This past March, an especially talented team from William & Mary in Virginia won IEB nationals in St. Louis. I happened to run into their faculty sponsor, Tim Sommers (who studied under one of my philosophical heroes, John Rawls) in the parking garage afterwards, and was amazed to learn that the team didn’t have an official “coach,” only a faculty sponsor. So I reached out to team captain, Bernardo Jimenez, to get the backstory and see if he might have any advice for other teams. Bernardo was gracious enough to share the following article and pictures. Congrats to the entire W&M philosophy and Ethics Bowl program, and thanks so much for the awesome guest article!
I got into Ethics Bowl eight years ago as a high school freshman through NHSEB, where my school’s wonderful teacher, Ms. Way, had run a successful program for years. I imagined myself as fond of anything that involved philosophy back then, and in this case, I happened to be right. I had to learn some tough lessons about discipline and hard work during that time—I didn’t compete for the team until my junior year. By my senior year, though, I was one of the team’s main competitors, and we had an amazing year, placing 5th at the national competition. At that point, I had fallen in love with Ethics Bowl forever.
I got into college Ethics Bowl on the back of dissatisfaction from coming close to but not winning the national competition—I felt like I had unfinished business and could learn even more lessons from this amazing activity. The whole idea of starting a team on my own at William & Mary still might not have gotten off the ground without some great luck; somehow, I made it to the national competition competing solo my freshman year. After that, my buddy Sam came on, and we were a team of two for a while. Later, we got a faculty coach in addition to myself (Professor Tim Sommers), recruited new members, and everything of course culminated in winning of the APPE IEB this spring. Out of everything I ever did in Ethics Bowl, I have to say that learning how to coach a big team was the hardest—shoutout to all the amazing coaches who might be reading this! I don’t know how you all do it every year!
I think there are so many amazing, obvious benefits of Ethics Bowl. For many competitive young people like me, it’s a great chance to direct your energy into something that develops your reasoning and speaking skills alongside your moral compass. The main goal of Ethics Bowl is not winning, of course, but the competitive aspect draws many people in who would otherwise not engage and allows them to become far more considerate and thoughtful than they otherwise would have. For me and many others, though, I think the biggest benefit of Ethics Bowl is its ability to target “black and white” worldviews. I came into Ethics Bowl in high school thinking that I knew everything and that my views were obviously correct. If someone disagreed with me, then they were wrong. That was that. There was no middle ground or gray area. But year after year of this competition has given me an understanding of why other people think the way they do. I’ve been reminded so often that there are great arguments for and against essentially any seriousposition. I’ve learned that it’s harder to genuinelyput yourself in other people’s shoes than most people think. And in a time where having the most polarizing view is socially rewarded, striving for consensus and having a healthy uncertainty about your own views of the world is so hard. How lucky I was to have Ethics Bowl teaching me the value of those things, and guiding me towards the truth!
If I had to give other teams advice to help them be more successful, the first thing I would say would be to not make too much out of individual wins and losses. I always caution my teammates from making too much out of one match or even one competition. In the words of NBA coach Gregg Poppovich, “When you win, you’re never as good as you thought you were, and when you lose, you’re never as bad.” Ultimately, just like any other competition, what happens in a single round of Ethics Bowl is often quite random. It’s much more productive to focus on the things you can control—after all, any 2-1 split between judges could have easily gone the other way. Even the littlest things, then, clearly do matter. A second piece of advice would be that answering the question goes beyond simply answering it at the beginning. I have noticed that a lot of teams directly answer the question they are given in their introduction and then proceed to give a presentation that answers the overall case rather than the specific question given to them. Competing teams, I think, are understandably more prepared for a general response to each case. But if you are a judge, you haven’t practiced general presentations on each case for months. The question in front of you is probably the thing that stands out most, so it’s important as a team to stick to the question that was actually asked. The last bit of advice I’d have stems from the fact that I’m a double major in economics and philosophy. My economics knowledge has come in handy to save the day so many times during rounds, especially during judges’ questions. Multi-disciplinary knowledge is so important in Ethics Bowl—especially in close rounds that end up being decided by just a point or two. That being said, I notice a lot of teams, even successful ones at nationals, struggle when asked foundational philosophical questions about the ethical concepts they use. In my humble opinion, it’s pretty hard to consistently win at nationals without having at least one or two team members well-versed in basic philosophical theory.
As for what’s next for me, I will begin working in international tax later this summer in Miami following my graduation. My job will require lots of writing and verbal communication, skills that Ethics Bowl was incredibly important in developing for me. I’ll probably still help out my old William & Mary teammates here and there post-graduation, but if any colleges or tournament organizers in South Florida want a coach or assistant, reach out! Although my days of competing are over, I look forward to helping Ethics Bowl grow in so many other ways.
Congrats again to W&M and thanks again to Bernardo for the article! If anyone in South Florida would like to put his talents to good use, please reach out and I’d be honored to connect you.
