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STATESBORO, Ga. — A major achievement awaits the Georgia Southern University (GSU) Ethics Bowl team as they gear up for the national competition slated for next month.
The team clinched their spot in the 2026 APPE Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl following an impressive showing at the regional competition hosted by the University of North Georgia.
David Wong, one of the team’s dedicated coaches, shed light on the nature of the competition.
“The Ethics Bowl is an event where students engage in team debates on contemporary, moral, political, and social issues,” Wong stated. “Our Georgia Southern team will face off against other universities.”
In these competitions, the team tackles a variety of cases that cover current political or ethical topics. They must conduct thorough research, draw well-informed conclusions, and then present their findings to a panel of judges.
Additionally, teams are asked to provide commentary on other schools’ submissions as well.
“Ethics Bowl is a friendly competition,” said Ethics Bowl President Cade Huff. “We focus more on the friendly aspect. We try to engage in serious ethical discussions with a variety of teams over a variety of different cases.”
He added, “We meet weeks beforehand, preparing over a set of cases that are given to us. We deliberate on them. We apply normative ethical theories to them, and then we create an outline for what we think are the relevant moral features of the case and what are our answers to the moral questions that arise from these individual cases.”
Huff didn’t start in the world of ethics but sought out the team to help improve his communication skills.
“I’m an electrical engineering major,” he said. “I have a philosophy double major that came after, and I wasn’t very satisfied with the amount of communication skills that were being cultivated in the engineering program, and I figured Ethics Bowl would be a possible way to develop my presentation and ethics skills, and I found a love for the competition after doing so.”
Both Wong and Huff shared their pitches on how the team can benefit students through their college experience.
“Our students find a sense of community right here through Ethics Bowl,” Wong said. “They also learn how to discuss the sometimes very heated topics, right, in a civil manner.”
Huff agreed that the team can build friendships, but also says participation can greatly help someone who has aspirations to go into law or politics as a career.
“This is a great opportunity for anyone who is thinking about getting into ethics,” he said. “They’re thinking about getting into debate, but maybe they don’t like that. You know, in debate-style competitions, you’re given the kind of conclusion that you must argue for. [Here] it’s very open-ended. It’s a great opportunity to develop your speaking skills, to compete, to think through relevant ethical questions.”
The national competition will be held on March 7 and 8 in St. Louis, MO.
The team’s travel is already being sponsored by the GSU Provost and Department of Academic Affairs, among other sources, but if you are interested in contributing to the team, you can contact the chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, William Eaton.