Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl

Three weeks ago, I served as a judge for the Southeastern Regional Intercollegiate Ethics Bowls held at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Sixteen teams of five students from fourteen colleges and universities competed. Contestants argued about a randomly selected issue from among the fifteen issues distributed to the schools prior to the Bowl. After three rounds, the teams with the best records progressed to the regional semi-finals and finals. Later this academic year, the four teams with the best records will participate in the nationals.

I found the experience both encouraging and discouraging. The cases, all real-world issues, were interesting and focused on a wide range of issues, e.g., the morality of outsourcing medical care to other countries and poverty tourism. Many contestants had researched the questions prior to the actual bowl. Enthusiastic fans – fellow students – accompanied some teams. Although I had never heard of an ethics bowl before, the idea has clearly resonated among at least some students, encourages the study of ethics, and will benefit government, business, non-profits, and – hopefully – the level of ethics found in public discourse in the U.S.

However, the level of ethical discourse at the Bowl was somewhat disappointing. Students mostly seemed unfamiliar with the principal theories of ethics, defaulted to utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number, the default for most people), and preferred to focus on facts rather than ethics. As an ethicist, I can only lament that ethics is not as popular as football or prime time TV shows!