Students debate real-world ethical cases at the second annual Ethics Bowl

Tufts' second annual Ethics Bowl, a debate-style competition covering complex ethical issues, took place on Saturday, in Miner Hall, with the final round of the event held in the Crane Room.

Tufts Department of Philosophy and the Experimental College co-sponsored the event, according to Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy Susan Russinoff. She and two graduate philosophy students, Steven Norris and Gabrial Santos-Neves, coordinated the event.

"Everything went very smoothly on Saturday, and we were even ahead of schedule for most of the day," Norris told the Daily in an email.

The event consisted of five teams with three to five members each. Each team has prepared since September to answer up to 15 real-world ethical cases, 10 of which were presented during the bowl, according to Norris. He and Santos-Neves ran two drop-in coaching sessions per week to help the teams prepare their responses to cases they would be discussing at the Ethics Bowl, according to Russinoff.

The coordinators worked together to moderate the event, Norris explained.

"Professor Russinoff moderated a couple of rounds (including the final round), but otherwise all of our judges and moderators were graduate students that volunteered their time," he said.

The winning team of this year's bowl was The Goon Squad, made up of junior Dylan Phelan and sophomores Adam Plumer, Zachary Flicker,Phoebe Phuong and Jane Acker, according to Norris. The first place prize featured a custom-made coffee mug and the chance to represent Tufts at the Northeast Regional Ethics Bowl competition at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. on Dec. 6.

Norris and Santos-Neves explained that they first volunteered as judges and moderators in last year's inaugural Ethics Bowl, which gave them insight into the preparation of the event for this year. They added that the event had a very similar structure to the first Ethics Bowl -- teams debated about real ethical dilemmas and defended their opinions with examples from research and theories from both classic and modern philosophers.Both Norris and Santos-Neves emphasized that the event is not structured like that of a courtroom, but rather the debates are strongly theory-based.

Russinoff said that the coordinators and the two departments had no trouble attracting a good group of participants this year. There were no prerequisites required to participate in the bowl, but professors in the Department of Philosophy gave their students an incentive for participating in the event -- students could participate or volunteer as extra credit or in place of an assignment, according to Norris and Santos-Neves.

Norris approximated that about 20 to 25 percent of the competitors would be returning from last year’s event. The School of Engineering was also represented in this year’s event, fielding teams that would provide a different perspective to the ethical issues presented, according to Norris and Santos-Neves.

They noted that the teams are judged on the presentation of their argument and the evidence they use to support their views on the issue at hand.

“Teams must demonstrate their ethical approaches and schools of thoughts during the debate,” Norris said.

Santos-Neves added that judges look for convincing and inclusive arguments, in which the team covers all of the issues presented in the case.

The coordinators hope that this kind of experiential learning will help students navigate their way through the variety of difficult issues they will face in the future, according to Russinoff.

“This is a great opportunity to introduce undergraduates to thinking critically about the complexities of ethical problems,” she explained.

Norris and Santos-Neves added that one of their mutual goals for the event was to “encourage intermingling between graduate and undergraduates outside of the classroom.”

Norris said that he hopes that a new crop of graduate students will get involved and take on a more active role behind the scenes, as he and Santos-Neves have done this year.

"Overall the 2nd Annual Tufts Ethics Bowl was a tremendous success," Norris said. "Now we're turning our attention towards preparing a team for the regional competition in December, and then [Santos-Neves] and I will be running the New England High School Ethics Bowl here at Tufts in February."