The sixth annual Washington State Ethics Bowl was held on February 2, 2019. Nineteen teams from eleven high schools competed in analyzing a series of ethical dilemmas covering a wide range of topics including fake social media followers, private funding in academia, and gun control.
The Center for Philosophy for Children, which hosts the competition, explains the format as similar to a competitive debate, but with a few important differences.
“…in Ethics Bowls teams are not forced to take adversarial positions or to hold fast to an assigned perspective. Instead, students have a forum in which to engage in dialogue, and they are judged on the quality of their analysis and the degree to which they engage in a thoughtful, civil exchange.
Although the High School Ethics Bowl is competitive, it is intended to promote collaboration. Teams do not have to take pro/con positions; in fact, they can agree with each other. They are not required to refute each other’s points, but rather to offer commentary on one another’s arguments. Teams are judged according to the quality of a team’s reasoning and how well team members organize and present their cases, analyze the case’s morally relevant features, and anticipate and preemptively respond to commentary and questions.”
The judges for the Washington State High School Ethics Bowl—drawn from the local legal, education and philosophical communities—had the difficult job of discerning between teams in a very competitive and close bowl.
The 2019 Washington State High School Ethics Bowl awards went to the following Schools:
- First place: Chief Sealth High School
- Second Place: University Prep Team 2
- Third Place: Seattle Academy Team 1
- Award for Civil Dialogue: Lake Washington High School Team 1
Chief Sealth will be going to the National High School Ethics Bowl at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in April.
More information, including this year’s cases, can be found on the High School Ethics Bowl website.
The Center for Philosophy for Children thanks the following generous event sponsors:
UW College of Arts and Science, Division of Social Sciences
UW College of Education UW Department of Philosophy
UW Program on Ethics
UW School of Law
Washington Interscholastic Activities Association
And special thank you to all of the judges, moderators, coaches, and volunteers who generously gave their time to make this year’s Washington State High School Ethics Bowl possible:
Dustyn Addington, Paul Agid, Geof Barker, Jill Bowman, Michael Brown, Tim Brown, David Byrne, Judge Morgan Christen, Eva Corets, Julio Covarrubias, Judge Michael Diaz, Bridget DuRuz, Samantha Egelhoff, Karen Emmerman, Sean Fay, Judge Michael Finkle, Carina Fourie, Dan Gerler, Gurdeep Gill, Sara Goering, Rick Goldfarb, Ryan Gompertz, Bryce Goodwin, Alexandra Hildreth, Ari Hock, David Hokit, Judy Howard, Natalie Janson, Nic Jones, Pavan Kumar, Ron Lone, Judge Dean Lum, Claire Malarkey, Conor Mayo-Wilson, Darcy McCusker, Drue Miller, Kimberly Mitchell, Natalia Magdalena Montes, Janice Moskalik, Noah Purcell, Paul Rasmussen, Michael Rosenthal, Judge Eric Schmidt, Ian Schnee, Jordan Sherry-Wagner, Dustin Stoddart, Lisa Stone, Debi Talukdar, Anne Thanh Thai, Paul Tubig, Hollie Wagner, Andrea Woody, and Christina Zaccagnino