WK competed in its first ever Ethics Bowl Competition this year! The provincial competition is hosted annually by the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties.
Ethics competitions are collaborative competitions where teams of students analyze and discuss ethical issues and dilemmas. The purpose is to explore moral and ethical stances and pose questions to deepen understanding of these complex issues. Teams are evaluated on their ability to communicate and collaborate, the strength of their research, and the intellectual improvisation of responding to another team’s ideas. The issues are generally broad, current, conflictual, and above all, ethically fraught. Unlike the skilled oppositional nature of debate, this competition emphasizes collaborative dialogic skills.
Students explored some tricky ethical dilemmas at the tournament. Here are some of the topics they analyzed during ethics bowl competition:
- Online shopping – are there measures government should adopt to ameliorate unfortunate effects of this retail revolution?
- Homelessness – what responsibility do we have for those in our community living in need? What do we owe the most vulnerable in our society?
- Tourism – do individuals have an ethical responsibility to mitigate the harmful effects of their travels?
- Reproduction in an overpopulated world – do people living today have an individual moral obligation to help mitigate against the putative effects of human overpopulation by refraining from reproducing?
- Worker shortages and CERB – how much should an individual be expected to compromise their own mental and physical well-being to contribute to society by joining the workforce?
- Bill 21 – does this truly promote state neutrality when Christianity is still the most popular religion in Quebec?
The competition is normally in person, but due to covid restrictions, was done online this year. For a first time team, they did amazing- advancing to the second round. The team worked very hard, and had a fantastic experience!
