Ethics Bowl
Ethics Bowl is a collaboration between UTSA Honors Alliance and UTSA Student Judicial Affairs
Ethics Bowl offers UTSA students the opportunity – in a competitive setting – to enhance their intellectual abilities and capacities, as well as to broaden their understanding of the many ethical issues facing today’s college student, like academic dishonesty, interpersonal relationships, gender/sexuality issues, and potential conflicts of interest. Unlike a traditional debate, Ethics Bowl teams go beyond merely taking a “pro” or “con” stance on an issue or by employing argumentation strategies. Instead, “the goal here is to develop a defensible position that a reasonable and responsible person could hold when presented with complex, ambiguous and highly viewpoint-dependent questions,” said Charlin Jones, Assistant Director for Special Events and Honors Alliance. Before competing, each team first researches, analyze, and seeks consensus on an ethical issue posed, then on the night of the competition, presents their response. Judging is based on Clarity and Intelligibility, Focus on Ethically Relevant Factors, Avoidance of Ethical Irrelevance, Deliberative Thoughtfulness and Teamwork. In this format, each team’s member may first have to challenge his or her own ethical stance and motivations as part of the consensus-building process in order to achieve the most reasonably defensible and ethically responsible position for the team.
