7th Annual Washington State High School Ethics Bowl

The seventh annual Washington State High School Ethics Bowl was held on February 29, 2020. Eighteen teams from twelve high schools competed in analyzing ethical dilemmas covering a wide range of topics including: confronting family members with different values; donations to the Notre Dame Cathedral rebuilding; involuntary commitment for drug addiction treatment; compensation for organ donations; and the news media’s use of photographs showing suffering and injustice.

The High School Ethics Bowl program promotes respectful, supportive and in-depth discussions of ethics. The bowl allows students to engage in intensive ethical inquiry, and constructive and respectful dialogue. 

The Center for Philosophy for Children hosts the competition and explains the difference between the ethics bowl and a traditional competitive debate: “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, drawn from the local legal, education, and philosophical communities, had the difficult job of judging between many compelling and discerning ethical arguments in a very competitive bowl.

The 2020 Washington State High School Ethics Bowl Awards went to the following teams:
First place: Henry Foss High School
Second place: Lake Washington High School Team 1
Third place: Garfield High School
Award for Civil Dialogue (tie): Shorewood High School and Ingraham High School Team 1

More information about the ethics bowl and this year’s cases can be found on the Washington State 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

The Center's director Jana Mohr Lone would like to send special thank you to all the judges, moderators, coaches and volunteers who generously contributed their time to make the Washington State High School Ethics Bowl possible:

Hodan Mohammed Abdi, Andrew Benjamin, Jill Bowman, David Byrne, Lisa Castilleja, Eva Corets, Leslie Daniels, Ishan Dasgupta, Judge Michael Diaz, Samantha Egelhoff, Sean Fay, Judge Michael Finkle, Aaron Flaster, Madeline Fox, Nancy Garcia, Dan Gerler, Sara Goering, Meha Goyal, Justice Steven Gonzalez, Ari Hock, Judy Howard, Nic Jones, Varun Joshi, Karthik Kumar, Jacqui Merrill Martin, Darcy McCusker, Drue Miller, Kimberly Mitchell, Ron Moore, Janice Moskalik, Christopher Motta-Wurst, Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis, Jackson Lone, Ann Owens, Bri Prusakowski, Noah Purcell, Paul Rasmussen, Shelley Saunders, Ian Schnee, Judge Eric Schmidt, Andreas Schönau, David Shapiro, Jane Shay, Cameron Sheldon, Jordan Sherry-Wagner, Ann Spangler, Sooz Stahl, Chalia Stallings-Ala’ilima, Lisa Stone, Sarah Sutton, Debi Talukdar, and Andrea Woody.