Ethics Bowl (PHIL 560)

The Ethics Bowl provides students with a unique opportunity to practice applying the moral theories and argumentation principles that they learn in their ethics classes. They receive about 15 case studies in advance involving ethical issues in a number of practical contexts, including engineering, law, medicine, personal relationships, school and politics, both nationally and internationally. During the course the students will prepare these cases for National Ethics Bowl Competition. Questions may concern ethical problems on wide ranging topics, such as the classroom (e.g. cheating or plagiarism), personal relationships (e.g. dating or friendship), professional ethics (e.g. engineering, law, medicine), or social and political ethics (e.g. free speech, gun control, etc.) or global issues (e.g. the impact of globalization, global warming, the environment). The team sent to the Ethics Bowl competition will be selected from those registered in the course. Before the actual competition, a mock Ethics Bowl will be presented to the public and also to local high schools as part of the Philosophy Department’s outreach program.

Seth Bordner’s webpage