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 The Ethics BowlSeason 2, Episode 2Complete TranscriptBarry: Raquel Faraci is a senior at Medford high school in Medford Massachusetts. It's a high achieving public school, really liberal area with some very notable alumni like Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City. She's talking right now about whether it's OK for a father named Patrick to lie to his family about the family finances. They're really bad. Patrick lost his job he can't pay the bills he's the only breadwinner but he knows that the truth is going to cause distress to his wife and kids.RF: ...we believe that in this case, under these circumstances, it is immoral for Patrick to lie to his family. The foundation of a family is trust and partnership, this means that honesty is more important than relieving them of some pain. Because, if Patrick does tell his family they probably will experience more discomfort, however, it’s discomfort on a real basis. If he lies to his family the basis is false and so the happiness is also false nearby.Barry: nearby in another room is Avery Oliver, a senior from John Tyler High School in Tyler, Texas, a small city in East Texas. It's a very conservative area, but it's racially diverse. John Tyler is virtually all black and Latino. Their rival is Robert E. Lee High School, where the white kids go, and their notable alumni are famous NFL players. Same situation, same question, is it ok for this father Patrick to lie to his family? AO: it is not wrong for him to bend the truth to his family because it's a man, you want to feel like you're the household, you have everything under control. Because man do not want to feel less than a man when something's going wrong.Barry: Avery's there with her teammates, who back her up with the same points.TM: a man wants their family to feel secure, he doesn't want his family to feel like we have a man in the house but he can't provide or do what's necessary, and it's not really lying, it’s helping him cope with it because if you have a minute or distress you're not going to be able to work to your full ability.Barry: here's Raquel again, talking about another reason it's wrong for Patrick to lie, speaking on behalf of her team.RF: in this case it would be Patrick making the decision that his family will be better off not knowing and we don't believe that's something that's fair. We believe that it's not fair for someone who's in a partnership, in a family to decide what's best for them in regards to the truth.Barry: morality is an odd thing, it's supposed to be something that keeps human beings living together, but then we disagree about it, and we keep disagreeing until eventually it doesn't feel that we can live together anymore. Here we have two young women, the same age who agree about all of the facts of the case, but end up with different judgments about the morality of lying, and we have a very good idea as to why. They just have different conceptions of the relationship between people and a family. For Akal, it's always partnership. For Avery, it's a patriarch who's wants and needs have to be prioritized, and whose judgments must be deferred to. From Vassar College, you’re listening to Hi-Phi Nation, a show about philosophy, that turns stories into ideas. I'm Barry Lam. Today we're going to follow teams of high schoolers at the national high school ethics Bowl, an annual competition where we give young people ethical dilemmas and see how they reason their way to an answer. Along the way we're going to take a whirlwind tour of moral philosophy, see how philosophers think about moral reasoning, and we see what the cultural class and regional differences of American education look like when it comes to ethics and morality. Support for this episode of ‘Hi-Phi Nation’ was made possible by the Marc Sanders Foundation a 501(c)(3) charitable organization promoting excellence in philosophy. The Marc Sanders foundation is a proud sponsor of the National High School Ethics Bowl, run out of The Parr Center for Ethics at UNC Chapel Hill. Visit the Marc Sanders Foundation website to see all of the prizes, awards, and programs it funds to advance Philosophy in the academy and public sphere. Go to , that's M-A-R-C, Sanders . It's after school at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, a public high school in Durham, North Carolina. A group of juniors at the school won their regional competition earlier in the year, where they beat out a team of seniors from their own school, and they beat out the two-time national champions East Chapel Hill High School. This is the dilemma they're talking about, a coal mining Foreman is facing a disaster. There are two mine shafts that a whole lot of miners are stuck in, the foreman can only save the people in one mineshaft, and that means that the people in the other shaft are going to die. In one shaft there are ten people, in the other shaft there are ninety. Easy, right? You saved ninety, just like a good utilitarian, you go for the greatest number of people. But here's the problem, there's actually no certainty that you're going to save anyone. You might kill all of them, whatever you do. If you try saving the ten people, you've got a really good chance of succeeding, but you're guaranteeing the other ninety will die. If you try and save ninety people, you've got a very low chance of succeeding, but if you do succeed all ninety live, only the ten in the other mineshaft will die. So that's the dilemma.S: I would pick the smaller one, because the way I see it if I save the smaller shaft of miners, ninety miners will end up dying and I didn’t do anything to stop it, but if I try to save the ninety miners and then because there was such a low probability of then all one hundred miners would end up dying, and so I can feel pretty confident in saving the ten miners.WSA: well I think this is a good example of where someone's concern about their own welfare, and how they're gonna feel, and how other people are gonna treat them, is gonna dominate some people's thinking.Barry: I decided to sit down with a professional at this, the philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong at Duke University, to talk through some of the cases that the students ended up discussing in the competition. Walter is also very much a utilitarian in his leanings, which means he thinks about doing the action that provides the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people over the long term is what morality requires.WSA: if you think well, if I go with saving the smaller number and the higher certainty then there's a ninety percent chance, is that right? ninety percent chance of success in the small shaft, I will be praised for saving these lives. I'm gonna feel good and I'm not gonna get blamed for not saving the others, because I can always say “well there was very little chance they would have been saved anyway”. And so you as a person after doing that act are going to be in a much better situation, so if that's what you're concerned about then that's the way to go, but if you think about it another way, you say “well what should we tell people to do in the future?” I don't know which shaft I'm gonna be in, if you want to increase your probability of being saved then you should go with a smaller chance of saving the miners, the larger number of miners. So notice one perspective on this problem is the kind of self personal perspective, what's it gonna be like for me if I make this decision, and how people are gonna criticize me and how am I going to get along? And the other is, you know what would I want society to be set up like if I'm impartial, and don't know which shaft I'm in. And it seems to me the moral perspective is the second perspective.Barry: one way to think about how Walter is thinking about the case, is to take it to the limit. There's one person you're guaranteed to save, a hundred percent sure. Or, there's a million people who are going to die and there's a one percent chance of saving all of them. If you're interested in trying to do the best thing for the most number of people you have to take the chance on the million people. This is the first component of moral thinking, utilitarianism is just one version of it. Morality has an outward-looking, future directed, and impartial component. You look at the people in the world potentially affected by an action or a policy, and you try and determine the best possible future for all people, not taking into consideration how you and your loved ones will personally be affected. On this view, morality dictates that you should make any necessary sacrifices to get what is best for all. On a beautiful spring day in North Carolina, high school students from around the country are converging on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill, including the team from North Carolina School of Science and Math.CG: my name is Cordelia Gilligan.EG: I'm Elise Gilliam.TE: I'm Tyler Edwards.EH: I'm Eli Hardwig from the NC School of Science and Math.Team: so it got really intense for the past two or three weeks, pretty much every single night we would meet for two hours from eight thirty to ten thirty, then after that we would meet from eleven to one in the morning and just kind of flesh out our case ideas. Uh, we do yoga at the start of every round, and we also do these things called cinnamon rolls.Barry: the national competition is the sea of contrasts ,wealthy boarding schools versus urban public schools. All boys schools versus all girls schools, all white teams and all black teams. They make for interesting matchups and contrasts in moral thinking across class, racial, and regional lines.K: my name is Kiara, and I'm from Herron High School. Herron High School is taking the weird kids from every clique, in every high school you've ever been to, and compiling them into one school, where they're allowed to dye their hair.Barry: Herron High School is a classical liberal arts charter school in Indianapolis. It's what Plato and Aristotle would have created in modern-day America. Students read the classics, study art history, mathematics, philosophy. Teachers use the Socratic method.Student: we're really weird, we're like the Portland of our city.SK: I'm Sophie, i’m a junior at Kent Place School in Summit, New Jersey.Barry: then you have your elite northeastern private schools.SK: so, it’s an all-girls school, it's a school that really emphasizes ethics, we have an ethics institute. There's a lot of emphasis on female power, and I think that the secret weapon of being a woman in the world is that people will underestimate you, you know? People make judgments, I'm pretty sure, you know, I look pretty young and so you can surprise them which is fun. It's actually a regional competition, we went against the team happens to be all men. And I remember how confident they were and then how that didn't translate.Barry: then there were the more interesting schools you might not have known existed.SM: I'm Shannon, and I'm from Stanford Online High School.H: and I'm Hannah and I'm also from Stanford Online High School. It’s seventh through twelfth grade, it's fully online with people, teachers, and you know faculty and students from literally everywhere in the world. Ghan came from Korea, I live in Wisconsin. It creates this incredible dynamic of people.MW: My name is Morgan Wallhagen, I'm a philosophy teacher at Stanford Online High School. Online teaching is a much more intimate experience than you might imagine. The screen sort of fades away and you're just served in this virtual space with them.Barry: here's the competition, in each round two teams from opposing schools meet over the course of an hour. One is given a moral dilemma and have to answer a question they haven't seen in advance. The other team and the judges get to respond and ask questions, and then the other team gets their own moral dilemma. There are four rounds in prelims, the eight teams with the best win-loss record go to sudden-death quarterfinals, semifinals, and then finals. Twenty four teams compete over two days, for sixteen thousand dollars in prize money, and bragging rights for being the twenty seventeen National High School Ethics Bowl champions. [Music]ES: I'm Ella.N: I'm Nancy.LK: I'm Lily Kraxberger.SC: I'm Sophia Casto.MP: I'm Max Perlier, final junior. for Hickman High School.Barry: Hickman High School from Columbia, Missouri placed third in the competition last year, and they're one of the favorites coming into the competition. They’re experienced, philosophically sophisticated, and even better fans, of the ‘Hi-Phi Nation’ podcast.MP: In debate the goal is to win at all costs and the arguments you make are just purely to win. There's no concession for your opponents viewpoints and if you do that you're pretty much guaranteed to lose, you have to be very aggressive, and very goal-oriented. But an ethics bowl, it's much more of a group discussion, and you can be wrong at an ethics bowl, you can say “in the course of a round, I don't believe this anymore because I've heard a more convincing argument”. Barry: there's this human tendency to defend what you say, even if you weren't all that sure about it when you said it. You can even feel defensive, sometimes even more so, if you run out of good reasons, or you recognize mistakes you've made in what you've said. Debate competitions rest on difference and disagreement, they try to maximize defensiveness, you get points for it, you lose points for not doing it. The coordinators of the ethics bowl are trying to disincentivize that tendency by adding nuance to their cases, and by scoring students on their sensitivity to all the moral dimensions possible in a scenario. Jeff Sebo, associate director of the Parr Center for Ethics.JS: one thing that we want to do is model good philosophical practice by encouraging people to be willing to really listen to what their opponents are saying ,and be prepared to agree with their opponents when they agree and then extend their points or, or revise some point that they made in light of that, and if they disagree to explain why. We really want people to just say what they think is correct and then respond to the other team in whatever way they think is best, and most helpful, and most productive.Barry: in the very first round the Hickman team immediately faced the choice of whether to defend their view come what may, or make a concession. They're given the case of whether a teenager named Erica who was a server, and the sole provider of her family, can morally cheat on her taxes by not reporting any of her tips. The Hickman team start by taking a very hard line. Even if it's an extreme hardship on Erica and her family, cheating on taxes is wrong.Student: when Erica cheats on her taxes she is depriving the state of money and still participating in the programs that the state provides, and that is something that harms other members of society as well, and it's not just a matter of Erica and her family.Student: One could argue, potentially, the she has a greater obligation to her family and those who are dependent on her than other people who might be harmed by the loss of tax revenue. However, looking at other things we've discussed, including social welfare programs, if Erica doesn't choose to put her family first she's causing much more harm than good. Because when we enter into a larger social order, we enter into a government contract. We must consider the larger act consequences of our actions and so therefore of the supersedes in this instance the obligations.Barry: but the other team from Medford High School, and the judges, start pressing the team. The losses to society from Erica's taxes on her tips are nowhere near as harmful as the losses Erica and her family would suffer if they had less money. Moreover, if a teenager has to be the sole breadwinner, on a servers income, doesn't that mean the state has failed to fulfill its side of the bargain? Sophia from Hickman's team indeed starts conceding.SC: if the government is providing nothing for this family, in that case they wouldn't be stealing, they would just be giving a smaller gift. But in that case the government would be morally responsible to fulfill the social contract and provide for citizens who are in dire situations.Barry: but the Hickman team continues to insist that even though Erica cheating on her taxes is the best possible outcome, it's still immoral, because it's cheating. They're making a judgment here that morality isn't just a matter of doing what is best in a situation, but if instead she paid her taxes and harmed her family as a result, that's also immoral. Because it's contrary to what is best which, is a serious moral consideration. Here a judge presses the Hickman team hard, as to how they could say that every possible option for Erica is immoral.SC: I think it becomes almost an issue of vocabulary and how just how seriously you really take the definition of morality because we want to act morally in cases, but at a certain point I think you have to say “yes, it's immoral”, but you can't let that get in your way of doing the best that you can. Also though if you erase the immorality of an action, then that erases an obligation to correct the system which forces you to choose between two immoral options.Barry: the Hickman team wins their opening match. Any time for fun or is it all prep?SC: we've got a theme song, we’ve got lots of fun.Barry: can I hear it?SC: let's get ethical, ethical, I wanna get ethical, ethical. Let me hear your morals talk.Barry: amidst all the different ways high school kids come into contact with moral philosophy, ethics institute's at wealthy private schools, classical liberal arts charter schools, video conferencing from home with philosophy professors, there are also humbler ways.MW: I’m Michaela Wallace. ZW: my name is Zoe Wolff.AH: my name is Ashley Hyland.SG: my name is Sheena Gunter, we’re from Wayne Memorial. We live like around Detroit so we're very used to interacting with all kinds of people. We were personally surprised, we actually beat the team that came to nationals last year. Tears in our eyes after that happened because we were the underdogs, that was only our second year as of school competing. Our coach from U of M she was like, “our goal is to get you guys to the second day”. We started progressing, and progressing, and progressing, and when we got to that final round I think that was just a big moment for us. We speak from experience as like low-income individuals, we speak from experience as people with like drug addicts in our family and in our communities. A lot of these cases are on people who are struggling, so I think when you come from that same struggle you're like, “I make these ethical decisions on a daily basis”. And when we incorporate more people from our community into that thought process, they'll realize that they're actually very philosophical and you don't have to be like, and intellectual to speak in that way you, face every day.Barry: The Wayne Memorial team got their chance to shine in round two against Hickman High. The case was about a pacifist named Lisa. Lisa's a recent college grad where the only job available to her is from a company that makes a kind of lethal weapon for war. The thing is, Lisa has every reason to believe that someone else who takes this position will probably end up increasing death and destruction. It takes a certain kind of care and skill to make such weapons more precise and less deadly, which she can do because she actually cares about minimizing killing and violence. This case is a version of the scenario where people have to decide whether they should work for causes, institutions, or administrations that they believe are immoral. But they know that they would help to minimize the potential harm of those institutions from the inside. The question is how should she feel about taking the job. Here's what Walter, our professional ethicists, thinks about the case.WSA: if she really can by working from the inside, lead to a lower level of killing in the world, then as a pacifist I would think she ought to be happy with that.Barry: and here's the Wayne Memorial TeamWMT: we believe that Lisa should feel somewhat guilty about taking this job, but at the same time she should be feeling accountable for influencing this company in this job that she's taking on. What we mean by feeling accountable is that she should feel accountable to serve those principles as best as she can while she's in that job rather than, because she's in this job that she feels violates her principles in some way, she should just forget her principles and then do whatever. I think you can still hold those personal principles while also doing something you might not agree with, and an example of that could possibly be with animal rights if you're a firm animal rights believer, you don't believe in animal agriculture, or animal testing, however you're in a very low-income circumstance and you're kind of stuck there, so you can't afford to eat vegetarian or vegan. Then you can still uphold those personal principles while also taking part in something that you don't agree with.Barry: these kinds of scenarios are one kind of test for an impartial forward-looking morale of doing what is best. The Wayne Memorial team is holding the line for utilitarianism, as is Walter. But, there's a competing idea. That idea is that we have obligations, obligations that are independent of doing what is best for the world. Obligations such as not engaging in violence. Aren't there some principles that were prohibited from violating, even if it is for the best if we violated them?WSA: well I just think moral purity is gonna benefit you personally, you get to have clean hands, you get to be pure, but if the cost of your purity, in the case of Lisa might be hundreds or thousands of people dying, or chemical weapons being used in biological weapons being used. Well purity is fine, you know, you can feel better about yourself and that really does count for something ,but I don't think it counts for hundreds or thousands of lives. And so if you are arguing on the basis of moral purity, you have to remember that other people are paying the price for your moral purity.Barry: a true utilitarian considers abiding by principles, and the cost of violating them as just one consideration that has to be balanced against others. But there are other ways of viewing the role of principles and their violation. One view is that the true moral principles are ones that you just can't violate. Violating them makes something so wrong that no amount of good can write that kind of wrong. If Lisa were literally choosing between allowing a careless hitman to shoot up a party until lots of people, or she herself could instead take his place and kill just one person with perfect accuracy, it's natural to think that Lisa herself is a murderer if she does the killing. Even if she does it to prevent further deaths. Maybe Lisa shouldn't take the job, because it's akin to doing the killing herself. Isn't it wrong to be a conscientious and careful hitman? Even if you're taking away work from careless and destructive hitmen? [Music]Barry: morality for us sometimes seems to be about principles that you can't violate, even if doing so leads to better outcomes. Rights, duties, obligations, these are some of the words that come up when describing these aspects of morality. It's when such things conflict with doing what is best overall that leads to some of our moral dilemmas, and it explains why some people end up on one side of a moral issue, rather than another. Judge:This is case number two contributing to overpopulation, and the question is, is it reasonable to blame those who have children for harm caused by those children or their descendants?Barry: back to the team from Tyler, Texas.Texas Team: it is not morally permissible to blame those who have children for harms caused by those children of these descendants. This is an inalienable right to have kids, and putting a limit is like playing God. If we restrict those options of how many children you can have, that turns the world into a whole dictatorship, such as like they do in foreign countries where they regulate how many children you can have. And if this was to come in the fate can you imagine what else they may try to put limits on? Putting restrictions on how many children someone can have that's kind of like you know, abortion. If it's meant for that child to be in this world then that child should be able to be born people were put on this earth for reasons.Barry: philosopher Geoff Sayre-McCord, a judge in this round.GSM: the Tyler team was amazingly poised, they worked as a team to address the issue in a way that was so morally serious, so evidently concerned with what was morally at stake. It was extremely impressive. What was also true is their answer was not always shaped at what the question specifically was asking. Barry: the question was about whether people can be to blame for contributing to overpopulation. The Tyler team was very much concerned with the downstream consequences of such blame, and the possible policy implication. A judge tries to press the Tyler team to focus on the specific question using an analogy, but notice that even in their response to the analogy, the Tyler team is still focused on defending their stance from downstream policy implications.Judge: when you drive along the highway you see kudzu, this is a big leafy plant that takes over trees and all kinds of stuff, it takes up all the water, all the nutrients in the area, and my intuition on that one is actually to blame the people who brought kudzu from its natural environment. What would be your response to that parallel?Texas Team: well although it is taking up space, it's offering oxygen. Babies aren't just coming here and just saying “oh, we're just gonna be little babies and we're not we're not gonna grow up to do something that actually helped”. They're actually growing up and they're actually contributing as you may not know it or not ,but our population and the people in it they do contribute to why this world is still here.Barry: the Tyler team is making a legitimate point about reproduction, but skirting the question about blame. The question of blame touches on yet another aspect of morality, which is its backward-looking and emotional component. It's the aspect of morality where we use words like responsibility, accountability, and holding someone to their past actions, and it's connected to the emotions of shame, guilt, anger, or resentment. Holding someone responsible is oftentimes like having a mental or emotional ledger sheet, where goodwill is rewarded with praise, or positive emotions, and ill-will, or negligence, is punished with blame, or negative emotions. Ultimately the Tyler team is right in being concerned that questions of blame ultimately lead to questions of policy, punishment, reward, or payback. This aspect of morality is retributive or concerned with retribution, but those are questions about three steps ahead of the questions of blame. The women of Tyler Texas lost that round to another first year team from Portland, Oregon.VS I'm Vaughn Seikar.JM: I'm Jack Morningstar.QM: I'm Quatro Musser.JC: Jack Castalino.S: Solomon, also Oregon Episcopal School. The school is a small private school in Portland, one of a couple of private schools that are about eighty students a grade. I'd say we're known for our science and math program. A big debate program, this is like our school's first time doing ethics school but we have done Speech and Debate. Barry: is it an all boys school? Why are you all boys?Team: we're just not diverse enough I guess. It’s when we were creating the team, it's because Vaughn, his mom, she suggested that we created a team so we as a friend group basically decided that we wanted to enter. Barry: so you guys are all in one friend group, is that the reason?Team: yeah we're pretty much all friends from debate. [Music]Barry: announcements for quarter finals is coming up right after lunch, and the lunch hall here at UNC Chapel Hill is starting to fill up, and the buzz is starting to increase. Announcer: Oregon Episcopal School versus David H Hickman High School, Herron High School versus Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences, Syosset High School versus North Carolina School of Science and Math, and finally, Conestoga High School versus Kent Play\ce School, congratulations.Barry: the announcement also means that teams didn't make the cut. One was a team from Tyler, Texas. What do you think your takeaway is about ethics Bowl going back to Texas? Texas Team: well it wasn't really like, it was a learning experience for me, like I would do it again, but I'd have to be prepared for it. Our motivation is to bribe your way of thinking and vocabulary.Barry: there's gonna be a future of for ethics bowl at Tyler?Texas Team: yes, definitely. Barry: then there were my new friends from Medford High. Including Raquel, who you heard at the beginning.RF: I think just the main takeaway is that every case is is basically just made up of nuances. Barry: wow you're doing like trigonometry.Medford High Students: yeah just it's kind of its kind of a hard reality to go back to school on Tuesday. I don’t want to go back to school at all whatsoever. Tonight we're gonna fulfill the dreams of our seniors by going ethics bowling.Barry: meanwhile, during the quarterfinals. What do you do if you're at a friend's house, you're both teenagers and their homophobic, sexist father and brother are going off on some misogynistic and homophobic tirade? But it's their house and your friend is just sitting there quietly.Student: in this setting it's not gonna be a productive discussion, it could only inflame Jake's parents or families ideas, and it's not going to change Jake's perspective, because it says that Jake is already embarrassed by what his family believes, and the very nature of the debate might actually inflame both views and make them more grounded in them. Student: The difference between the rounds before, and then this, it’s insane, I was not expecting it to be so much harder.Barry: the women of Kent Place take out ConestogaConestoga Student: It was a pretty tense competition, we were doubting ourselves but we had no reason to, because we worked really hard. We’re really happy to be here and give it our all.Barry: the women of Kent place are facing off in their semi-finals against the North Carolina School of Science and Math, who took out Syosset High in their quarterfinal.NCSSM Students: I love you. I love you too.Barry: so the North Carolina team is doing yoga. In the last quarter final, the team that likes to get ethical, David Hickman High School gets taken out by the brothers of debate from the Oregon Episcopal School.Hickman Student: It was a really really close round, with one of the judges we lost by two points, with another one we lost by one, and then another was high. So it was always like really close. So it's disappointing but we feel like really good about how he performed at the same time.Barry: Sophia from Hickman High at least got to do some book shopping. I saw her holding onto some light reading she picked up, now that she has a little more time on her hands. Live Tape: Your Foucault? Sophia: He’s one of my fav dudes. Onto the semi finals, where the weirdos of Herron High School take on the debate brothers of Oregon Episcopal. First case, should we be providing the lock zone over the counter. A drug that can counteract the legal effects of opioid overdoses.Oregon Episcopal Student: both addiction and allergy are partly hereditary, right? We know that some of the things that affect whether or not somebody becomes addicted to something, and sometimes allergic to something are, influenced by what genes you have.Herron Student: part of the problem with addiction is that it starts as free will, and slowly becomes less and less so, which is why it's such a difficult thing to combat, and which is why this is necessary, because if it were free will the whole way the whole way along, people wouldn't deliberately choose to overdose. Because it's not a fun thing to do, it's not enjoyable.Oregon Student: opioid addiction is not a choice it is an illness.Herron Student: let's assume for the sake of argument that it's not a disease, that it is just reflective of some sort of character vice. Does that change anything? Moral failures, I think, don't make you less deserving of help, in some cases it means that you need more help.Barry: philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.WSA: there's something about addicts that makes people think you know, it's moral in a different way, that addicts are disgusting to them, and they have feel fear about the crime that these addicts are gonna commit. So I think a lot of it is the disgust that people feel, the fear that people feel about addiction. There are many moral judgments that are based on disgust and so when disgust is involved, it seems to lead people to different moral judgments then when they don't feel disgust. So if you think of addiction as something that's disgusting, and everybody has seen these horrible pictures of what addiction can do to you, those pictures produce disgust and then produce moral judgments, that may or may not be appropriate to the situation.Barry: sometimes disgust has a powerful role in making us moralize things in inappropriate ways. remember that backward-looking aspect of morality, associated with blame shame or guilt? Disgust as a way of amplifying those backward-looking feelings, so that people who do things we find disgusting are viewed as more deserving of suffering, or less deserving of help. But disgust is such a bad track record of indicating what is moral or immoral, it varies so much between people, and cultures, and times. One way to try to counteract the potentially misleading effects of disgust on our moral judgments, is to see what we think about analogous cases, where we feel a lot less disgust.WSA: imagine somebody who gets a lung cancer because they smoked. Are you gonna say “well we're not gonna treat you?”.Barry: the second topic of semi-finals is drone warfare. The issue is whether killing at a distance makes killing easier, and whether that is morally good or bad. Because easier killing may mean more precise killing, leading to fewer total losses of lives in warfare. On the other hand, easier killing may lead to more military interventions, Kent Place School.N: we ask ourselves, you know why do we bother with peace? Why do we avoid violence? And the answer is because there is a cost, and when where the interaction is indirect, the cost goes away right? And we're more likely to inflict violence on people.Judge: should we ban guns? And just go knives and hand-to-hand combat?N: guns in themselves our form of indirect violence, you know? And it's more direct than drones. but still indirect. We are the view that all lives are equal, and that all individuals have an equal right to life. Because it's been shown through studies, through psychological studies, and military studies, that the attacks that we commit with drones, often would not be committed if we didn't have join strikes. Student: So sometimes there may be a circumstance where a drone would be saving most lives, and I think if it were possible to regulate drones and such a strict and fair way, that they could only be used in a situation such as that, then by all means. However drones are actually subjected to one of the most loosely regulated kinds of international law.Barry: you did so well in the drone strikes.Student: thank you very much. There's so many stakeholders. And it's also a very political issue, so it's difficult to always be able to address completely objectively. talking to other competitors, everyone felt strongly that it was the case no one wanted to present. Because the government doesn't have to provide much information whereas, naloxone there is a lot of you know research you can do, and research we have done, it's more theoretical. There's very little actual concrete information out there about the nature of the drone strikes that have been carried out.Barry: it wasn't enough to push Kent Place to victory. By a close, but unanimous decision, North Carolina School of Science and Math is advancing to the finals [Music] Announcer: welcome to the championship round of the National High School Ethics Bowl. This match is between North Carolina School of Science and Math and I promised them I would get their name right, Oregon Episcopal.Barry: it's standing room only in the final round Oregon Episcopal wins the coin toss and decides to go first. Here's their case. A girl named Charlotte is graduating from an ivy league school, and has secured a lucrative job in finance. She comes from a family where the dad has not been in her life and her mother more or less stopped parenting when Charlotte was in high school. Her mother is financially irresponsible, emotionally unstable, and neglectful. And so Charlotte's grandparents have taken care of her and have supported Charlotte's mother. As Charlotte's grandparents age though, they're less able to support Charlotte's mother financially, and they've asked Charlotte to do so, even though Charlotte is only about to begin working and making a life for herself. The question the Oregon Episcopal team is supposed to answer is this.Announcer: if Charlotte refuses to help her mother, what would this show about her character?OE Team: we think that well it would be a vaillant decision to support her mother in this instance, we don't think it's necessarily required of her. Your obligation to support her parents comes in part because the resources that you gain from them. There really is no moral obligation beyond the arbitrary claim that it's blood, so you have to protect them. We don't think there's really any merit to this claim.Barry: the Oregon Episcopal teams position here, presumes that family obligations arise from reciprocity, kind of like the kind that arises from contracts. We agree that you do this for me and I will do this for you, if you don't do this for me you've broken your side of the agreement and that releases me from my obligation, and given that I have no obligation I do nothing wrong by failing to provide you with benefits. It's another aspect of moral reasoning called contractualist reasoning. We model moral obligations on contracts of reciprocity. The Oregon team also gives another kind of consideration.OE Team: Charlotte's mom brought this on herself to a certain degree, so we probably shouldn't be rewarding her for a behavior that is negatively impacting those around her.Barry: the Oregon team here is reasoning with concepts like desert and reward. It's a kind of thinking that says that immoral behavior shouldn't be repaid with virtuous behavior. People in some way are deserving or undeserving of help based on past actions. This is a prominent form of moral reasoning it's called “retributive reasoning”. It's connected to blame and it's also troublesome to some people. I looked over at the Wayne Memorial team in the audience and notice some of them wincing. I saw some faces over here, what’s going on?WM Team: I just personally believe that if you have the means to help somebody, that you should, and I don't think like that like obligation is towards the mother, but like just an individual in general. Yeah I think also in general coming from our experience with being more low-income and interacting with these people, we’re also very much so giving in that way. We think it's less about her obligation to her mother and more about her obligation to people if she has the ability to help, to help them. I think that shows a little difference in thought and culture there.Barry: the Wayne Memorial team is prioritizing forward-looking impartiality, the Oregon Episcopal School is looking at contracts, reciprocity, blame and, desert. There's one final way of thinking about Charlotte, which the people who crafted the question must have had in mind. The question is, what does it show about Charlotte's character that she refuses to help her mother? The study of character and the role it plays in morality, is the oldest form of moral theory in the Western tradition. Going back to Plato and Aristotle, we call it virtue ethics. Virtue ethics seeks out ideal models of virtue, how we would characterize what we think are the most virtuous character traits, and what would the most virtuous person do in a particular circumstance. I can't help but see Charlotte's refusal to help her mother as showing something well short of virtue, it's a little selfish. [Music]Barry: up next is North Carolina Science and Math. Here's their case, we have a married couple, Sarah and Christopher who fell in love over their mutual hobby of hiking and climbing. Christopher had an accident and became paralyzed from the waist down. He's recovered to a point that he's no longer dependent on Sarah for everyday activities, but he'll never hike or climb again. Ss a result, Sarah is not able to share anymore mutual interests with Christopher. Sarah is unhappy with the relationship, she feels unfulfilled and wants a divorce. Announcer: the question is, would it be appropriate for Sarah to feel ashamed of herself if she left Christopher? Why or why not?Barry: it's clear from the get-go at the North Carolina team is out to defend Sarah's decisionNC Team: I think it's important to note that his accident is not the reason that she's leaving. Because if she were to leave based on the accident that would be a problem because she would be saying “this is a disabled person with whom I no longer wants to be in a relationship”. Rather, this is a person who has changed since the beginning of our relationship and I feel that we might grow apart, and I don't want to commit to a relationship which is changing in ways I don't like. In this case Sarah is divorcing Christopher because they no longer have a shared interest. Sarah does not have an obligation to stay in a relationship which she is not wholeheartedly in, because it's disrespectful to the relationship, and therefore to Christopher. If she were to stay in this relationship out of her guilt and her shame, it would be a relationship mostly of pity, which is something that many people with disabilities find insulting, and many people find insulting in general.Barry: both of the questions in this round really aren't about what someone should do. They're asking whether a person would be a good person or a bad person. We should feel ashamed if they go on and do something. There's a large part of morality that seems to be like this. A lot of the times, it's less about the outcomes, and more about the states of mind of a person who's doing something. And it seems very important to us to characterize that state of mind. One characterization of Sarah makes her blameless. She divorced someone who was no longer able to take part in activities that she needs to fulfill herself. The other characterization makes Sarah a terrible person, she's divorcing someone because he's disabled. How much we want Sarah to be ashamed of herself depends on the right characterization here. But of course the fact is, Christopher's inability to fulfill her needs stems completely from the fact that he is disabled now. how do we formulate someone's reasons for action? Because it sure seems important to how we feel about them and how we think they should feel about themselves. And why is it so important for us to do this? When really if you look at the outcomes, there are only two choices. A woman in an unhappy marriage to a man who wants it to continue, or an unhappy man in a divorce to a woman who is looking for a happier marriage. And there's another variable here, which is, what's the morality of breaking oaths of marriage in the first place? There's an exchange between the two teams on this topic.OE Team: my question is, what about the promise? She had made a vow to stay within through sickness and in health. So I guess my question for you is, what is the value of oaths? And she promised to stay with him in this if a situation pretty much exactly like this came up. Does she have any moral obligation to stay with him? I think what we can see is that a lot of times in terms of its social role, wedding vows are more of a performance than a contract. They serve as an expression of love and a very potent one. This expression of love need not be assumed to be eternal or infinite.Barry: at the end of the round the judges are calculating their scores. [Music]Various Students: since being in ethics bowl, I've developed an interest more in the humanities that I never had been able to foster before. They completely changed my views of what I want to do in the future, and I actually changed my research topic to completely to be medical ethics. I've like really learned to be thankful when someone like points out a hole in my argument, because then now I know I'm wrong, so I had the opportunity to be right, and so that's been the greatest thing I've learned from ethics bowl. Not feeling like defensive, or like it makes me less as a person but being like “oh great now I have the opportunity to think”. And maybe we'll together come up with something even better.Announcer: please announce your scores.Judge: my score is Oregon fifty seven, North Carolina's Science and Math fifty six.Judge: and my score is Oregon Episcopal forty nine, North Carolina Science and Math fifty four.Announcer: as I think the previous two judgments have shown, it was a tight one today, and you both did excellently. I have Oregon Episcopal with fifty three, I have North Carolina Science and Math with fifty five.[Applause]Barry: as the tears fly from North Carolina Science and Math, Dominique Derry, the director of the ethics bowl, announces the runner-up Oregon Episcopal. The third-place teamAnnouncer: Kent Place Squad in the houseBarry: and the fourth place team Announcer: Herron High SchoolBarry: there was one more award to be offered after the finals, and that was the spirit of the ethics bowl award. Where all of the teams voted on the one team that most exemplified the spirit of the ethics board.Announcer: and the winner is, Wayne Memorial High School.Student: okay I love ethics bowl so much, it's actually kind of ridiculous. It's the most fun I’ve ever had. Once you’re in ethics bowl, you’re in it for life.Barry: support for this episode of hyphenation was made possible by the Mark Sanders Foundation, recognizing excellence in philosophy, and proud sponsor of the National High School Ethics Bowl. Visit for more information. The National High School Ethics Bowl is run from the Parr Center for Ethics at UNC Chapel Hill. ................
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