Category: IEB Case Analysis

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Bowls Behind Bars

Several cases this IEB and NHSEB season involve treatment of incarcerated persons – whether prisoners’ religious dietary needs should be accommodated, whether they should be allowed to trade organs or bone marrow for reduced sentences, at what age (if any) life without the possibility of parole might be a just punishment. It would be understandable for teams with little experience with the prisons system to base their judgments on what they’ve learned from movies and television, or to think only about criminals’ victims. So, here are two resources to help expand their empathy and enhance their views – a remarkable video of incarcerated students actually doing Ethics Bowl, and an excerpt from Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! chapter 12: Bowls Behind Bars.

One place you might not expect to find Ethics Bowls is in prisons. Then again, there was once a somewhat famous philosopher who did some of his best work while behind bars. We know this because conversations with friends who came to visit were later published. One friend tried to convince him to escape, even offering to help, which led to a discussion on the nature of justice and citizens’ duties.

On the final day, talk turned to logical arguments concerning the immortality of the soul. The imprisoned philosopher concluded that our soul most likely does survive bodily death, which might have made his ultimate sentence a little easier to bear. Anyway, you may have heard of him—Socrates?

While Socrates’s dialogues with Crito, Phaedo, Simmias, and others may not have constituted an Ethics Bowl, Ethics Bowls have been held in prisons in at least five U.S. states. And as you might imagine, they’re an opportunity to not only enhance moral reasoning, but to humanize, teach empathy and compassion for all involved.

San Quentin Pioneers

In the first known case, University of California Santa Cruz philosophy professor, IEB coach, and Northern California HSEB organizer, Kyle Robertson, coached a group of students at San Quentin State Prison (later renamed San Quentin Rehabilitation Center) in late 2017, then brought his IEB team to hold a friendly match in early 2018. Writing for UC Santa Cruz, Scott Rappaport covered the event, as well as the background leading up to it.

Twice a month from last September to February, UC Santa Cruz philosophy lecturer Kyle Robertson woke up early, dropped his kids off at school, drove north for one hour and fifty minutes, crossed the Richmond Bridge, and went to San Quentin.

He would park in the prison lot, walk past a gift shop selling art created by death row inmates, and enter the main gate, where he would sign in at the first of three consecutive checkpoints. Finally entering the prison yard, he would walk past prisoners playing on the basketball courts and others engaged in games of chess, to get to the education center of the prison.

Robertson was there to teach a course in Ethics Bowl—a non-confrontational alternative to the traditional competitive form of debate—in collaboration with the Prison University Project (PUP). At the same time, he was also teaching an undergraduate course and coaching a team in Ethics Bowl at UC Santa Cruz. He soon suggested and arranged a very unusual debate between seven philosophy students from UC Santa Cruz and a team of prison inmates from San Quentin. It took place in the prison chapel—in front of an audience of nearly 100 inmates. [1]

UC Santa Cruz IEB team member Pedro Enriquez was there that day. He was a junior at the time and recalled his initial unease.

I thought it was going to be a lot more like the movies where they’re locked down, and you know, they’re going to be hollering or whatever. So when we walked in after we passed the security and they were just walking around, I was like, “Wait, is anybody gonna do anything? Like, where are all the cops? What if they do something?”[2]

Enriquez and his teammates quickly realized they were safe. And when apart from an interruption for a mandatory headcount, the rounds progressed per usual.  The San Quentin team took the trophy, the UC Santa Cruz IEB team returned the next year, and word soon spread.

Contagious Compassion

Among the judges that day was none other than Ethics Bowl creator Bob Ladenson who had moved to California to be closer to his grandkids after retiring from the Illinois Institute of Technology. At his side was the IEB director at the time, professor Richard Greene from Weber State University in Utah. Greene spoke with many of the imprisoned students and was so impressed by their seriousness and dedication that he worked with Rachel Robison-Greene of Utah State University to found a similar program in Utah. By the spring of 2020, they had an Ethics Bowl class in both the men’s and women’s state prisons.

COVID derailed their efforts temporarily. But they restarted in 2023, and after an eight-week class, two Utah IEB teams, one from Weber State and another from Utah State, visited for a friendly at the women’s facility. Greene had nothing but good things to say about the event, as well as his experience working with the students… [continued with sections on Ethics Bowl in prisons in Washington, Maryland, and Massachusetts].

[1] “How to Find Truth in Today’s Partisan World” by Scott Rappaport for UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Public Philosophy, reports.news.ucsc.edu/ethics-bowl

[2] Ibid.

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2025-2026 IEB Regionals Case 1 and NHSEB Regionals Case 12 A Pound of Flesh

Discussion on the proposal featuring two former prisoners – clip from Coach Michael’s attached study guide

IEB case 1 and NHSEB case 12, “A Pound of Flesh” (yep, same case) is about the Massachusetts legislature’s proposal to knock time off of prisoners’ sentences in exchanged for organ and bone marrow donations. We could put “donations” in scare quotes because depending on their environment, incarcerated individuals may not be making sufficiently free choices. But that’s just one factor to consider – here are several more based on discussions with my IEB and NHEB teams, followed by an excellent study guide by coach Michael Andersen. If you’re open to sharing your thoughts on this case, please share in a comment.

  • The proposed law would cap sentence reductions at 1 year, presumably awarding more time off for more invasive/dangerous/long-term detrimental donations and/or more needed organs.
  • There’s a shortage of organs for certain minority groups, and this program could rectify that unfairness, making it less difficult for minorities in need to receive an organ.
  • Any reduction in criminals’ sentences could be perceived to dishonor their victims or victims’ loved ones.
  • Allowing inmates to donate organs could serve their rehabilitation and inspire additional character growth, igniting a habit of giving and expanding their concern for others.
  • Such donations could be likened to organ selling given prisoners’ less than ideal circumstances, but we typically endorse monetary compensation for blood and gamete donations, as well as for surrogate mothering, so this wouldn’t necessarily render the practice unacceptable (though there are differences – blood regenerates and wombs can gestate multiple times, whereas kidneys do not grow back).

Finally, something my teams didn’t consider, but The Young Turk commentators brought up in one of the clips shared in coach Michael ‘s study guide below, is that were this proposal to become law, there’s a risk that sentences might become longer or prison conditions worse in order to coerce more “donations.” Hopefully the prisons system would not do this. But given the unmet needs of many waiting for various transplants, it’s definitely a risk.

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2025-2026 IEB Regionals Case 12 Lady Justice

Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl case 12 is on “the intentional murder of women because of their gender” or femicide. My team broached this sad topic last week, and one promising approach to decreasing femicide discussed in the case is mitigating possible root causes. For example, “the South African government’s approach to femicide has emphasized financial independence, built on the assumption that resolving economic hardship can help assuage the conditions that lead to femicides,” presumably under the assumption that women completely dependent upon men might be more vulnerable to inescapable violent relationships.

For a small-scale, grassroots example of a strategy to decreasing domestic violence generally, an organization where I live in East Tennessee hosts an annual “Me and My Guy” daddy daughter dance as a way to encourage men to treat women with dignity and respect, and for young women to internalize the belief that they deserve respectful treatment. That way they’ll be more likely to demand it from otherwise abusive partners, or leave/avoid abusive relationships altogether. This modest annual event is something my daughter and I have done for several years, always look forward to and enjoy. I recommend it to all the local dads I know with daughters, and last year we were joined by my nephew and great-niece. And I think beyond bringing particular young ladies and their father figures closer together, the event has to be raising standards among participating girls’ friend groups, and well as attitudes among dads’ coworkers, friends, and families.

Another strategy countries are using to decrease femicide is enhanced legal punishments. My IEB team may change their mind, but their initial take was that such laws would be unlikely to enhance deterrence unless there’s a substantial gap between punishments for killing women versus killing anyone. At least in the U.S., a murder conviction can already bring life imprisonment or even execution in some states, so some sort of additional pain would need to be included for femicide-specific murder convictions to proactively shape the behavior of would-be perpetrators. However, maybe anti-femicide laws could reinforce the wrongness of targeting women—just as hate crimes laws reinforce the wrongness of targeting victims due to the religion, ethnicity, etc.—and over time shape cultural values such that fewer hate crimes or femicides would occur? In this way, perhaps anti-femicide laws are both a direct deterrent and a cultural-shift strategy? Perhaps. And maybe this is the real goal of such laws since many (if not most) would-be murderers aren’t making rational risk calculations, but acting out of rage or irrationally generally. A few other ideas our team broached on the enhanced punishments angle:

  • It’s unclear when femicide-specific punishment enhancements would/should trigger—anytime a woman is murdered, or anytime a woman is murdered solely/mainly/in part because she’s a woman?
  • It’s unclear how these laws would deal with cases where the perpetrator is herself a woman (same punishment?)
  • It’s unclear how these laws would deal with cases where the victim or perpetrator is nonbinary, which the case acknowledges in the closing sentence

What do you think? Do other questions, possible solutions or analogies IEB teams should be considering come to mind? If so, please leave a comment. Not a happy topic, but definitely worth discussing, and perhaps a problem the Ethics Bowl community can help address. In the meantime, kudos to the Monroe County Health Council—looking forward to the next dance in December.

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Kicking off the 2025-2026 Ethics Bowl Season with a Revised Case Analysis Guide

Coach Michael Andersen recently updated the case analysis guide he shared here in 2023 with several improvements. Inspired by Dr. Sean Riley’s video, tips that stood out to me included step 2: “What kind of case is this?”, the invitation to radically emphasize with stakeholders, and the concentric circles visual. It also links to an updated case summary template.

Coach Michael considers these works in progress. But as far as I’m concerned, they’re more than good enough to begin using immediately, which is a good thing since both the IEB and NHSEB case sets recently went live. If you haven’t reviewed them already, the 2025-2026 IEB regionals case set is here and the NHSEB set here. Some super cool topics this season. More on the cases soon.

Enjoy, thanks coach Michael, and happy Ethics Bowl season kickoff!

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2018-2019 IEB Case 10: Poverty in Paradise

The following guest analysis is from DePauw University Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl team member, Marko Mavrovic. If you or your team would like to author a guest analysis on either an IEB or NHSEB case, we’d be pleased to share it. Scroll down to review which cases have already been covered, and email matt (at) mattdeaton.com to confirm the submission details. And thanks for leading the guest analysis charge, Marko!

Credit CNN image

Criminal individuals and corporations utilize the secrecy and fiscal leniency of small island tax haven nations to store their illegally-obtained assets. Some of these assets have been gleaned from developing countries via various means. Given this, the connection between tax haven nations and the further impoverishment of developing countries warrants closer inspection.

What is the Connection? Developing countries receive official development assistance (ODA), which is foreign government aid designed to promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries. Despite receiving an estimated $1.3 trillion in ODA from developed countries in 2012, developing countries saw nearly triple that amount flow out in the same year, indicating that the already impoverished developing countries are losing money. One of many sources of this outflow is unrecorded and usually illegal “capital flight.”

Capital flight refers to when money or assets of its citizens/residents, assets that would be subject to taxes, flows out rapidly from a country. Foreign and domestic corporations that contribute to capital flight use a practice known as “trade misinvoicing” to evade taxes, launder money, and circumvent restrictions on capital. Money laundering refers the process of concealing illicit money by ostensibly “transforming” it into legitimate assets. Often these corporations and individuals house their illicit assets in tax haven countries, such as the British Virgin Islands.

Tax havens are characterized by lax domestic policies and sometimes a lack of transparency. It is asserted that this illegal capital flight would be unable to occur without tax havens.  Tax haven countries, due to their domestic tax policies, may inadvertently be contributing to the massive outflow of money from developing countries and incentivizing financial criminality. Herein lies the main moral dilemma: Due to their indirect but adverse effect on developing countries, tax haven nations may be unethical.

There is nothing inherently morally bad about the existence of countries with lax domestic tax policies. While the criminal corporations and individuals utilize the tax havens for their illicit assets, the tax havens themselves are not criminal nor exclusively used by criminals. It is simply the country exercising their sovereignty over domestic policies. However, these tax havens are portrayed in such way that makes it appear as though they are integral to the illegal capital flight, yet the criminal act has already occurred prior to the assets arrival in whatever bank in Guam, Isle of Man, Bahamas etc. Tax havens are not a necessary feature of the illegal capital flight. If tax havens did not exist, deliberate misreporting of capital would likely still take place. Money laundering would still take place, too. In fact, money laundering occurs within countries when illegal assets are funneled  into legitimate  businesses. Capital flight from developing countries would also still take place as many criminals funnel the assets back into their home country,  too.

There is no direct connection between the continued impoverishment of developing countries and the existence of tax havens. The connection is indirect. Moreover, tax havens do not contribute to the outflow of money from developing countries. Some may argue that tax havens are incentivizing financial criminality, but they are not. They are merely incentivizing the movement of capital to their country by possessing tax rates that comparatively lower that than of the country in which the capital currently resides. Tax haven nations themselves are not moving money from developing countries, they are not mandating debt or interest payments, they are not repatriating back home investments made in developing countries, and they are not “reporting false prices on their trade invoices.” All of these actions are the main contributors to the extremely high capital outflow experienced made by other agents. The attention should instead be placed on those who engage in trade misinvoicing, money laundering, and other illegal activity that is detrimental to the development of developing countries.

Do individuals and corporations have a moral obligation to pay taxes in the country of their citizenship? In many cases, it is not criminals but law-abiding individuals who move their assets to tax havens. In doing so, they fail to contribute to the country of which they are a citizen and the country in which they made their money. Yet it is a rather common occurrence for a citizen of one country to move or spend their money in another country. International tourists do this all of the time! This movement of capital is a product of a more interconnected world in a time where travel is easier and national borders are more permeable to the movement of people and goods. This can and should be taken advantage of on the basis that individuals should have personal financial liberty. But the argument can be made that this “principle” of personal liberty does not outweigh a greater obligation to assist one’s own country (via the payment of taxes), especially if that individual is reaping the benefits of the tax revenue (i.e. infrastructure, education, healthcare, etc.)

Is It morally permissible for tax havens to have such low taxes? As argued above, tax haven nations are simply exercising their sovereignty over domestic affairs when they develop a tax policy. It can be argued, too, that a country’s first and primary obligation is to welfare of their own people. Considerations of the effect of their policies on other nations should only be accounted for after the best interests or desires of the nation are met, if accounted for at all. Many tax havens have democratic regimes, which reinforces, at least ideally, the notion that these tax policies are being developed in the interest of the people.

Ethical Obligations in International Relations: As it pertains to this case, some could argue that there are a few obligations of countries when interacting with other countries. The first is that developed countries have an obligation to assist the development of developing countries. This obligation is due in part because of abundance of resources of developed countries. Another reason is that the stability of developing countries, which likely can only be achieved by the generosity or aid of developed countries, is beneficial to all countries.

The second obligation is to avoid infringing upon the sovereignty of other nations except for in extraordinary circumstances. For example, demanding that a tax haven nation change its tax policy would constitute a violation of a country’s sovereignty. But there are situations in which that infringement may be permissible, such as when country A poses an imminent and real threat to the national security of country B. If the argument can be made that tax havens are directly threatening the national security of a developing country because of their policies, it may be enough to compel tax havens to no longer exist.

— Marko Mavrovic