Puget Sound Ethics Bowl Team Competes at …

The Puget Sound Ethics Bowl team competed at the Northwest Regional Ethics Bowl on November 18th, 2023 at Pacific Lutheran University here in Tacoma. This year’s team included Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23, Alysiana Sar ’24, Natalie Worthy ’25, and Holland Hauskins ’27 and was coached by Professor Tubert.

Alysiana Sar ’24, Natalie Worthy ’25, Holland Hauskins ’27, Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23, Prof. Ariela Tubert

With mostly a new team, the Fall 2023 ethics bowl students had to work extra hard to get ready for the competition. Mei Pacheco-Leong, the veteran team member, did an awesome job taking the lead and helping the rest of the team prepare. Prof. Tubert said, “I am incredibly proud of the work the team did this semester! Their presentations improved each round with each of the members of the team going well out of their comfort zone during the competition. It was so fun to watch them and be part of their process, I know this group has a bright future ahead!”

The cases for Fall 2023 involved the ethics of banning some books from schools, balancing posthumously the wishes of art collectors and accessibility to the works of art, ethical engagement with governments with a record of human rights abuses, the ethics of using artificial intelligence for approving and denying health insurance claims, and more.

Some of the students reflected on their work during the fall semester and being part of the competition:

Alysiana Sar ’24: Being part of Ethics Bowl ‘23, for the first time, has definitely been an experience. Though there were 4 of us, I could proudly tell others like ‘yeah, I was one of the four!’ It was hard because of external factors that were out of our control, but it didn’t stop us from continuing forward. I’ve learned so much as a participant, a team member and a student. I learned how to cooperate with my team in ways that were different from just inside the classroom. I learned how to present information and apply my knowledge to real life scenarios and being able to discuss it through a lens of deeper understanding. Alongside, I’ve gained the skills that Ethics Bowl provided me and friends!!! I would recommend E.B for the experience because reflecting (now that it’s over) I am so happy that I took it because I ended the semester with fun memories, new friends, and more knowledge!!!!!

Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23: It was only a couple of years ago that I joined Ethics Bowl for the first time, outwardly quiet, internally anxious but opinionated, especially ethically. My first competition, I tried to squirrel out of competing, citing performance anxiety  and performance-based forgetfulness (I did not, at that point, even contribute to class discussions, even when cold-called). I loved the prep work and I loved the discussions and debates between our team, but I was terrified of giving arguments in front of an audience– even my peers. Unfortunately for me, my team saw me with kinder eyes than I saw myself and supported me through the anxieties of public speaking. That first bowl, I performed timidly but I did perform, introducing the moral considerations of our cases and our ethical framework in as few words as I could get away with. 

This last bowl has been my third and final year on Ethics Bowl and I would like to say I’ve grown since that initial competition. Though between now and then, I have also taken more philosophy classes and completed a philosophy capstone course, it’s Ethics Bowl in particular where I really developed confidence both in my ideas and in sharing them. Talking through ethical considerations and intuitions with a team is such a fun way of applying philosophy to real-world events. We learn to think about how to balance what is ethical with what is practical, how to think through complicated ethical issues, and how to further the discussion without attacking people’s views. I have been delighted to watch my teammates grow as philosophers and as people, developing skills like public speaking, getting better at breaking down and talking through arguments, and learning how to support each other even when we disagree. This year, I took on the role of giving our main argument, the role I watched all the seniors before me perform so well thinking I would never do that. Just as the years before, we lost, but I am so proud of our team and I can’t wait to see how they grow as/(if) they continue onwards.

Natalie Worthy ’25: This was my first year in Ethics Bowl and coming into it with no philosophy experience was challenging, but so fulfilling. As a Vocal Performance Major, I didn’t feel very prepared to take on ethical debates, but I really wanted to experience something new while utilizing my public speaking skills. After competing with this team, I can confidently say that my time in Ethics Bowl has been so valuable. I gained great experiences, ethical knowledge, and lovely friendships throughout the semester!

UPS Ethics Bowl Team Competes in First Ever Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW)

The Puget Sound Ethics Bowl team competed in the first ever Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) on April 14, 2019. The University of Puget Sound and the the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS) teams debated questions such as: Should we bring back species that have been driven to extinction? Are laws allowing terminally ill children to choose euthanasia morally defensible? Is China’s social credit system, which assigns a social credit score based on behavior, morally justified? Do wealthy nations owe a climate debt obligation toward less-wealthy nations? 

FEPPS describes their mission as being:

A rigorous college program for incarcerated women, trans-identified and gender nonconforming people in Washington and creates pathways to higher education after students are released from prison. Our goals are to increase FEPPS students’ economic and personal empowerment, contribute to family stability and reduce recidivism through college education.

The event was sponsored by Freedom Education Project Puget Sound and the University of Washington, Philosophy Department.

This event was also made possible by Paul Tubig, a Philosophy PhD candidate at University of Washington. In addition to coaching the FEPPS team, Paul established ethics bowl at WCCW and organized the event.

Visit the FEPPS Facebook page to read more about the event.

Left table: FEPPS ethics bowl team

Middle table: Puget Sound Ethics Bowl team

Right table: Judges and moderator

Paul Tubig

Puget Sound Students Competed in 2019 National Bioethics Bowl

On April 5–6, students on the Puget Sound Ethics Bowl and their coach, Prof. Tubert, traveled to Mobile, AL to compete in the National Bioethics Bowl at University of South Alabama.

The National Bioethics Bowl is a college-level collaborative presentation and debate about pressing ethical issues in biomedicine and technology. Months prior to the competition, each team receives a case packet containing 15 cases about bioethical dilemmas. Each team conducts research relevant to the individual cases and defend a position using ethical reasoning and argumentation. The bowl entails several rounds of debate. In each round, two teams are given time to present their position and argument for a given case they prepared. Following each presentation, teams have the opportunity to hear and respond to replies from the opposing team. Finally, the teams engage in a Q&A session with judges who included professionals in healthcare, government, and philosophy.

Some of the cases the Puget Sound team presented on were about unrepresented patients, CRISPR babies, and therapeutic misconception.

Students reflected on the value of participating in this bowl:

Liam Grantham ’20: “Debating our positions against another team made us stronger public speakers and improved our ability to act professionally (even when we strongly believe our opponents’ position is flawed)…I would definitely recommend the ethics bowl club to other people who are genuinely interested in ethics as much as we are. It sometimes takes a lot to come to a consensus on some of the cases we were given, but if you are passionate about ethics (doing the right thing), then it is absolutely worth it.” 

Colleen Hanson ’19: “Bioethics bowl is … a necessary space to discuss pressing ethical dilemmas in medicine and biotechnology. There will always be a need for people to critically reflect and make decisions on these issues. Bioethics bowl integrates students and experts from various disciplines and backgrounds, providing a robust and diverse pool of perspectives. As such, I think bioethics bowl is an essential activity not only in the types of skills it develops in students, but in the purpose it serves for the greater bioethics field.”

Simone Moore ’20: “…this experience not only helped us strengthen our rhetorical skills, but challenged us to interrogate and apply the foundational philosophical information that we have gathered through our time at UPS thus far. I feel fortunate that I was able to participate in an event such as this, and I hope that I will be able to do it again…”

Holden Chen ’20: “The event was certainly competitive, but at the same time, it was one that prompted a deliberative process that goes beyond itself. We now have familiarity with these timely ethical issues and have acquired the skills and knowledge to develop strong positions, but it doesn’t just stop there for us. The very fact that we were challenged at the competition shows that there’s always more to engage with and consider. The ethical discussions don’t stop, and we as ethicist of the now and of the future have come away from the experience with more appreciation for the process.”

August Malueg ’20: “Ethics bowl has helped me develop strong public speaking skills and has made me more confident in my ability to relate my thoughts to others… In Mobile I had the opportunity to meet students from various universities that traveled to the competition (such as Depauw and Loyola Chicago), as well as locals, who were overwhelmingly hospitable and welcoming. I think it is important to keep ethics bowl active at the university and to continue offering students the chance to travel to compete because it not only helps them in the professional and social sense, but also because they have the opportunity to continue to have novel experiences abroad.” 

Top: Holden Chen ’20, Simone Moore ’20, Professor Ariela Tubert, August Malueg ’20, Liam Grantham ’20 / Bottom: Colleen Hanson ’19

2018 Northwest Regional Ethics Bowl Competition

On November 10, 2018, Puget Sound’s fall Ethics Bowl team (Liam Grantham ’20, Colleen Hanson ’19, Brian Kim ’21, August Malueg ’20, and Sam Place ’19) coached by Professor Tubert, competed in the 2018 Northwest Regional Ethics Bowl at Pacific Lutheran University. Among the many topics they argued were: the moral grounds to use genealogy websites to aid in criminal investigation, religious exemptions to modern medical birthing practices, and the disablement of comment sections on major news websites.