“Studying ethics is a waste of time because it’s all just a matter of personal opinion.”
“Studying ethics is a waste of time because I’m a Business/Law major… ethics is for losers!”
“I don’t need to study ethics (or worse, shouldn’t study ethics) because my holy book and/or religious leaders answer all moral questions for me.”
“This teacher is going to try to brainwash me into becoming an atheist, pagan, communist, socialist or some combination thereof, thereby condemning me to social embarrassment, familial ostracization, religious excommunication and/or eternal damnation.”
“This teacher is going to try to indoctrinate me into accepting their male, white, female, black, straight, gay, gendered, non-gendered, American, European, Hispanic, non-indigenous etc. perspective, thereby dishonoring my own identified culture.”
“This teacher is distractingly attractive (Gavin Enck, I’m looking at you!).”
Others? Retorts from students? Click that comment button… You know you wanna…
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.
One advantage of Ethics Bowl over traditional debate is that students aren’t forced to speak. This allows team members who would prefer to contribute during preparation, conferral periods and between rounds to do so without pressure or shame. In fact, it’s conceivable that a team captain could focus on research, argument construction and strategy, and leave every bit of bowl day verbal delivery to others.
However, Ethics Bowl is certainly a supportive environment to improve speaking skill and confidence. Plus, so many doors open when you’re comfortable in front of a crowd. If there’s anyone we want prepared to vocalize their views, its Ethics Bowl alum.
If you’re a coach (or competitor, or organizer who supports coaches), I’ve convinced you, and an accessible how-to would help, my humbly-titled public speaking book audiobook is now free on YouTube. It’s mainly for college students and young professionals. But I think many high schoolers would like it as well. If you try it, let me know!
Coaches, the only section you might screen is the “Urban Honey Badger” assertiveness exercise in Chapter 6: Conquering Nervousness. It’s borrowed from the world of self-defense and is a tad intense. However, that’s an Urban Honey Badger right there on the cover in a Socrates pose, so it can’t be that bad. Check it out and judge for yourself. Enjoy!
P.S. If you’d rather read than listen, it’s of course available at Amazon, but just shoot me an email and I’ll gladly share the full PDF.
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.
The History Channel’s Kings of Pain is a glorified version of MTV’s Jackass. Rather than Steve-O launching bottle rockets from untold orifices, “wildlife biologists” allow spiders to inject them with venom, hornets to sting them, and snakes to bite them, all in the name of ratings. I mean science.
However, I won’t pretend to be too good to watch something like this. I’m a Johnny Knoxville fan all the way. And since Kings of Pain is ever-so-slightly more mature, I can enjoy it with my kids with slightly less guilt. (I’ll watch Jackass with my oldest, but with considerable guilt.)
And since we’re serious moral reasoners here, I was excited to see the “wildlife biologists” scoring their encounters according to criteria that would have made Jeremy Bentham proud.
Looky there: intensity, duration. Of course, one man’s 9.25 might be another man’s 8. But by averaging and contrasting the scores inspired by tarantulas and pythons, we can quantify how much pain to assign various encounters, thereby making that Utilitarian calculus thing practical after all. Imperfect, of course. But more precise than critics give the theory credit.
Now all we need is a comparable show devoted to quantifying experiences of intense pleasure! On HBO, perhaps?
As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently took my nephew skydiving, and in the process decided to give away my books. (Facing mortality at the speed of gravity inspires clarity!)
My philosophical ethics primer, used by college, high school and even jr. high students on at least three continents, has been available on the Resources page in PDF here at EthicsBowl.org for several years. And I released the audiobook at Audible last summer. But as of this morning, the audiobook edition is now free and available to all on good old YouTube.
Enjoy! I hope this helps students lacking the stamina or time to read (reading wasn’t my #1 hobby growing up, either), as well as educators and Ethics Bowl coaches brave enough to teach them. Re-introducing philosopher’s approach to morality, now rather than in 100 pages, 100 minutes.
Handy Timestamps (also in description at YouTube):
“Sweatshop Labor is Wrong Unless the Shoes are Cute.” Now there’s a provocative article title! In it, Paharia, Vohs and Deshpande argue that we’re more likely to make selfish judgments when we’re clear-headed. When our minds are fresh with computing power to spare, our ego inflates the force of reasons supporting what we desire. But when we’re mentally distracted, our subconscious has a tougher time rationalizing favored outcomes, and we’re more likely to endorse morally consistent and benevolent conclusions.
Know that the authors didn’t just speculate – they recruited more than a hundred people, asked half to memorize a 7-digit number, and then asked all to evaluate arguments justifying underpaying and overworking employees – specifically, to rank the ethical permissibility of going on a Caribbean resort vacation with questionable labor practices for their friends, but then also for themselves. The assumption – all participants would be motivated to excuse mistreating employees when imagining themselves enjoying the resort. But those trying to simultaneously remember “7264281” wouldn’t have the spare mental acuity to do so.
The result: participants who weren’t required to memorize the number were significantly more likely to excuse poor worker treatment when evaluating the trip for themselves, but evaluations of the vacation resort for their friends remained steady for both the cognitively burdened and unburdened group.
Notice how designing the experiment in this way (cognitively loaded vs. clear-minded participants, a Caribbean resort trip for someone else vs. you) sheds light on our egos’ tendency to rationalize when its our own imagined welfare at stake.
One upshot for ethics bowl is that the closer a case hits home, the more apt we probably are to evaluate it in a self-interested fashion. However, knowing this, we can re-evaluate our judgments, double-checking not only for perspective bias, but for our tendency to favor reasons, and possibly even ethical theories, that promote what we personally desire.
So the next time a case feels especially personal, take a step back, try remembering 7264281, and revisit it anew.
Last, should we expect a correlation between IQ and selfishness – the sharper and quicker witted more prone to rationalize? The same from the comparatively carefree? From seasoned meditators?
Maybe. But it seems that the wisest and most clear-minded among us tend to be the most morally mindful, or at least that’s been my experience befriending and working with applied ethicists, professional and amateur alike. Then again, this judgment itself could be another ego-driven rationalization… Time to remember 7264281 and try again.
Argument by analogy is a powerful moral reasoning technique where our judgments about something clear are applied to something less clear, yet relevantly similar. Half asleep in bed this past Tuesday night, I was struck by a connection between lottery tickets and UDHs.
Imagine matching all five…
Oftentimes in the abortion debate, generally pro-choice authors emphasize how Unborn Developing Humans (or UDHs) are merely potential persons, rather than actual persons. They then quickly conclude that UDHs have very little value, and that abortions for most any reason are completely permissible. Sometimes they’ll invoke the language of rights, declaring, “Since UDHs aren’t persons, they have no right to life. And since UDH’s have no right to life, abortion is permissible — end of story.”
I’ve always found this puzzling. For one, honest ethicists arguing in good faith know full well sweeping rights claims are too coarse for the intricacies of real-life. But also because UDHs are the only thing that can grow into full persons, and often (if not usually) will become full persons if allowed.
That something with the potential to develop extremely high moral value (a person) already has very high moral value is intuitively compelling to me, but not everyone. However, he’s a basic analogy that helps clarify my thinking, and might inform and enrich yours.
The directions at Poweball.com read: “Select five numbers from 1 to 69 for the white balls; then select one number from 1 to 26 for the red Powerball.” Matching 1 or more of the first 5 numbers to the randomly drawn numbers entitles you to some money. But matching all five plus the Powerball wins the jackpot, which as of this writing sits at $181 million.
Imagine that you buy a ticket. Before the numbers are called, it’s probably worth less than the purchase price in light of the extremely low probability you’ll win (this is why many people call lotto paying your “idiot tax”). But imagine matching not only the first three numbers, not only the first four numbers, but all five white numbers. Whatever money you’d be entitled to for getting that far, you’d now have a 1 in 26 chance of winning $181 million. Whether you’re a greedy glutton or dream of philanthropy, that’s a LOT of money, and could fund a whole lot of ethics bowl expansion!
Would you say that since the ticket is merely a potential jackpot winner (with a 1 in 26 chance), rather than an actual jackpot winner, it’s therefore completely worthless?
Of course not. You’d guard it carefully, and with good reason. Even matching two numbers would get your attention. But three? Four? All five?
And so assuming conceived UDHs have a 1 in 26 chance (or greater) of growing into full persons (if genetically normal and in a healthy womb, they do), and assuming the value of a person exceeds or is somewhere in the ballpark of a Powerball jackpot, you should agree that UDHs can’t be casually dismissed as valueless clumps of cells.
Of course, this doesn’t imply abortions are never permissible — doesn’t mean that the high value of a UDH can’t be overridden. All it means is that the reasons needed to justify an abortion must be weighty enough to destroy something with already substantial value, and that anyone desiring to dismiss UDHs because they’re “merely” potential persons is probably a crummy Powerball player.
For most any issue, professional ethicists have thought about and published quality ideas. Rather than trying to solve an ethics bowl case from scratch, why not leverage existing wisdom? There’s no reason to defer to or agree with every argument out there. But your team’s analysis will almost certainly be enhanced, and judges will almost certainly be impressed, when they review and cite the arguments of contemporary philosophers. But where to begin?
Here’s Dr. Jim receiving some public praise for doing what he does best
Recently, former student, friend and medical resident, Jim Dolbow, invited me to comment on and co-publish a brief piece on patient modesty during emergency procedures. The main thrust: patients should either be told that they’ll be exposed during “code” treatments, or medical professionals should do more to cover their private areas during CPR, pulse checks and the like. Why? To honor patient consent and respect their dignity.
Less than two pages long, “If They Only Knew” was just released in the Journal of Patient Experience. An easy way to ease into the use of applied ethics journal articles, check it out here, and if you or your team would like to discuss, just let me know.
