Club Feature: Ethics Forum

Ethics Bowl Question: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You do not have the ability to operate the lever in a way that would cause the trolley to derail without loss of life (for example, holding the lever in an intermediate position so that the trolley goes between the two sets of tracks, or pulling the lever after the front wheels pass the switch, but before the rear wheels do).

You have two options: (1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track. (2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the correct choice?

Whether it’s about John Locke’s natural law or China’s one-child policy, Ethics Forum fosters discussions that focus on the morality and the integrity of various issues that may linger yet remain undeveloped in students’ minds.

The club was founded by lowers Eric Tang and Carissa Chen last year, and since its beginning, the two ambitious co-heads, along with other club members, transformed a small, prep-based club into a widely popular, vibrant organization.

"We had 14 [club members] at first," Chen said. "It started as a more simple idea, but as we got older and became more used to the environment here, we began to build more layers to the club."

As Chen said, the club that obtained the most student sign-ups during this year’s club night did indeed have humble beginnings.

"One day, I was reading through my Facebook, and I noticed one of my friends had written how much she loved being part of ethics bowl at her school. I took a look into it online, and thought it was interesting, so I, along with some of my friends and Eric, started working on creating the club together on campus," Chen said.

Although the club began through a few individuals’ interest, its presence and accomplishments grew steadily during its first year, due to club members’ active participation and effort. The club even managed to compete in the Regional Ethics Bowl hosted at Tufts University three weeks after it was formed, and won both second and third places.

"We started the club three weeks before the Regional Ethics Bowl competition and we met every day of every week for at least an hour," lower and club member Arjun Rajan said. "We studied ethical philosophies and eventually made teams to scrimmage against each other in preparation for the contest."

This year, the club has focused on various topics including utilitarianism and conceitism. Now it’s shifting gears and preparing for this year’s Regional Ethics Bowl.

"We are focusing on small scrimmages during every meeting to help prepare for the competitions. [In meetings,] each team receives a moral dilemma, studies it, and comes up with points to prove if it is ethical or not. For the tournament we get the topic far in advance and have the opportunity to do research before the contest starts. But scrimmages, we get the topic each meeting and spend some time prepping. Then we jump right in to the scrimmage competitions," lower Jiro Mizuno said.

"[In meetings,] each team receives a moral dilemma, studies it, and comes up with points to prove if it is ethical or not."

Chen said that before the Regionals, the club will try to host an Ethics Bowl Invitational on campus.

"One thing we’re going to try to do is, we’re planning on hosting an invitational this year," Chen said. "It will be with a couple other schools like Andover. It will be a small event in which both new and old members of the club will be able participate and get a chance to practice for regionals."

Although Tang said that he and his club members enjoy participating in competitions like the Regional Ethics Bowl, he noted that students often misunderstand the difference between the Debate club and Ethics Forum, because both clubs compete in similar contests and focus on discussions. However, he emphasized that Ethics Bowl, unlike the debate competitions, stresses faith in what one believes is right and wrong, instead of arguing against the opponents’ opinions and views.

"A big difference between Ethics Bowl and Debate is that in Ethics Bowl, you are not given a side by someone that you have to argue; you have to work with your team to find out what you believe in, and then present it to the judges and the other team," Tang said. "So you could potentially agree with parts of [the other team’s] cases and disagree with parts of its cases.

You just have to know what you believe in and how to support your belief."

According to the club members, although participating in competitions provides club members’ opportunities to voice their true beliefs and represent Exeter proudly, the best aspect of being part of Ethics Forum is the discussions.

"Each meeting we go over ethical theories as they are applied to specific circumstances. By discussing these theories and their applications in depth we are able to explore and apply these theories to our own lives," lower and club member Seji Sakiyama said. "We cover all of the standard philosophers [like] Kant, Rawls, Hobbes and Locke, but we also delve deeper into theories like moral relativism and epistemology."

Sakiyama continued and said that above all, the club’s atmosphere is the best part of Ethics Forum.

"The community surrounding it is what makes the club so appealing," Sakiyama said. "It provides a safe space where we can talk about ethics when in other places, we might get laughed at outside."

Varma echoed Sakiyama’s sentiments and added that during each club meeting, members never waste a minute.

"I have been in the situation before where I was the only person arguing one point and the rest of the club was arguing against me and I did not feel like anyone was personally judging me. There is also never a moment where we are sitting around wondering what we could be doing."