we have re-envisioned the middle school competition’s format. The newly created “Open Dialogue” is a forum in which both teams search for the best answer to the case through back and forth discussion among teams. The Dialogue is designed for the practice of dialectical inquiry in which both teams work to gain a deeper understanding of the issues in each case.
Similarly, the “Final Question” is another new feature of the Bowl. At the end of each competitive round, the non-presenting team is asked, “What was the best point the other team made and why?” This encourages careful listening for their reasoning and evidence in the midst of civil discourse. The online MSEB that we held with the “Open Dialogue” and “Final Question” was a great success. It is a quintessential Ethics Bowl: listening, inquiring, together, to discover the best answer to what we should do.
The following is the first article in a limited series by Houston Middle School Ethics Bowl founder and coach Deric Barber.
A few years ago, I went searching for a quality extracurricular academic activity for my middle school students. Debate seemed promising. After all, debate gets students to think about other perspectives. So I decided to observe one with a parent who was a volunteer judge.
When I told the folks at check-in I was there to observe, they invited me to judge. I told them I didn’t feel qualified, having never even attended a debate, let alone properly trained to judge. Their reply: “It’s easy. Just pick the team you think is best.”
Before I knew it, I was judging. I quickly realized that the students had prepared long and hard, which sent me scrambling to keep track of their complicated arguments. I’m sure they assumed I deserved to select a winner. But despite my appearance, little did they know I was thinking, “What a shame for these students to have some walk-in amateur choose which they consider ‘the best.'”
Well, I picked “the best” team and moved on to the second round. It was this round that ripped my heart out. One team was quick, poised, and ready to attack, while the other was younger and less confident. When the cross-fire portion of the round began, the older team grabbed the floor and started hurling accusations, taking phrases out of context, twisting what the other team had said to create something they had not, declaring how stupid the other team’s position was – the classic Straw Man fallacy.
The younger team wasn’t ready for this tactic. Anytime they tried to explain that the other teams’ (mis)interpretation was not what they had said, the aggressive team would grab the floor again with more ammunition, throwing the younger team into confusion. The younger team continued to fall into this trap. And when they’d try to clarify their view, the aggressive team would talk over them and refuse to stop, with both talking so loudly I couldn’t keep up with either.
Eventually a member of the younger team, having been bullied so aggressively and persistently, began to cry. What’s worse is that the bullying team went on to win the tournament! The bullies were distinguished as “the best” for the debate.
I came away thinking, “Is this what we’re teaching our children? That discussion is about talking over and past one another rather than listening? About “winning” even if it leaves the other side hurt and crying? About blindly convincing others to our side rather than working together to find the best solution? Even when we know our views are unexamined or even plain wrong?”
What I came to realize is that debate aims at persuasion by any means necessary, usually of uncritical thinkers. Americans too often think this is the best way to unpack issues. I agree, debate does help a student take that crucial first step and consider another view than one’s own, namely “the affirmative” or “the negative.” However does that one step in the right direction get us to “the best.” What if the answer lies outside of a given proposition altogether?
The people involved in debate, most of them loving parents and generous volunteers, no doubt are helping. They’re helping participants build speaking confidence and giving them a forum to practice one form of communication. They’re helping kids learn about important issues and setting the expectation that they’ll be engaged citizens.
But from my brief experience, traditional debate doesn’t get us all the way to “the best.” I am concerned that many of our brightest, creative, young minds are being limited to a winner/loser, I’m right/You’re wrong thinking that is divisive and falls short of “the best” for our nation and world. If only there were a better alternative, I suspect many of these well-intentioned parents and volunteers would adopt it.
Following the debate, I continued my search. It just so happened that Houston was holding its first High School Ethics Bowl.
Philosothon has much in common with Ethics Bowl. Both require civility and critical thinking. Both balance healthy competition with enlightened cooperation. And both feature exceptionally good-looking judges.
Alan Tapper and Matthew Wills recently wrote an article on just how good-looking these philosopher-judges are, especially when that Deaton fellow is involved. Kidding! It’s on the question of whether the cooperative nature of Philosothon can survive in light of its competitive elements, a topic relevant to Ethics Bowl for sure.
One argument Tapper and Wills consider is that since demonstrating cooperation is required to win, a team’s competitive spirit can (oddly) incentivize cooperation. Aggressive, obstinate teams who attack their opponents and interpret their arguments in the worst possible light may do well at a traditional debate. But not at a Philosothon, and not at an Ethics Bowl. Therefore, the competitive will to win can actually inspire cooperation, at least when judges are directed to assign points accordingly.
However, this raises the question as to whether an impure motive dilutes the laudability of an action. Surely a team with civility embedded in its culture, demonstrating respectful dialogue because it’s internalized in team members’ character, is more deserving to win than a group of fakers. All else equal, I, like you, want sincerely civil teams to win and superficially civil teams to lose. But this is almost impossible to guarantee. Could skilled debaters study our norms, rehearse, put on a show for the judges and win, only to revert to their true disrespectful selves in the hallway? Of course. However, if the result is heightened civility, we probably shouldn’t complain. A sincerely civil team is likely to be wise, patient and understanding, and able to take such a loss with grace. For the sneaky team, the more they practice pretend civility, the more likely it will eventually become sincere. And what better way to encourage teams of all sorts to participate and enjoy the mutual-benefits of both Philosothons and Ethics Bowls than to lure them in with exceptionally good-looking judges.
Progress on Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! continues, and one submission I found especially insightful was from Fort Lewis philosophy professor and author of Beyond Fake News: Finding the Truth in a World of Misinformation, Justin McBrayer. Justin explains how disagreement over basic facts can drive substantial moral disagreement, even among people with shared values, something Ethics Bowlers often neglect. He graciously agreed to an email interview – enjoy!
Matt: Justin, I’d like to begin by quoting you. “Even if two people share all and only the same ethical values, they might come to radically different decisions about how to behave and what is right and wrong. That’s because they might be starting from different viewpoints about what is true or how the world is. So just as we need Ethics Bowl to help people think through their value commitments, we need a focus on applied epistemology so that people can think clearly about what the world is like.” Your point here is clear, but can you give an example?
Justin: Yes, and I think this sort of disagreement is becoming more and more common. For example, in the aftermath of the Roe decision, I notice that lots of people disagree about whether an Unborn Developing Human can feel pain, whether they have futures, whether they are conscious of particular things, etc. Those are all non-value issues. Sometimes when people change their minds about these non-value facts, they change their positions on moral issues. For example, if you come to believe that a UDH can experience fear and feel pain after 26 weeks, you might change your stance on when abortion is morally permissible.
Matt: That’s an excellent point, and probably explains why so many are baffled by others’ inability to appreciate moral truths obvious to them. Two people could be equally compassionate. It’s just that they hold different assumptions about an Unborn Developing Human’s ability to experience pain, whether it constitutes an entity with a future like ours, when its nervous system is developed enough to have thoughts, etc. The same could be true for differing assumptions about how burdensome pregnancy can be, what degree of choice women exercise when voluntarily engaging in sex, etc.
I’m wondering if anything can be said for how Ethics Bowl might ameliorate, exacerbate or otherwise address this. Is there anything coaches or rules committees or judges can do to help participants better recognize when differing assumptions are driving people with similar values to opposing conclusions? I would think that Ethics Bowl minimizes the impact of factual differences by stipulating facts right there in the case. Teams are allowed to do outside research. But it’s not expected or usually rewarded. Still, I can imagine teams disagreeing starkly over outcomes – whether a policy would make the world safer, contribute to climate change, discourage law-breaking, etc.
Justin: I agree with the first point: if we stipulate certain non-value facts at the outset, that will focus the attention on the values in play. But from my limited experience, Ethics Bowl cases don’t do a good job of this. They need to explicitly say things like (a) assume that 10,000 people will be harmed by this product each year or (b) the company’s decision will produce X amount of greenhouse gas or (c) the consumer is aware of the fact that the product is nutritionally useless. If we make it really obvious that teams can’t challenge those opening assumptions, the dialectic will be directed towards the value propositions that animate various applied ethical dilemmas.
Matt: You’re right. Cases do often leave a great deal open for teams to interpret. And when their factual assumptions diverge, so too will their moral conclusions. The interaction helps. But with so little time within a round, we can only expect so much. Maybe this is something we should coach teams to probe during their commentary? “Team A, your analysis seems to assume X. However, we actually thought Y was more likely. Would you agree that if Y were more likely, you’d actually endorse a different position?” Something like that might help participants better empathize, understand, appreciate and engage during prep, bowl day and beyond. And maybe that’s an early step in working together to identify more or less credible claims?
Justin: Right, so insofar as a case does NOT stipulate a certain non-value fact, we should encourage teams and judges (a) to recognize the non-value assumptions each side makes, (b) offer challenges to those assumptions and (c) offer objections that ask the other side how their conclusion would change if the non-value facts were altered in such-and-such a way. While we don’t want to go too far down the road of having teams try to evaluate and determine non-value facts (e.g. is pollution the main driver of climate change?), we DO want them to see that applied ethical conclusions typically rely on a non-value premise in the argument. Change that premise, and you’ll change what follows from your moral principle.
Matt: Agreed that we don’t want to turn Ethics Bowl into Research Bowl. But also agreed that all involved should appreciate how easily like-minded, reasonable people can arrive at very different conclusions – just takes disagreement over one key fact. And simply illuminating and making that disagreement explicit would advance the discussion. Thank you for making this even clearer than you already did, and for the encouragement to our coaches, teams and judges to listen carefully for differing assumptions. If nothing else, go ahead and stipulate facts and go from there. “If, for the sake of argument, we assume that a UDH after 26 weeks can feel pain…”
Justin: If you want an additional example besides abortion, climate change, vaccines, or just about any other polarized issue works. If you assume the vaccine is effective, then such-and-such follows. If you assume it’s not, then… Again, a difference of belief about non-values often lies behind what seems like intractable moral debate. And I agree with you that we don’t want to make it a research bowl. But we can do a better job of being cognizant about how our non-value assumptions often drive our value conclusions. Keep up the good work on the book!
“Ethics Bowl is the intellectual equivalent of a CrossFit exercise workout; that is, it strenuously tones the mind and soul together.” – Andrew Cullison, Ethics Bowl Organizer, Coach and former Competitor
While traditional workouts can make you better at specific activities (heavier bench press, faster 5k), CrossFit – a full-body workout approach combining weight and endurance training, slow and fast-twitch muscle exercise, prioritizing functional athleticism – can transform you into a true athlete.
In chapter 8 of The Ethics Bowl Way, “Beyond Argument: Learning Life Skills Through Ethics Bowl,” longtime Ethics Bowl enthusiast Andy Cullison argues that Ethics Bowl produces alum who are similarly well-rounded in ways that prepare us for a successful life.
I like it. Ethics Bowl does indeed build resilient, courageous leaders, gently cultivates public speaking skill and improves moral decision-making – benefits applicable not only to bowl day, but life.
Ethics Bowl can reveal and correct our moral blind spots, illuminating neglected interests and heightening our moral sense. As Andy points out, the explicit requirement to proactively consider thoughtful objections may be one of its most important benefits, for this teaches humility, humanizes the “other” side, and encourages reconciliation – beneficial for interpersonal relationships, business relationships and democratic citizenship. An encouraging example shared by Andy:
“One of the best Ethics Bowl teams we have seen had two cocaptains: one was a leader of the College Republicans, the other founded the College Democratic Socialist Club (because the College Democrats weren’t ‘liberal enough’). The captains became great friends. We like to think that the fact that they developed their ethical awareness together, as team members, fostered their personal friendship” (66).
When it comes to public speaking, Andy notes how our approach uniquely “scaffolds the nurturing of these skills in ways that other ‘speaking’ cocurricular activities do not” (67). He’s right. Traditional debates often expect each team member to speak as frequently (and forcefully…) as their peers. But with Ethics Bowl, less experienced members can shape their team’s position during prep and limit their bowl-day involvement to conferral periods. Case mastery is just as important as verbal eloquence, and team members who prefer to leave the speaking to others may do so without point penalty or personal shame.
But as Andy argues, Ethics Bowl also teaches resilience, a master life skill. Despite our emphasis on collaboration, Ethics Bowl remains a competition, which means far more teams go home without a trophy than with one. However, losing teams continue to return, and Andy argues that this is largely because of the undeniable intrinsic benefits combined with participants’ private confidence that they’ve grown, performed admirably and deserve to be proud regardless of how a group of fallible judges may have scored them.
“The paradox at the heart of Ethics Bowl is that most students realize that there are rewards of the event that outweigh the tangible rewards of winning. That’s why so many teams that perennially finish in the bottom half or even quarter of the rankings show up year after year. These students have learned to uncover the pleasure of engaging in activity that is hard, that challenges them, in which they are the final judges of what they’ve learned” (70).
Last, Ethics Bowl transforms and empowers participants into courageous leaders. While CrossFit can ready our bodies for physical challenges, Ethics Bowl readies us for life.
“Preparing a student for life is about preparing them to be courageous, ethical leaders. That’s why Ethics Bowl is about so much more than learning how to win arguments. Ethics bowl truly is preparation for life” (71).
Excellent argument, Andy! And wonderful book, editors and friends Roberta Israeloff and Karen Mizell. Stay tuned for more articles on The Ethics Bowl Way. And be sure to check it out at Amazon if you haven’t already.
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.
I’d like to thank Matt Deaton for introducing me to Ethics Bowl at this year’s American Philosophical Association (APA) Eastern Division conference.
Given my own mission to help students (of any age) develop their critical-thinking skills (through books like Critical Thinking from MIT Press and my LogicCheck site that uses the news of the day to teach critical-thinking techniques) I’m drawn to situations where facts alone cannot provide answers on what to do.
In situations when we have to decide what to do in the future, we can’t fact-check things that haven’t happened yet, but we can argue over which choice to make. We can also never know with certainty what is going on inside other people’s heads, which requires us to argue over motives and motivations, rather than claim to know them without doubt.
Similarly, only the most trivial ethical dilemmas can be resolved by appealing to facts of the matter. For the kind of complex dilemmas we face in the real world, such as those students grapple with when they participate in Ethics Bowl, we need to argue things out. And arguing well is what you learn by studying critical thinking.
With that in mind, I was inspired to start a series over at LogicCheck that applies different critical-thinking principles to specific cases in this year’s Ethics Bowl national case set. The first looks at how the ability to peer through persuasive language (commonly referred to as rhetoric) to see through wording that might pre-suppose an answer to a problem. A second piece shows how hidden premises, statements implied but not stated in arguments, often contain the most important points we are need to discuss.
I hope to continue this series by looking at other cases in light of the critical-thinker’s toolkit that involves skills such as controlling for bias and media and information literacy. In each of these postings, I will endeavor to introduce students to productive ways of thinking about ethical issues and avoid telling them what to think about them.
So thanks again to Matt for letting me post here at his Ethics Bowl site. Thanks as well to everyone involved with this fantastic program, and to all the students and teachers participating in it.
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.
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
