The Ethics Bowl divisional finalists won the National High School Ethics Bowl Case-Writing Competition April 14, earning them a national title, a cash prize of $500, and consideration for the inclusion of their case submission in future competition case sets.
After making history for the program by winning regionals in January, the team decided to set its sights on the case-writing competition.
“We had progressed further in the competition than we ever had before,” senior Kaitlyn DeVries said, “leading to a desire for more.”
Although members of the team had been aware of the competition as far back as DeVries’ sophomore year, she had been the only Ethics Bowl member to submit a case prior to this year’s collaboration.
According to DeVries, working on the case with more people allowed the team to consider more perspectives and angles, effectively making the case stronger.
“The writing process was really a lot of editing and revising,” DeVries said, “with one person typing a sentence and then another immediately editing it slightly.”
The case had to be between 500 and 750 words and had to cite reputable sources to be considered. There had to be an opening section that introduced a specific, real-world moral dilemma problem, and then a second section posing questions that broaden the scope of that dilemma to other scenarios and situations.
DeVries said the team went back-and-forth, trying to make sure the sentences were both articulate and thought-provoking.
According to sophomore Izzy Robinson, after bouncing a few ideas around, the group chose to cover the mass-incarceration crisis in El Salvador as their central dilemma because of the situation’s moral nuance.
“We thought it was something relevant … and we knew it had a lot of different angles we could look at,” sophomore Izzy Robinson said. “We wanted something that could be debated without a clear-cut ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer.”
According to senior Kate Huang, the case-writing competition gave the team another opportunity to spend time together doing what they loved, whilst also giving them an opportunity to grow their philosophical and writing skills.
“As an Ethics Bowl participant, I have had numerous experiences speaking about morally ambiguous and challenging cases,” senior Kate Huang said. “But this was different in that we had to put ourselves in the mindset of the judges and Ethics Bowl organizers, to create questions that test the critical thinking and ethical judgement of the students.”
According to Robinson, having such a unique team with a lot of good chemistry really helped making the research and writing go smoothly.
“We had a really fun time writing it and everyone involved played such a key role in making it come together,” Robinson said.
