Ethics Bowl
PHL 165: Applied Ethics: Ethics Bowl is an MTC course that gives students a structured way to practice moral reasoning and constructive civic dialogue, culminating in Ethics Bowl competitions inside San Quentin with undergraduate teams from other colleges. MTC typically hosts 2–3 matches or scrimmages each year, competing with teams from Stanford University, San Jose State University, and University of California, Santa Cruz.
Unlike traditional debate, Ethics Bowl emphasizes thoughtful dialogue over winning an argument. Participants engage sincerely with competing perspectives, weigh counterarguments and alternative ideas, and work toward common ground. The process—and the matches themselves—offer a powerful model of constructive civic discourse, especially among people whose lived experiences may be vastly different.
Ethics Bowl was introduced to MTC in 2018, when volunteer faculty members Kyle Robertson, a UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) philosophy lecturer, and attorney Kathy Richards co-taught the inaugural Ethics Bowl class at the College. That year also marked the first intercollegiate match between MTC students and UCSC undergraduates, launching a tradition that continues today.
UC Santa Cruz produced a Special Report on the inaugural intercollegiate Ethics Bowl match inside San Quentin.
Co-instructors Marian Avila Breach and Connie Krosney taught the Fall 2025 Ethics Bowl course, preparing MTC students and recent graduates to participate in two intercollegiate competitions at San Quentin in November 2025—one with Stanford University and another with UCSC.
Questions were drawn from a set of cases written and distributed annually by a regional Ethics Bowl organization; teams across participating colleges work from the same case set each year as part of the course curriculum, alongside selected ethics texts. The UCSC match featured five MTC students and seven UCSC students, with teams tackling the following cases:
1) Is it ethical to cause and display animal suffering in order to obtain better treatment for the greater population of animals?
2) Is it ethical to restrict the purchase of junk foods and highly processed foods with SNAP funds in order to encourage better nutrition for recipients?
A panel of three judges facilitated and evaluated the competition, while an audience of MTC students, alumni, faculty, and visiting academics watched and learned from the discussion.
Faculty members Kathy Richards (left) and Connie Krosney (right), with MTC student Darwin Billingsley at the 2025 Ethics Bowl match with UC Santa Cruz.
“The Ethics Bowl course provides an opportunity for students to work collaboratively and to demonstrate their increased skills and deepened thinking in a larger social context,” said volunteer faculty member Connie Krosney, who has co-taught Ethics Bowl at MTC since 2019. “The experience is often transformational for MTC students, as well as for the visiting college students and faculty from the other higher education institutions.”
