Tag: Archie Stapleton

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Fall 2024 TKEthics Olympiad Results

Here’s a message from Archie Stapleton, co-founder of the Modus Ponens Institute and organizer of the TKEthics Olympiad, congratulating recent winners and announcing several cool spring events. Congrats to all who participated and kudos to MPI for growing in these exciting new directions!

Dear Ethletes and coaches from the TKEthics 2024 Fall Olympiad, 

We want to start by congratulating all of you for participating in an incredible day of ethical discussion! We have heard really positive feedback from judges and spectators about the quality of your argumentation and engagement. You all demonstrated real commitment to ethical discourse, and tackled the problems of AI and technology in an incredibly nuanced and mature way. You can all be extremely proud. 

Here are the results: 

In the Open Division: The Gold Medal is awarded to Pythagoras (Eric Zhang, Michael Xu, Ethni Cajigas, Chase Chong, Stephanie Lee), The Silver Medal is awarded to Diogenes (Middle School team), (Eleanor Kleman, Mia Santos, Dahlia Rodgers, Reya Krishnan, Emilia Henry), The Bronze Medal is awarded to Parfit, (Qinrong (Anny) Qian, Anthony Gong, Eirena Wen, Zhiyuan (Jerry) Jiang). Following closely behind in fourth place was: Hobbes (Chengyin Du, Jingxuan (Jenelle) Zhang, Mutong Zhong, Huahui Chen), and in fifth was Locke (middle school team) (Ruilin Liang, James Loke, Darren Han, Haoxian (Ethan) Wang). 

In the Middle School Division, excluding Diogenes who attained Silver in the open category: Gold Medal is awarded to Locke (Ruilin, James, Darren, Ethan), The Silver Medal is awarded to Socrates (Isaac Zhang, Nina He, Jeason Zhou, Steven Wu, Eason Wei), The Bronze Medal is awarded to Leibniz (Moxi Zhu, Laura Zhang, William Tao). Following closely behind in fourth place was Hume (Jeffery Lian, Zachary J Liu, Kingston Wang, Mia Zhang, Vicky Fei). 

Top International Team team: Aristotle (Olivia Yu, Yishan Gao (Noelle), Winston Ge). 

Finally, we allow judges to submit an “honorable mention” for any team they were particularly impressed by in any given round! These teams received Honorable Mentions throughout the day: Plato (“Xing (Elsa) Gao, Ziyue (Abby) Zhou, Liqian (Eric) Yan, James Chen), Hegel (Derek Hu, Austin Lu, Liam Kim), Hobbes (listed above), Parfit (listed above) and Russel (Angela Yang, Jordan He, Alpha Dong, Angel Shaji, Mushel Khan). 

Congratulations to all teams! Certificates will be sent out to each team within the next week. 

We are also excited to announce that we will host an in person conference on the West Coast of the US for any team mentioned in the above announcements in August 2025, stay tuned! 

If you missed out this time, don’t fret! Another opportunity is around the corner: 

Our next tournament is the spring TKEthics Olympiad on Sunday, March 1st, and is now open for registration! This will also allow you to qualify for our in person conference. 

After that is the Pan American Ethics Olympiad! This is the program with an Eastern Round on Saturday, April 26th at 9am EST, a Western Round on Saturday, May 3rd at 9am PST, and the

Pan Am Final on Saturday, May 17th, 2025 also at 9am PST. Register here. The winners of this event will be eligible for the International Ethics Olympiad Final held in July (10am East Coast Australia time), with hundreds of teams from all over the world. 

Kind regards, 

The MPI and TKEthics Olympiad Organizing Committee

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Announcing the 2024 Pan American Ethics Olympiad!

A new Ethics competition, hosted by the Modus Ponens Institute, will be held in March 2024. The Western competition will be on the 10th of March, and the Eastern competition will be on March 30th. The Pan American Final will be held on April 14th.

This event is unique for a few reasons: first, it has an exciting International competition students can attend if they place in the top positions at the National tournament. Also, all judges have extensive background in either Philosophy or a related field of study, or a history of Ethics Olympiad judging. They will provide extensive feedback each round, which will be invaluable for your improvement throughout the rounds!

Furthermore, the competition emphasizes the use of ethical theories to ground arguments. Understanding the key theories, utilitarianism, some sort of deontology (the founding father being Emmanuel Kant), care ethics, virtue ethics, and perhaps Rawlsian justice could all be utilized to build your positions.

You can find additional info at the Modus Ponens Institute webpage, or you can get in touch with the organizers at panamethics@modusponensinstitute.com. They will release the cases to you, and offer training if you desire it, once you’ve registered for the competition.

Finally, if you have any financial difficulty paying for the team fee ($180 Canadian dollars), or for pre-tournament coaching, you can simply ask via email for a scholarship, and access will be granted.