Young ethicists delve deeper into the issues of moral dilemmas

Should there be any boundaries for an artist while exploring an idea? Should we allow billions of dollars to be spent on space exploration when we are unsure that it will bring benefits to human society? Should behaviour in schools that makes one uncomfortable be reported? Are there boundaries to what we can do scientific research on?

Two teams of The Australian National University (ANU) undergraduate ethicists delved into these and many other moral quandaries to win gold and silver medals at the recently concluded tertiary Ethics Olympiad competition that saw students participating from tertiary institutions across Australia.

The Olympiad is a debate-style competition designed to develop critical thinking skills in students who are given several ethical cases on contentious issues to deeply discuss respectfully and collaboratively.

Coach James Edgar Lim says that studying ethical philosophy allows one to pick out these distinctions in everyday arguments. He is an ANU PhD candidate in the School of Philosophy working on Applied Ethics focusing on the ethics of public shaming.  

“There have been times when we have argued with others on various issues, for example, on how much we should donate to charity. If we look closely, we can break the question further down into at least two different questions - Am I morally required to donate to charity, and is it good for me to donate to charity?” says James.

“When we go deeper into such questions while debating, we are able to understand how people can end up disagreeing and also agreeing on the same premises and empirical facts.”

He says that ethics is very intimately connected with day-to-day human experiences. There have been times when we have wondered - Am I a good person? Could I have interacted with a friend in a different manner?

The students participating in the competition took an interesting approach to analysing the ethical cases that were presented to them. They focused on argumentation instead of only exploring the ethical cases.

“We had a realisation that many times we argue because we have different definitions for terms and concepts, and that’s why we have different arguments. Once we are on the same page on what these terms mean to us, we tend to agree on most of the arguments,” says Angela Gao, one of the participating team members who won the silver medal in the Olympiad. She is studying Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics at ANU.

The Ethics Olympiad helped develop her critical thinking skills and also form valuable friendships with teammates, she adds.

ANU students Holly Wallman-Craddock, Josie Carter, Fionn Parker, Thomas Rasmussen and Emily Fleming-Berry were the other participants.    

Coach Jenny Munt, who is a PhD candidate in the School of Philosophy, says that investigating ethical cases is a highly sophisticated way of reasoning and the students approached an argument by identifying the arguments with qualifications and then justifying those qualifications in the competition. 

Angela says that studying ethics challenges assumptions and makes you aware of how you behave and act every day and be consistent with your actions. “It’s an intersection between my majors Philosophy and Political Science and we can go deeply into many issues that exist in political Science like how we distribute resources, rights for women etc.,” she says.

“You can’t get an answer from upper-level questions unless you are looking at it from a foundational level as to what our objectives are.”

Written by Neha Attre