Bethpage Philosophy Takes Second Place in Ethics Bowl
On May 27th, members of Ms. Way’s philosophy class and philosophy club participated in Stevens Institute of Technology’s 2nd annual Ethics Bowl. There were 22 teams that participated and Bethpage placed second in the competition. The winning team, the “Philosophy Rangers,” consisted of Annie Bernberg, Colin Chadderton, Rosette Cirillo, Bert Geng, and Colby Sim. Teams were given four case studies to prepare that revolved around ethical issues including the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports, the federal bailout of AIG, prescribing Ritalin to control children’s behavior, and the privacy issues regarding social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace. The teams met over the course of two weeks with Ms. Way and Mr. LaRochester preparing their arguments. The Ethics Bowl consisted of 2 rounds and was scored by a panel of judges who evaluated each team’s answers on intelligibility, focus on ethically relevant considerations, avoidance of ethical irrelevance, and deliberative thoughtf