FC: Hi everyone! My name is Fiona Chen, and I’m going to be your host for today’s podcast. I am joined by sophomores Aanya Padhi and Adya Seker, and we’ll delve into their experiences with Ethics Bowl: how it challenged their thinking, shaped the way they approach discussions and helped them develop skills in critical reasoning.
FC: I understand that Ethics Bowl is a competition, and also a club that you guys have brought here to MVHS. But for people who’ve never seen a round of Ethics Bowl, how would you describe it?
AP: Yeah! In Ethics Bowl, you’re basically presented with 15 cases before the competition. The cases range from being STEM-related to business to policy, etc., and also some cases can just be ones that relate to high schoolers themselves. For example, one of them was about college admissions and how people create nonprofits, but is the motive behind that just for college admissions, or just because they actually want to do something good for their community? So that was an example of something that isn’t related to business or STEM, etc., so those are the types of cases that we are presented. You discuss with your team about what your response is to a question, and the other team will basically counter it with commentary.
AS: Like Anya said, there’s a lot of perspectives that these can take. A lot of them are centered around issues that are pretty prevalent in the modern day, like she said, college admissions. There was also one about the ethical use of eugenics and CRISPR gene editing, and all these things are super important issues, which is why it’s important to debate them in a respectful debate setting like Ethics Bowl does, where you can take your own stance, and you are free to respectfully disagree or even change your stance based on what the opponent says.
AP: It’s different than traditional debate in that it’s less of a competition or aggressive discourse. It’s more of civil discourse and it’s more of a productive discussion, instead of just trying to negate the other person’s response.
FC: That sounds really meaningful. Backtracking to before the Ethics Bowl, how did you each think about ethics or social issues, if at all?
AS: I think I definitely had a lot of opinions of my own, but they were also definitely influenced by the people around me, the people I choose to surround myself with and the environment that we’re in — California is a very liberal environment.
FC: When you hear the word ethics, what comes to your mind?
AS: I think of policy, because especially with it being incredibly hard to navigate political turmoil that our country and the rest of the world is in, it’s really important to step back and look at how the different policies that dictate our day-to-day lives were formed. What was the motive behind these certain things? Like, I was thinking about the Electoral College the other day, and that’s how our voting system is still run. But is it still fair in the modern day? Why have we not changed it? What is the motive behind these lawmakers who don’t want to change it? Would it benefit their states? Would it benefit the things that they want, or do they just not have the majority?
FC: Did either of you struggle at the very beginning with your experience with Ethics Bowl, and with what?
AP: Going back to, like, the more prep side of it, when we had first gone over the 15 cases used for regionals, I think going in the first case was about eugenics. And reading it, these were actual case studies with actual examples, quotes, etc. from when it happened. Reading it, I was like, “This is so dense in biology.” And I was like, “I don’t know how to navigate this” because I didn’t think that it would be so technical in terms of biology, but the more I learned, I realized in so many different fields, interests, etc., ethics is so relevant, because that’s kind of how you navigate different decisions where there’s no clear right or wrong answer. So it’s a really cool experience.
FC: Have you ever strongly disagreed on a case, and how did you work through that?
AP: One unique thing about the Ethics Bowl as compared to other competitions, is that they want you to think and rethink your initial stance during the competition. You can go in saying one thing, and then in the third cross-fire, you can change your stance entirely, as long as you’re able to defend why you did that and why you kind of had that revelation. And that’s what I really like, because you can also change your stance, but you can also kind of come up with a compromise. So where is the middle ground? Because that’s kind of how real life works, right? It’s not always going to be black and white. There’s always going to be some sort of middle ground that you have to compromise on. So I don’t think we ever really get into a major disagreement, because at the end of the day, we end up finding some sort of middle ground.
FC: Why do youth perspectives matter in ethical discussions?
AS: I think youth perspectives matter more than ever now in ethical discussions, because we are a pretty underrepresented class when you look at who’s making decisions that concern us. A common topic that has come up in a lot of civil discourse is age limits for certain governments and lawmakers. Our past two presidents have been over the age of 70 throughout their entire terms, and there have been concerns about how their aging and how diseases related to their aging would concern or would influence the way that they made decisions and how laws were passed, because some diseases related to age would give you impairments in your mental stature. So definitely, I feel like youth are underrepresented, and it’s really important to get people talking about these kinds of issues, because before we know it, we’re going to be the ones who are making these decisions later on in life.
FC: As time moves on, we will be the next generation making these decisions. And so you did mention some parts of that realization. How do you think the Ethics Bowl has altered that?
AS: It’s definitely seeing how every single person has a different perspective coming to the table. Because originally, and even I don’t want to admit this, I was pretty close-minded in my opinions. I would think, “OK, this is what I think, and this is what’s right, and I’m going to stronghold it throughout this discussion until the other person agrees with me,” and that’s not a very respectful or responsible mindset to have. But going through Ethics Bowl has definitely made me realize that it’s OK to change your mind based on what you think is right if you see evidence proving the contrary. In this case, in Ethics Bowl, it’s definitely an important thing to have, because you will definitely change your mind a lot in Ethics Bowl, because what you come in with might not be what you go out with, and it’s important to be open to that.
FC: Looking back, if Ethics Bowl taught you one thing you’ll carry with you long after high school, what do you think that would be for either of you?
AP: I think adding on to what Adya said earlier, I used to be really close minded in my opinions and my articulation of my opinions, but I think Ethics Bowl has made me a better listener of other people’s opinions and also learn, not only just to take in it, but also, how I can build upon their opinion to come up with the best compromise in a situation. And I think that’s something that I’ll carry with me throughout the rest of my life, when I’m making actual big decisions like we were talking about earlier.
AS: I think one phrase that I saw that kind of summarizes what it’s about is that it’s not a “you-versus-me” discussion. It’s a “you and me versus the problem” kind of discussion where two sides want the same thing. They want the betterment of the world that we live in. How we go about it may be different for each of us, but in the end, we all want the same thing. So it’s less about arguing and more about compromising and proposing different ideas and kind of shaping the solution into something actionable and reasonable.
FC: Listening to both of you, it seems like Ethics Bowl isn’t just a competition, but about learning how to approach complex problems with curiosity and empathy. Thank you both so much for joining me today and sharing your perspectives.
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