Ethics Bowl
The Ethics Bowl is coming to HCC!
Class: Phil 2285
Fall Semester only. Fall, 2018: Spring Branch, Fridays, 12:00-1:50 pm. Times and locations may be flexible to your schedule.
Ethics Bowl is a nationally recognized team debate competition where student teams examine ethical case studies drawn from a wide range of areas (biomedical ethics, business ethics, environmental ethics, personal ethics, etc.). The students develop a moral position on the cases and defend it before a panel of judges and a competing team. After a team presents their position on a case, they are challenged with a commentary from the other team. They respond to that challenge and to additional questions about their position from the judges. Judges evaluate the team's performance in terms of the coherence of the team's argument, whether the team thoroughly identifies and discusses the central moral dimensions of the case, and the team's response to challenges.
The Texas regional competition occurs each year in San Antonio usually in mid-November. We will take teams of 3-5 students (with additional alternates) to the regional competition. If we are successful in this competition, we will take the team to the National Competition.
Interested students should contact me to get a access code to enroll in PHIL 2285 in the Fall Semester. You do not need any special knowledge of ethics to participate. We will use part of the class to prepare you on the use of ethical theory. The rest of the class involves preparing the cases and practice debate. Students will have the opportunity to compete for a position on the HCC Ethics Bowl Team.
Some of the life-long benefits are:
Critical thinking and analytic skills!
Communication skills and public speaking!
Knowledge of ethical theories and application to everyday life!
Teamwork!
Civic Engagement!
Skills in respectful, rational conversations!
Increase confidence!
Have fun!
Plus, it looks great on your resume/ CV.
More information about the National Ethics Bowl can be found at the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics website. Here is a link to the Cases, Rules, and Guidelines. You are encouraged to download some sample cases and an IEB Judges Scoresheet from this site.
Here is a link to a youtube video of the judge's training video which includes a sample debate. The debate starts at about 8:45 min mark.
Phil 2285 is coached by:
Please email for questions or more information.