Progress on Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! continues, and one submission I found especially insightful was from Fort Lewis philosophy professor and author of Beyond Fake News: Finding the Truth in a World of Misinformation, Justin McBrayer. Justin explains how disagreement over basic facts can drive substantial moral disagreement, even among people with shared values, something Ethics Bowlers often neglect. He graciously agreed to an email interview – enjoy!
Matt: Justin, I’d like to begin by quoting you. “Even if two people share all and only the same ethical values, they might come to radically different decisions about how to behave and what is right and wrong. That’s because they might be starting from different viewpoints about what is true or how the world is. So just as we need Ethics Bowl to help people think through their value commitments, we need a focus on applied epistemology so that people can think clearly about what the world is like.” Your point here is clear, but can you give an example?
Justin: Yes, and I think this sort of disagreement is becoming more and more common. For example, in the aftermath of the Roe decision, I notice that lots of people disagree about whether an Unborn Developing Human can feel pain, whether they have futures, whether they are conscious of particular things, etc. Those are all non-value issues. Sometimes when people change their minds about these non-value facts, they change their positions on moral issues. For example, if you come to believe that a UDH can experience fear and feel pain after 26 weeks, you might change your stance on when abortion is morally permissible.
Matt: That’s an excellent point, and probably explains why so many are baffled by others’ inability to appreciate moral truths obvious to them. Two people could be equally compassionate. It’s just that they hold different assumptions about an Unborn Developing Human’s ability to experience pain, whether it constitutes an entity with a future like ours, when its nervous system is developed enough to have thoughts, etc. The same could be true for differing assumptions about how burdensome pregnancy can be, what degree of choice women exercise when voluntarily engaging in sex, etc.
I’m wondering if anything can be said for how Ethics Bowl might ameliorate, exacerbate or otherwise address this. Is there anything coaches or rules committees or judges can do to help participants better recognize when differing assumptions are driving people with similar values to opposing conclusions? I would think that Ethics Bowl minimizes the impact of factual differences by stipulating facts right there in the case. Teams are allowed to do outside research. But it’s not expected or usually rewarded. Still, I can imagine teams disagreeing starkly over outcomes – whether a policy would make the world safer, contribute to climate change, discourage law-breaking, etc.
Justin: I agree with the first point: if we stipulate certain non-value facts at the outset, that will focus the attention on the values in play. But from my limited experience, Ethics Bowl cases don’t do a good job of this. They need to explicitly say things like (a) assume that 10,000 people will be harmed by this product each year or (b) the company’s decision will produce X amount of greenhouse gas or (c) the consumer is aware of the fact that the product is nutritionally useless. If we make it really obvious that teams can’t challenge those opening assumptions, the dialectic will be directed towards the value propositions that animate various applied ethical dilemmas.
Matt: You’re right. Cases do often leave a great deal open for teams to interpret. And when their factual assumptions diverge, so too will their moral conclusions. The interaction helps. But with so little time within a round, we can only expect so much. Maybe this is something we should coach teams to probe during their commentary? “Team A, your analysis seems to assume X. However, we actually thought Y was more likely. Would you agree that if Y were more likely, you’d actually endorse a different position?” Something like that might help participants better empathize, understand, appreciate and engage during prep, bowl day and beyond. And maybe that’s an early step in working together to identify more or less credible claims?
Justin: Right, so insofar as a case does NOT stipulate a certain non-value fact, we should encourage teams and judges (a) to recognize the non-value assumptions each side makes, (b) offer challenges to those assumptions and (c) offer objections that ask the other side how their conclusion would change if the non-value facts were altered in such-and-such a way. While we don’t want to go too far down the road of having teams try to evaluate and determine non-value facts (e.g. is pollution the main driver of climate change?), we DO want them to see that applied ethical conclusions typically rely on a non-value premise in the argument. Change that premise, and you’ll change what follows from your moral principle.
Matt: Agreed that we don’t want to turn Ethics Bowl into Research Bowl. But also agreed that all involved should appreciate how easily like-minded, reasonable people can arrive at very different conclusions – just takes disagreement over one key fact. And simply illuminating and making that disagreement explicit would advance the discussion. Thank you for making this even clearer than you already did, and for the encouragement to our coaches, teams and judges to listen carefully for differing assumptions. If nothing else, go ahead and stipulate facts and go from there. “If, for the sake of argument, we assume that a UDH after 26 weeks can feel pain…”
Justin: If you want an additional example besides abortion, climate change, vaccines, or just about any other polarized issue works. If you assume the vaccine is effective, then such-and-such follows. If you assume it’s not, then… Again, a difference of belief about non-values often lies behind what seems like intractable moral debate. And I agree with you that we don’t want to make it a research bowl. But we can do a better job of being cognizant about how our non-value assumptions often drive our value conclusions. Keep up the good work on the book!
