According to case #12, software sometimes commits some pretty cringeworthy errors, such as Google tagging photos of African-Americans as gorillas (yikes…), or “airport body scanners flagging transgender bodies as threats” (double yikes…), or translation software replacing intentionally gender-neutral terms with gender-specific terms.
One pragmatic reason for programmers to correct and prevent such mistakes is that if customers can’t trust their software, they’ll buy and use software that they can.
But apart from the financial incentive, there’s also a moral obligation to correct such errors to the extent they cause vulnerable groups undeserved, avoidable harm.
Tagging African-Americas as gorillas triggers our moral radar not only because it’s a gross program error, but because African-Americans are sometimes demeaned as sub-human, and the program mistake exposes and deepens that wound. While one person might laugh it off, another might find it devastating.
In the case of the body scanner flagging a transgender person as a threat, I can only imagine the embarrassment this could cause, especially if the machine set off alarms or otherwise caused a scene. Whether we can fully understand why a person would want to modify their bodies in a gender altering way, basic decency suggests tweaks to the scanners and discreet handling of alarms. Hopefully a transgender person being screened in the name of passenger safety could overlook the inconvenience if it’s carried out tactfully, and especially if software improvements are underway.
And in the case of translation software replacing gender-neutral terms with gender-specific terms, if an author has gone to the trouble to gender neutralize their writing, translation software that misses that nuance would seem not only bad (translations are useful only to the extent they precisely convey author intent), but callous to the plight of people who reject gender assignment. Some people’s dignity turns on not being labeled he or she, and respecting that request seems easy and harmless enough. Even easier and more harmless — respecting the intent of authors who go to the trouble to use gender-neutral language.
Ultimately, appreciating the argument above requires some degree of sensitivity to and empathy with the plight of the impacted groups. As a straight, white male, I can only imagine how these errors could ruin a person’s week. But when I do imagine, I see a transgender teenager, or an elderly black man, or any already vulnerable person suffering an unnecessary, avoidable harm. I think about how a person could feel alienated and discounted already, and how these errors could compound their suffering. If the happiness of persons matters, it seems pretty clear programmers should go to the trouble to root out errors like those mentioned in case #12, and to take steps to prevent them in the first place.
An October, 2018 revision to my classic primer for ethics bowlers — now updated with video lectures on each of the chapters — is available in PDF on our Resources page and and via direct link here. Used by ethics bowl teams from coast to coast, it’s accessible, concise (only 60 pages), and contains all the philosophical ethics essentials: differences between morality and psychology/legality, how to build and analyze arguments by analogy, the four dominant ethics theories, the (legit, essential) role of our moral intuitions, and much more.
For class and other non-ethics bowl purposes, find the revised and expanded paperback edition at Amazon for less than $10 here. It’s similar to this 3rd ethics bowler edition, with several sections rewritten for clarity and impact, formatted for fewer words per page, lecture notes on each chapter at the end, and with a beautiful cover by ethics bowl supporter and artist, Ashley Addair.
But for ethics bowl-related purposes, the PDF version hosted here at EthicsBowl.org is completely free – my gift to the ethics bowl community. Print it, email it, host it on your team’s website – whatever you like.
Visit EthicsinaNutshell.org for the vids, sample reflection questions, sample syllabi and other resources.
Hoping you and your team find Nutshell useful, and special thanks to all the volunteers who helped improve editions 1 and 2,
Matt
Case 8 considers whether scientists should bring back extinct species, which could range from tyrannical T-Rexes to docile dodo birds. The techniques aren’t quite there, but are getting better. Should de-extinction experiments continue, and when a breakthrough inevitably occurs, should there be any limits on whether, in which cases or how de-extinction is used?
Mad scientist Justin, who does NOT recommend de-extinction
Here’s some guest analysis from my 10-year-old son, Justin.
“You should not bring back species from the past. As it states in the passage, ‘Many factors brought about the extinction of a given species, why should we intervene artificially to reverse the procedure?’ If you focused on just bringing them back, then it would cause problems such as throwing off the ecosystem. Also, the bucardo was revived, but only for a few seconds. It then died because of organ failure. So the science isn’t very effective.
I believe that they are just spending many thousands of dollars on trying to bring back extinct species. When you would have to bring back two, and if you were very serious about the bucardo being a thriving species, then you would probably have to set up hundreds of facilities all around of America.
So instead you should save the endangered instead of bringing back the extinct. Comment if you agree or disagree and why.”
Thank you, Justin! It sounds like you’re most concerned about resources being spent on something that may or may not work, which might be better spent saving endangered species before they’re gone.
What are your or your team’s thoughts on this case? To comment, click the article title, scroll down towards the bottom, and submit. Justin appreciates and looks forward to your ideas.
Randy notices 7-year-old Lisa dominating at the chess table. However, it’s quickly apparent that she’s no prodigy, but a hustler – moving pieces when no one is looking, making up rules to her advantage, and as a result winning the adulation of adult spectators unfamiliar with the game. He wonders whether to intervene, and if so, how.
My cutie pie Emily, who would never cheat at chess…
On the one hand, no money is at stake, and Randy doesn’t know anyone at this community picnic. It’s not like Lisa’s his niece or it’s his own children being unfairly beaten. On the other hand, there at least three things wrong with what’s happening.
First the losing kids are probably getting their feelings hurt. Some may be able to brush it off, but others may be in tears. We don’t know from the case details, but to the extent Lisa’s victims are visibly distraught, this would give Randy reason to say something.
Second, the longer Lisa gets away with her trickery, the more likely she’ll develop a deceptive, cheating personality, which may lead her to inflict future harms. Chess cheating today could lead to investment fraud tomorrow… Yet an effective correction could prove a pivotal moment in the development of a legendarily virtuous character – “Lisa the Just,” the philosophers would call her…
And third, not only are the kids being tricked, but so are the spectators. They wouldn’t praise Lisa if they knew she was cheating, and so are being deceived in a way that’s probably amplifying the embarrassment of the losers, as well as reinforcing Lisa’s propensity to deceive in the future.
Something should be done, and since Randy is the only person there besides Lisa who truly understands chess, he’s the guy to do it. But what?
Given that Lisa is only 7, his approach needs to be gentle. Were Lisa 30, Randy could be more direct. A 30-year-old could better handle directness emotionally, and even if they couldn’t, would be more blameworthy for their actions. Our capacities for reflection and moral reasoning aren’t fully developed when we’re young – this is why we have a juvenile criminal justice system with less harsh punishments for offenders under 18. Lisa has some understanding that what she’s doing is wrong. But at 7, she’s less sensitive to the impact of her actions on her peers, doesn’t fully appreciate why deception is wrong, or comprehend how her actions today will mold her character of tomorrow.
So Randy might simply say, “I’m sorry young lady, but a player only has to say ‘check’ when they’re attacking their opponent’s king. Being aware of whether your queen is in danger is each player’s responsibility – no verbal warning required.”
Or, “Wasn’t it the case that this rook was actually on this square? The wind must have slid it over.”
Randy might even use the opportunity to coach. Lisa obviously has the interest and some skill, and would probably prefer to win legitimately if she could.
“Might I suggest castling? Oh, you don’t know how to castle? Here, let me show you – this move helps protect your king, and frees your rook to go on the offensive.”
Whether Lisa is receptive to any of this will likely depend on the reasons driving her behavior. Maybe an older sibling tends to cheat her at the chess table, and she’s simply modeling their behavior. Or maybe the innocent-looking kids she’s beating were bullying her earlier, and she’s simply putting them in their place.
But whatever her motives, and whatever her response, something needs to be done, and the power disparity between Randy and Lisa (plus the fact that he’s a stranger) rule out a heavy-handed approach. Were his attempts to mold her in a more honest direction ineffective, Randy might consider consoling the kids she’s defeating, or offering to coach them.
After more than six months of planning, in March of 2018 Bob and Joanne Ladenson moderated an “Ethics Bowl and Democratic Deliberation” panel discussion at the annual Association for Practical and Professional Ethics conference in Chicago. I was honored to be invited to chronicle that event.Bob introducing the panel
Alluding to the devolving state of American civil discourse, Bob opened by remarking that the session “has a special urgency and immediacy” in 2018, a time when personal insults and disregard for history and facts have become routine at the highest levels. How did we get here?
Panelist Paula McAvoy from the University of Wisconsin argued that while American politics has always involved mudslinging, the watershed moment marking the beginning of the current decline was passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This empowered the federal government to more forcefully intervene on the behalf of minorities, which disrupted the White-led status quo, undermining the gentlemen’s agreement the major parties had previously maintained, pushing Democrats further to the left and Republicans further to the right.
Dr. McAvoy went on to argue that growing income inequalities since the 80s exacerbated middle-class insecurity, which has driven resentment towards immigrants and racial tension.
In contrast, panelist Deborah Mower from the University of Mississippi offered the rise of political talk radio in the 90s, and its “valorization of righteous indignation” as a primary source of the current political environment. Not necessarily disagreeing, Dr. McAvoy added how Newt Gingrich led this approach initially via C-SPAN, positioning the Republicans as an “opposition party” with an uncompromising approach.
On ethics bowl as a partial antidote, Dr. McAvoy called the events “one of the best forms of ethics education I’ve ever seen,” and Dr. Mower touted how ethics bowl incentivizes engagement with people of opposing views both during preparation (so teams can come to an internal consensus), and during competition (to ensure a good score).
With benefits not limited to the competitors, Dr. Mower explained an innovative way her Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl team has expanded its influence – a “Great Debate” mock bowl that invited faculty, the broader student population, and even the local community to watch her team debate Mississippi’s celebration of April as Confederate Heritage Month. The crowd got an opportunity to witness spirited, yet respectful and intelligent discussion of a very controversial issue, and the team plans to hold a second event of the same sort, this time debating whether “the standard of consent for sexual relations should be an affirmative yes.”
Providing the perspective of an educator and bowl enthusiast at a school with a large Hispanic population, panelist Scott Dick, a teacher and ethics bowl coach from Chicago’s Pritzker College Prep High, explained some of the disadvantages underprivileged schools face. While some enjoy a dedicated philosophy class, his ethics team is only able to meet once per week, a problem especially common in public schools across the country.
On how to handle the sometimes silly and extreme views high school students entertain, such as eating the poor to stave off poverty, Mr. Dick recommended empathy and patience. “You have to engage at their level and play at their level.”
A panelist adding additional local context was Bart Schultz, author, longtime ethics bowl supporter, Senior Lecturer in the Humanities, and Executive Director of the Civic Knowledge Project at the University of Chicago. Among the programs Mr. Schultz oversees is Winning Words in which students lead discussions at south side Chicago inner city schools on philosophical topics including applied ethics. (For background on Mr. Shultz’s work on The New Chicago School of Philosophy click here.)
Mr. Schultz praised former Chicago Alderman Leon Despres for his ability to consistently discuss tough issues with respect and precision, and cited the work of Danielle Allen in asking how the ethics bowl format might be modified to even more effectively model and encourage respectful deliberation. One audience member suggested using questions that more intentionally steer teams in morally enlightening and fruitful directions.
With opening remarks from each of the panelists on the table, the group welcomed a friendly critique from an audience member that ethics bowls, with their emphasis on thoroughly appreciating various angles, may be creating “fence sitters” as opposed to committed advocates. The worry is that when citizens are aware of just how complex tough issues are, they’ll be less likely to confidently act.
Dr. McAvoy lent some support to the critique by citing studies that have shown that when citizens are presented with competing messages on an issue, voting rates actually decrease. Mr. Schultz agreed that “paralysis by analysis” could indeed be one result of learning too much about an issue once believed simple and clear.
However, Dr. Mower responded by arguing that activism and enlightenment are not mutually exclusive – that you can be a passionate activist and civil, thoughtful. And Mr. Dick argued that regardless of how thoroughly his high school ethics bowl team covered a given issue, his students never had a problem choosing and confidently arguing for a particular stance.
IEB organizer and former competitor Rachel Green offered a related worry: “Might ethics bowl suggest all views are equally good?”
Dr. Mower explained that it’s never the ethics bowl community’s intent to suggest ethics is a subjective matter, though ethics professors can attest that this is a common early response from students sometimes overwhelmed by competing, and seemingly equally strong positions for the first time.
Greg Wright, a professor and ethics bowl enthusiast from Utah, shared a specific issue he’d faced in teaching applied ethics generally – that of religious students sometimes being wary of philosophical ethics. It was suggested that Notre Dame philosopher Robert Audi’s basic argument – that Christ’s Golden Rule gives us good reason to think through public policy questions using reasons anyone can appreciate, regardless of their faith or lack thereof – is sometimes convincing, and worth giving a try.
Audi’s argument is essentially that if we desire to treat others as we would like to be treated, then we can’t base our laws on religious reasons alone. Were we to find ourselves in the religious minority, we wouldn’t want to be coerced by laws according to a faith we did not share. Studying philosophical ethics, and doing ethics bowl, are therefore ways to develop the capacity to reason through tough issues from a perspective anyone can appreciate, regardless of their faith or lack thereof.
Last, longtime IEB coach and bowl organizer Pat Croskery added commentary on ethics bowl’s contrast with debate – how he finds it reassuring that teams are able to acknowledge, absorb and reframe other teams’ positions, indicating genuine engagement and understanding, and providing hope for America’s political future, and for ethics bowl’s role in leading us in a more civil direction.
Depending on your bowl organizer’s tastes, your team may need to prepare to discuss up to fifteen cases. That’s a lot of material – a lot of philosophical twists and turns, too.
One way to make it more manageable for your team is to develop a case summary matrix.
Customizing is allowed, but the basic idea is for each case to have a concise snapshot of:
Basic details (who, what, when, where, why)
Moral considerations (the key ones, from different directions)
The team’s view (in a nutshell, how they evaluated the case – answered the key study questions)
Getting that much on paper will make case coverage more manageable. But for an even more robust and complete matrix consider adding:
A possible objection (how someone might critique your team’s view)
A reply to that objection
Bonus points (anything relevant not included already, which may or may not arise during the judges’ Q&A portion)
If you’re a more heavy-handed coach, you can develop this matrix for your team. Or if, like me, you prefer to encourage your team to develop their own views, you can simply draw a blank table of the matrix on the board, fill in one or two as examples, and ask particular students fill in the rest.
This is a good way to get a team on the same page when the bowl is looming. But could also be used early in the season, and then revised as your bowl prep sessions play out.
Here’s a partially completed example that you’re welcome to download and edit, which I used with my own ethics bowl team during the 2017-2018 season. Enjoy!
Some coaches take for granted that if their team understands Utilitarianism, Kantianism, Virtue Ethics, Feminist Care Ethics or some other ethical theory well enough to apply it, they should – the judges are sure to be impressed.
But there’s been backlash from bowl enthusiasts, judges among them, who worry sometimes ethics bowl becomes ethical theory bowl.
Teams get hung up on a favored theory and miss nuances a common-sense moral analysis would catch. Plus, no theory is immune from criticism, and many judges have their favorites. You train your team to apply consequentialism, then face a panel of deontologist judges! Not good.
This actually came up during a recent conversation with ethics bowl creator, Bob Ladenson.
Matt: Bob, you mentioned how witnessing so many ethics bowls has changed your views on moral philosophy.
Bob: Yes, I have much more openness and wiliness to consider views that are very different than my intellectual instincts tend to take me to.
An example is you know how in a match very often teams will approach an issue by examining it from the perspective of various ethical theories? At our summer ethics bowl workshop meetings this often receives strong criticism from philosophy professors who consider this a sort of shopping list, formulaic approach to ethics. And that’s the way I felt in the beginning – I thought it was kind of naïve what the students were doing.
But over the years I’ve come to appreciate what the students were doing, and often use that approach myself, and am much more open to looking at things from the perspective of a philosophy that might have fundamental issues.
Afterwards Bob shared a recent email exchange that helped clarify his view.
Bob: I regard major philosophical theories of ethics as immensely important conceptual resources for thinking about controversial, highly viewpoint dependent, hard to resolve ethical issues. I don’t think though that they’re needed in each and every such case…
Truth to tell, however, I still don’t have a clearly worked out position with which I’m satisfied. Temperamentally, like John Dewey, I’m partial to philosophical analyses that emphasize underlying commonalities in seemingly divergent viewpoints.
Thus… I stress that the attributes of open mindedness, readiness to engage in meaningful conversation about controversial ethical issues, and deliberative thoughtfulness, which all are indispensable for rigorous analytical thinking in applied ethics likewise qualify as virtues of ethical discourse.
Bob’s view seems to be that analyzing cases through the lens of ethical theory can be illuminating, but that this isn’t necessary. It’s far more important that your team approach the cases with the right attitude: “open mindedness, readiness to engage in meaningful conversation about controversial ethical issues, and deliberative thoughtfulness.”
I would tend to agree. But bottom line, will using ethical theory more likely help or harm your team come bowl day?
From my experience, using theory during bowl prep is almost always helpful, but whether your team should explicitly employ Utilitarianism or Feminist Care Ethics during the bowl itself depends on how they’re prepared to use them.
I’ve seen teams namedrop Kant without explaining how the Categorical Imperative works or clearly applying it to the case. This made them appear less competent than had they avoided Kantianism in the first place. I’ve also seen teams offer conflicting analyses of the same case from the perspective of multiple theories, with no suggestions on how to resolve the tension. Judges were visibly unimpressed.
Analyzing cases from the perspective of ethical theories during bowl prep can be a great way to clarify the morally relevant considerations, as well as what’s at stake and most important. This is because ethical theories are really just amplifications and logical defenses of moral considerations we already intuitively endorse.
Kantianism: rational consistency and respect for persons
Feminist Care Ethics: the importance of relational ties, and how we should usually prioritize the interests of loved ones
Virtue Ethics: the relevance of how our actions reveal and shape our character
People naturally apply these same reasons to moral questions, and so will your team. The benefit of employing ethical theory during bowl prep is that this can help clarify, order and validate your team’s moral intuitions, which can sharpen and strengthen the arguments they present at the bowl.
If your team’s really good, they can even namedrop old Kant. Just make sure they’re ready to illustrate that universalizability test during the judges Q&A, should one of them request it.
But don’t take my word for it. What’s been your experience with ethical theory and ethics bowl? Overall helpful or harmful?
As a high school ethics bowl coach, I’ve found that it’s between rounds one and two, and two and three, that a team will be most eager for and receptive to feedback – more malleable and open to modifying their approach. Once you get past round two, some fall into tacit roles, and their question response pattern becomes difficult to adjust.
Below is an example of feedback I provided my team between rounds 1 and 2 during a recent bowl in Tennessee. Notice how I emphasized both what they were doing well, and opportunities for improvement.
Last, know that sometimes no matter how clearly you convey your suggestions, teams will still forget to consider and respond to a possible objection, continue to say, “In our opinion…” and continue to go overboard in thanking the judges. All you can do is coach. How well the respond is largely on them.
This article is based on an August, 2017 phone interview with Bob and Joanne Ladenson
As big as ethics bowl is today, creator Dr. Bob Ladenson remains the avuncular, soft-spoken phil prof the community loves and respects. Simply mention “Bob” to any ethics bowl organizer, intercollegiate through jr. high, and they’re likely to know exactly who you’re talking about, and just as likely to smile.
Bob’s principal collaborator, especially during the college bowl’s ramp up from isolated event to a formal two-tier structure, has been his wife, Joanne. Never heavy-handed, and always quick to share credit, the two have gently steered the initiative since its inception at Illinois Institute of Technology almost 25 years ago.
Now retired in California, I had the pleasure of chatting with Bob and Joanne on ethics bowl’s growth, how their view of its importance and benefits have changed over the years, and their thoughts on ethics bowl’s future.
Bob at 2013 National High School Ethics Bowl
Bob: When I quote “retired” – when I stepped down from being the head of the Ethics Bowl Executive Committee and Pat [Croskery] took over – I thought it was time. My dear friend and teacher Bernie Gert said, “The ethics bowl is like your child that’s grown up, and now it can go on its own.”
Going with the flow is too new-agey and breezy to put with my attitude. Rather, it’s like the ethics bowl is like my kids, who are adults. I hope it continues and flourishes.
The High School Ethics Bowl is really something. From the beginning I thought this would be great for high schools, but I could never figure out a way to move it forward. I was just delighted when Roberta [Israeloff] stepped up, for me out of the blue, and said this is something she wanted to work on developing.
Joanne: In terms of future directions to explore, if we can have tele-medicine, why can’t we have tele-ethics bowl?
Bob: At the Prindle Institute, for example, we have people who are much more technologically savvy than me and everyone in my generation. So maybe they’ll figure out a way to do this. My problem was that when we thought about doing it via media we could never keep the central objectives of ethics bowl intact.
Matt: That part of the future is actually here. I was involved in a brief webcam bowl a couple of years ago between high school teams in Tennessee, California, and Australia. The National High School Ethics Bowl has also held regional playoff rounds via Skype. I agree something’s lost when the teams and judges aren’t in the same room. But it’s less expensive and more convenient than traveling, with a lot of potential.
Joanne: I read a recent article in the Guardian about teenagers who use technology to communicate with their friends for everything… I’m thinking there might be some other ways to work with students not necessarily as a competition…
It’s critical for students to learn to listen, to respond respectfully, to find commonalities and areas of difference, to recognize that they may not always agree with each other but they can understand where the other person is coming from.
Indeed, these skills and attitudes are critical for the citizens of any successful democracy, and reason why Bob and Joanne’s contributions are so important.
We also discussed the apparent tension between ethics bowl’s competitive format and aim of fostering civility, how Bob and Joanne’s views on the appropriate role of ethical theory have changed as a result of witnessing so many bowls, and their thoughts on the source of the initiative’s sustained success.
Special thanks to Bob and Joanne for taking the time to chat, as well as for the gift of ethics bowl.
A hacker, a bot, or some combination thereof infected critical files in February, 2018. (Way to go, hacker bots…) Hence, why the site was unavailable March and most of April, why some old articles are gone, and why the site is slightly redesigned.
The purpose remains the same — assist ethics bowl coaches who need and want the help, though I’ve decided to expand the target audience from high school ethics bowl coaches to ethics bowl coaches on any level. The more, the merrier, and maybe the various groups can benefit from one another’s expertise and company. So expect analysis of IEB cases next season, of course along with NHSEB cases per the original version.
With the site’s aims in mind, should you have ideas on how to do it better, don’t be shy. Supporting ethics bowl is how I get my extra curricular philosophical kicks, and my primary outlet for bettering the world. So ideas welcome and appreciated. And if you’re inclined to submit a guest article, pitch away – it’s very likely I’d welcome the opportunity.
Thanks for visiting, and welcome to EthicsBowl.org, version 2.0.