¶ĄÏăÔ°AV

Department of Philosophy

Ethics Bowl Profile

by Neha Nandakumar

February 21, 2025

In 2019, the Department of Philosophy organized the first hosted by a university in Canada. Since then, the event has grown from five schools to over 15 cities, with thousands of people participating as competitors and volunteers each year. We had the pleasure of speaking with Nic Fillion, the Founding Chair of Ethics Bowl Canada, and Cem Erkli, the Ethics Bowl Coordinator, who tell us more about the competition, why people participate, and how it has grown over the last couple of years.

What Is the Ethics Bowl?

The Ethics Bowl is a competition in which students discuss a set of case studies that deal with different philosophical problems. Each team presents an argument to a question posed about the case, and responds to queries raised by the other team and the judges. Their goal, however, is not to make the “winning” argument, but to work through the complexities of the problem. This requires a willingness to take objections seriously and to revise and improve one’s argument. The contestants are graded on a variety of parameters, including but not limited to the level of nuance, the use of evidence, and their openness of thought.

“The ethics bowl,” Nic says, “is about ethics in two different ways. First, of course, we argue about ethical questions. But it’s also about the ethics of argumentation. Namely, if you genuinely work with people whom you consider your peers and you really try to work with them to figure out the solution to a complicated question, how exactly do you have to behave?”

For instance, one of the parameters on which participants are judged is whether they engaged in respectful dialogue. Nic points out that often this criterion is thought of as politeness. However, respectfully engaging with another person is much more than that. Taking someone seriously as an intellectual peer means being willing to push back and disagree with them when required, even when agreeing might be the more polite thing to do.

As Cem puts it, the Ethics Bowl is “a competition to be the best collaborator in a conversational setting.” He explains that though there are limits to the comparison to debate, if we think of debate as modeled on argumentation, then the Ethics Bowl is modeled on conversation.

History

Nic, one of the pioneers of the Ethics Bowl in Canada, takes us through its journey over the years. The Ethics Bowl began in the US in the 1990s at the college and university level, expanding to high-school students in 2012. The Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties had been sending students from Canada to participate in these Ethics Bowls. In 2015, they started the Ethics Bowl at the high-school level in Canada.

In 2019, ¶ĄÏăÔ°AV became the first university in Canada to host an Ethics Bowl (the second organization to do so, after the Manitoba Association). Over the years, participation grew from 5 schools, to five cities, to 15-18 participating cities at present. Meanwhile, the team behind-the-scenes has also been expanding, with the University of Toronto Mississauga joining the initiative, and the creation of the non-profit organization, Ethics Bowl Canada. In 2025, the event is set to expand to college-students as well.

Why Participate?

Being able to think critically and converse thoughtfully are essential life-skills. Additionally, as Nic points out, these are important skills in the workforce. He elaborates that for most people, what they do for work has very little to do with what they learned in their courses. However, knowing how to think clearly, and how to exchange thoughts with others respectfully are skills that are especially valuable when working in a group, making you the kind of person someone would want on their team.

Another key benefit of the Ethics Bowl is the sense of community it provides to students. Nic says, “High school is not easy for kids, especially kids who like to argue. A lot of students told me, ‘Finally! The Ethics Bowl made it possible for me to just hang out with other students my age and feel like I belong as opposed to always being the outcast’. Some even told me that they made their first true friends ever in the Ethics Bowl.”

Cem mentions that students are also excited to interact with the judges and moderators—who are usually graduate students, philosophy professors, or other professionals associated with the discipline. Getting to meet people from universities as a high-schooler is a unique opportunity that not a lot of people get, especially when they are first-generation students. So, being part of this intellectual environment and seeing professionals with similar interests is really helpful for students to imagine what their future could look like.

Furthermore, as Cem explains, the Ethics Bowl is beneficial not only to the competitors, but also to school teachers and the academic community. Usually, it falls upon school teachers to look for and compile good resources to introduce students to philosophy. The Ethics Bowl helps reduce this burden by providing the structure and materials through which high-schoolers can get acquainted with the discipline.

Meanwhile, it also provides a forum for philosophers to converse with non-experts about interesting questions—questions that might have sparked their own interest in the subject. Often, the cases that students find most intriguing coincide with topics that are also popular within the academic community. For instance, one of the cases from last year dealt with the question—is cheating on your partner wrong if they don’t find out about it? The question of harmless wrongs is popular among ethicists these days, and presenting these problems to participants illuminates different ways in which people approach such questions, revealing useful intuitions and insights to philosophers.

The Best Part

When asked what their favorite part of the experience is, both Cem and Nic say that it is the day of the Ethics Bowl.

Cem says, “You can see how, at the end of the match, they get up and go to the other team and they’re like ‘Wow that was such a good point!’ and they’re maybe adding each other on Instagram. They're making friends and learning from each other and that’s my favorite part. Some people think of philosophy as something that happens in this ivory tower. But really, when it comes down to it, a lot of philosophical skills are just skills you need to navigate tough conversations in life, and practicing them just makes you a better person all around. You see that happening throughout the day when you watch the Ethics Bowl. That’s my favorite part.”

As for Nic, “Oh, it’s the day of the event. When the kids and their teachers are here in the room, that’s the fun part. Seeing incredibly smart students argue about really hard stuff, sometimes well, and sometimes not so well, but for the most part pretty damn impressive for high school kids. I was certainly a lot dumber than them when I was their age. You’ve probably heard me say that line but I tell them, ‘When I’m here, seeing you do that, it gives me a little bit of hope for the future of humanity.’”

Getting Involved

The next Ethics Bowls will meet on March 1st, 2025, Saturday: BC Provincial Ethics Bowl at ¶ĄÏăÔ°AV Burnaby

If you would like to volunteer as a judge or moderator, email Cem at sfubowl@sfu.