I was recently invited to talk a bit about Ethics Bowl to the Rescue with YouTuber and St. Louis Community College associate professor of philosophy, Dr. Sahar Joakim. My first interview on the book, Professor Joakim was a wonderfully kind and insightful host. And at 26 minutes, it’s a great chance to get an overview of what Ethics Bowl is and its potential for revitalizing deliberative democracy during your next workout or commute (if you’ll be driving, listen, but don’t watch…). Thank you, Dr. Joakim!
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.
Putting the Final Touches on Ethics Bowl to the Rescue!
Coming into the home stretch on Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! Saving Democracy by Transforming Debate, last-minute improvements include:
- Adding a chapter on Ethics Bowls in prisons (did you know Ethics Bowls are practiced in correctional facilities in at least 5 U.S. states? I didn’t!) – CHECK
- Adding a section on Ethics Bowls in retirement communities (one in Florida, where Jerry Seinfeld’s quirky parents retired, and another in New York, though six hours+ from Jerry, Kramer, Elaine, and George in Manhattan) – CHECK
- Adding around two dozen PICTURES (super thanks to Ethics Olympiad in Australia, APPE/IEB, Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin, A2Ethics in Ann Arbor and others for permission to use them!) – CHECK
- Beefing up the chapter on Ethics Bowl improving test scores (Michael Vasquez and Michael Prinzing just released this study on philosophy improving test scores – gotta get it in there, and possibly something from the NHSEB imact studies) – PENDING – just sent an email to Michael V. this morning
So, almost done. To everyone who’s contributed, inquired, and patiently waited, thank you. Five years in the making. Just a few more days…
Book Chapter Preview: Can Ethics Bowl and Debate Coexist?
Here’s a sneak preview of the forthcoming Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! due out early 2025. One point of the book is to advocate for Ethics Bowl’s expansion by supplanting traditional debate. This would decrease debate’s divisive negative effects and increase Ethics Bowl’s collegial positive effects. This chapter, “Can Ethics Bowl and Debate Coexist?” considers whether we might simply transform debate’s culture from within.
Would supplanting debate with Ethics Bowl deliver a utopia? Of course not. People will continue to quarrel. Factions will continue to divide. Deception and treachery will live on, both in our personal lives and politics.
However, Ethics Bowl would make fruitful discussion more commonplace. It would foster humility and model collaborative compromise. It’s not unreasonable to expect more Ethics Bowl to mean more social stability and more justice, at least insofar as justice is revealed and produced when issues are settled together, according to reason rather than power, in a spirit of mutual support rather than domination.
Ethics Bowl could even increase charitable giving and volunteer work, decrease addiction and crime. But no need to overpromise. It’s taken for granted that Ethics Bowl is a strategic, slow growth solution, not a comprehensive quick fix.
But since we’re fresh out of comprehensive quick fixes, perhaps phasing out a known corruptor and phasing in a promising rejuvenator is worth the minimal effort. And I say minimal effort because the debate framework is there. All we have to do is make a few tweaks. To implement those tweaks, we probably just need to convince a critical group of leaders in the debate community.
You can tell that I’m convinced. But many will remain skeptical, and for different reasons. Certain hardliners from both traditional political camps aren’t interested in sincere discussion because they believe they alone possess the complete, unassailable moral truth. So we have to accept that a certain percentage are too invested, jaded or damaged to entertain the possibility that their views might stand room for improvement. This is frustrating, and we might at times be tempted to join them. But 20th century American thinker and rabbi Joshua Liebman colorfully reminds us how experience confirms humility as a virtue.
“Dense, unenlightened people are notoriously confident that they have the monopoly on truth; if you need proof, feel the weight of their knuckles. But anyone with the faintest glimmerings of imagination knows that truth is broader than any individual conception of it, stronger than any fist. Recall, too, how many earnestly held opinions and emotions we have outgrown with the passage of years. Given a little luck, plus a lively sense of the world about us, we shall probably outgrow many more. Renan’s remark that our opinions become fixed at the point where we stop thinking should be sufficient warning against premature hardening of our intellectual arteries, or too stubborn insistence that we are infallibly and invariably right.”[1]
Just as courage begets courage, vulnerability begets vulnerability. My own intellectual arteries may not flow as freely as they once did. But witnessing the variety of thoughtful perspectives, and participants’ willingness to share and adopt novel lines of reasoning via Ethics Bowl, regularly dissolves the plaque.
Others will dismiss Ethics Bowl’s benefits as superficial, challenging ethical discussion’s ability to translate into ethical action. For this camp, meet St. George of St. Petersburg. Organizer, judge, ambassador and fan, the tall professor in jeans and a brown sports coat has been a fixture in the Ethics Bowl community for as long as I can remember. And when it comes to passion and commitment, his ranks with Bob Ladenson’s.
To George, the transformative power and unique advantages of Ethics Bowl have been obvious from the start.
“I was amazed at the level of discussion and the depth of analysis… The ideas of thinking, rational analysis, and discussion seemed an unbeatable combination of skills valuable to citizenship. Most of my adult life has been focused on creating decent, responsible citizens, and the Ethics Bowl seemed to be a powerful approach to meeting my goals.”
Rather than admiring from a distance, George has volunteered his time and lent his talents like few others, growing Ethics Bowl across age groups, formats and locations. He’s served on rules committees, steering committees, case writing committees. And he shows no signs of slowing down, despite retiring from his official teaching duties.
Like other true believers, St. George has been forced to battle the naysayers, as well as his own less diplomatic instincts. And he has a simple yet effective response to those who challenge an ethics education’s practical benefits.
“It turns out that many people, even in the world of Ethics Bowls, find my idealism disturbing. When I told my committee that I think the Ethics Bowl helps to create ethical citizens, several objected, one even sending me journal references that simply learning to think ethically does not guarantee people will act ethically. I had to engage in St. George style combat with my Dragon of Sarcasm not to reply. If a person never learns to think ethically, they never will. If they never learn rational discussion, they will never engage in rational discussion. Just because we cannot hit 100% ethical behavior is not a reason not to promote ethical thinking. Sadly, this person teaches ethics! Must be fun to be in his class.”
There’s a moral principle in there somewhere. Maybe “That an action isn’t guaranteed to work isn’t reason alone to refuse to try.” Or “When an action has a reasonable chance to produce a morally praiseworthy outcome, one should try, absent substantial drawbacks, even if success is uncertain.”
Another principle we might intuitively endorse: “Leaders should encourage morally valuable activities.” I bring this up because George makes a strong case that Ethics Bowl is far better at cultivating the type of student school systems aspire to produce than many activities they fund year in, year out as a matter of course.
“Early on in my adoption of the high school Ethics Bowl, we found research that showed if a student just witnessed an ethical discussion, they thought more ethically about the issue. Putting on my best Don Quixote attitude, I tried to convince the high school principals that Ethics Bowl was a more transformative experience than their sports team. No spectator becomes a better basketball player by watching their high school team play. But that same student will become a better ethical thinker by watching the high school Ethics Bowl.”
If you’re a current Ethics Bowl advocate, either by participating, coaching, organizing, moderating, judging, sponsoring or simply sharing it with friends, thank you. Future generations thank you. This generation thanks you. Lovers of justice, harmony and mutual respect the world over thank you.
If you’re a debater, whether a participant, coach, organizer, host, judge, parent or fan, thank you. We know your intentions are pure. We know debate helps young people overcome stage fright, build confidence, learn about important issues and practice citizen advocacy. But there’s a superior alternative waiting, and the barriers to transition are virtually nonexistent.
In truth, you don’t have to choose. Just as some kids play football in the fall then baseball in the spring, many teams alternate debate and Ethics Bowl. I’d like to think most will come to prefer Ethics Bowl. But even if not, the experience will no doubt shape attitudes, and in cases where we don’t supplant debate, perhaps we can still transform it from within. Infusing debate with Ethics Bowl’s culture could covertly produce the same benefits. And as a wise person once observed, it’s amazing what you an achieve when you’re unconcerned with who gets the credit.
Plus, we currently don’t offer as many opportunities to compete as debate, so that might be reason for teams to keep a foot in both. It might also be reason for organizers to expand offerings, reason for coaches to form standing ethics clubs and plan offseason scrimmages, reason for teams to look into Zoom-based events in other countries likely available year-round. Between the traditional Australian Ethics Olympiad and the new Pan-American Ethics Olympiad, options are out there.
Ultimately, in a perfect world, Ethics Bowl would fully overtake debate. That’s the goal. But one way for the debate community to save face, and for the Ethics Bowl community to more peacefully achieve its goals, could be a peaceful coexistence where Ethics Bowl continues to grow, and debate continues to exist, but becomes so much like Ethics Bowl, there’s little reason to object to it.
[1] Peace of Mind: Insights on Human Nature That Can Change Your Life. Carol Publishing Group, 1946, page 76.
Beta Read Ethics Bowl Book?
Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! How the Anti-Debate Is Saving Democracy has been in the works for some time, and will soon be ready for beta reader feedback. What do beta readers do? They review a manuscript at their leisure, usually over 3-to-4 weeks, then provide general impressions, improvement suggestions and feedback to help make the final product better. Suggestions can concern chapter order, tone, word choice, topics – whatever comes to mind.
What’s in it for you? Apart from my eternal gratitude, I’ll thank you by name in the book, and mail you an autographed copy. Plus you can take pride in helping spread ethics bowl! The better the book is (thanks to your generous feedback), the more people will read it, the more it will help spread ethics bowl.
Thanks for considering! No special expertise required. If you’re an ethics bowl enthusiast in any capacity, you’re invited to beta read Ethics Bowl to the Rescue! For more information, shoot me an email or use the contact form at MattDeaton.com.