I’ll use Ethics Bowl cases often in my philosophy classes to make theories or journal articles more concrete. But in the final week of my in-person Ethics Intro classes, I’ll divide the students and run a mock Ethics Bowl, inviting current and past team members to judge.
Given time constraints, we can only get through four cases. And while I could handpick topics, I’m already doing that when I set up the syllabus. So, to give my students an opportunity to tackle issues they actually want to tackle, I’ll put the most current cases up for a vote.
Below is the actual announcement I shared this morning, with my simple summaries of the 2026 IEB nationals cases. You’re welcome and encouraged to edit and use this in your classes. Even if you don’t have time for a mock Bowl, simply getting student input on what they want to discuss could lead to more smiles and more fruitful discussion. Set aside 20 minutes at the end of any class, have volunteers take turns reading a case’s paragraphs aloud, then see that they think. Or if you can spare an hour, run a full mock Bowl round. And the beauty is that with a new case set out each fall and each spring, you’ll always have fresh topics, which is true whether you’re using IEB, NHSEB, or MSEB cases. Cheers!
Vote Now for Topics for Last Two Classes
This week we’re discussing various ethical arguments on immigration. Next week we have one reading on the death penalty. Then after taking Exam 2, we’ll shift into a deep dive on abortion ethics for several weeks. But for the final two classes of the semester, we’ll discuss four Ethics Bowl cases on four topics of your choosing.
Below are my summaries of the cases from the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl national championships competition held in St. Louis the weekend before last. Please review them now, then click here to vote anytime between now and midnight next Tuesday.
You can read the cases’ full details here. And choose wisely, because when the final week comes, we’ll use these top four cases according to your votes to run a mock Ethics Bowl. Check out an example of how an Ethics Bowl works here.
- Whether it’s best to respond to injustice through inaction (Socrates), direct resistance (Bonhoeffer), or cooperation (Nazi soldiers).
- Whether it’s OK for individuals or companies to disperse materials into the atmosphere to fight against global warming without coordinating with governments.
- Whether doctors or medical school students who question the safety and efficacy of vaccines should be allowed to practice or study medicine.
- Whether it was OK for a federal agency to display a massive portrait of President Trump on a building facing the National Mall in DC.
- Whether selective memory erasure (if/when it becomes possible) would be permissible.
- What to think of reality shows that gamify and make light of sexual consent.
- Appropriate regulations on marijuana and extracted THC, the chemical that causes the high, with some possible medical benefits.
- What to think of schools’ usage of software that monitors students’ online activity, alerting officials to potential suicides and other risks.
- What to think of fan clubs celebrating Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
- What to think of domestic violence shelters that intend to protect battered women, but also “jail” the victim rather than the perpetrator, and make economic independence difficult.
- What to think of college student housing policies that segregate students according to sexual orientation, gender, or race.
- Whether a musician should accept a royalty cut in exchange for her music appearing more often on users’ “personalized” playlists.
- What to think of a Canadian policy that allows people to receive suicide assistance when they’re experiencing unbearable mental suffering.
- Whether it’s ethically permissible for businesspersons to engage in a certain degree of deception or “bluffing” as part of the accepted norms of how business negotiations work.
- Whether “ranked choice voting” where voters rank their candidate preferences is ethically better or worse than the typical “winner take all” voting.
- Whether the environmental, water, and energy costs of Bitcoin and AI Large Language Model servers are outweighed by their benefits.
- Whether a hospital should have kept a pregnant woman alive on life support when she suffered blood clots and became brain dead so that her Unborn Developing Human could fully gestate and be born.
