Ethics Bowl, a game modeled loosely on TV's "College Bowl," is an event designed to develop and demonstrate students' capacity for ethical analysis and judgment.
Student teams analyze case studies that demonstrate ethical dilemmas drawn from a wide range of areas (environmental ethics, biomedical ethics, business ethics, institutional ethics, personal ethics, etc.). This analysis enables students to determine a morally defensible resolution to the dilemmas, a resolution that they defend before a panel of judges and a competing team.
Students compete against each other only insofar as they have an opportunity to challenge solutions other teams advocate. The much more crucial task is to reach and defend a morally satisfying solution. After a team presents a case and is challenged by a competing team and responds to that challenge, judges question the team to elicit more detail, raise issues not addressed in the original answer(s), or further challenge them.
Judges evaluate the team's performance in terms of the coherence of the argument, propriety of reason, careful assessment, focus, and response to challenges.
Each year CSU Chico students have two opportunities to participate in Ethics Bowl. The regional competition (December) and the national competition (February). Students who do well in the regional competition may be selected to represent CSU Chico at the national competition.
For more information, please contact Prof. Eric Gampel.