Greg Wright, Michael Andersen and I attended the annual conference of the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum (SEAC) in Williamsburg, VA two weekends ago and hosted a panel discussion on – what else – Ethics Bowl! Brought together by Karen Mizell, we covered the ease and usefulness of using Ethics Bowl cases in most any classroom, a faculty development program leveraging Ethics Bowl to teach critical thinking, and strategies for encouraging more sincere collaboration. Audience participation was fantastic, and between our panel and the other sessions we attended, we came away with the following takeaways.
Matt:
- The broad appeal and applicability of Ethics Bowl cases to a wide range of disciplines, confirmed by a panel of graduate students from anthropology, computer science, media studies, and biochem who had been leading ethics discussions for their respective departments at the University of Virginia, and who were very receptive to the idea of using Ethics Bowl cases in the future (I was able to share several current and recent cases that spoke directly to their areas of expertise).
- The value and importance of scrimmaging early and often, reinforced by two highly respected and successful IEB coaches who attended our panel session.
- Growing encouragement for ethicists to more proactively civilize public discourse – I was so glad to hear of new grants and programs and tools – the reasonable majority is officially awake and mobilizing, and educators in particular can expect to hear more and more about “Integrating Civil Discourse into the Curriculum” or ICDC.
Greg:
- All institutions of higher education are struggling to find their place in this new generative AI landscape. Departments across campuses encounter the same opportunities and challenges. At least one panel in each session focused on the role ethics education can play in determining future AI policies and practices.
- The Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum seems to get smaller every year. This is a real shame because attendees are passionate about extending ethics education across all levels of education, from K-12 to graduate school. While the world feels so unsettled right now, ethics education can serve as a guiding star as we navigate the perilous world of generative AI, economic uncertainty, rampant inequality, and global conflicts.
Michael:
- The most widely discussed topic at this year’s SEAC was the negative impact of students’ overreliance on generative AI to bypass the skill development, knowledge acquisition, and conceptual understanding that philosophy and related courses are intended to foster. Beyond familiar concerns about plagiarism, intellectual property, environmental costs, and labor displacement, numerous speakers presented recent psychological and neurological research documenting adverse effects on student learning, including diminished autonomy and growing dependence on AI tools for completing assignments, preparing for and participating in seminars, and conducting research.
- Closely related to these concerns was widespread unease about the growing influence of powerful tech companies and other corporate interests on colleges and universities. Speakers expressed concern that aligning institutional priorities with corporate objectives is shifting higher education away from its broad educational mission toward the narrower goals of workplace readiness and vocational skill development. Although vocational preparation has long been part of American higher education, the growing influence of Big Tech on institutional leadership appears to be intensifying this narrowing of what it means to be educated, increasingly privileging measurable vocational outcomes.
- On a more encouraging note, I was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm for Ethics Bowl as a model for teaching and exploring contemporary ethical issues. Our presentation on Ethics Bowl pedagogy (Greg Wright, Matt Deaton, and me) was warmly received by an audience of ethics professors and graduate and undergraduate students. The response suggested considerable interest in Ethics Bowl as a form of immersive learning that engages students with the complexity and nuance of ethical issues.
- The extended discussion following our presentation also revealed a strong interest in improving the Ethics Bowl experience, particularly in how we teach and assess substantive engagement with cases rather than merely performative civility or rhetorical polish. Many audience members were enthusiastic about refining the language of the “Respectful Civil Dialogue” criterion to better capture the Principle of Charity. One suggested formulation was:
(Version A) “Did the tone and substance of the team’s interactions demonstrate respectful, fair-minded engagement with a charitable interpretation of the other team’s ideas, thereby fostering collaborative discussion rather than combative debate?”
OR (Version B) “Did the team’s interactions reflect genuine respect for the other team’s perspective, including a good-faith effort to understand and engage with its ideas in their strongest reasonable form, rather than treating the exchange as a contest to be won?
Which version do you think most accurately and helpfully captures the “Spirit of the Ethics Bowl” and the ideal of collaborative and respectful, civil dialogue?
There was much more, but those are the ideas that stood out most to us. Special thanks to David McGraw of James Madison University for putting so much of it together, and to Ethics Bowl leader Karen Mizell for inspiring our panel discussion!”