PSCC学生在校际道德碗上练习公民话语

今年秋天，佩里西比州立社区学院的学生首次前往伊利诺伊州参加校际道德竞赛，与来自全国各地的学生就各种哲学问题进行民间讨论。

与传统的辩论环境不同，道德碗的参与者没有被分配立场来为任何给定的问题辩护。 相反，道德碗团队必须在活动开始前自己弄清楚成员的主流观点，然后他们将提出自己的观点，听取他人的观点，并合作达成共识。

“So, it's less confrontational,” said Matt Deaton, philosophy instructor and alumnus at Pellissippi State – and co-coach of the college’s inaugural Ethics Bowl team. “It's less adversarial. It's far more civil, collaborative and solution-oriented.”

Deaton, who founded the Tennessee High School Ethics Bowl, has served as Director of Outreach for the National High School Ethics Bowl and recently published a book, “Ethics Bowl to the Rescue!: Saving Democracy by Transforming Debate.”

Pellissippi’s team, based at the Blount County campus, received a set of about a dozen page-long cases containing various moral and political issues a couple months before the competition, and met weekly to think through the cases and develop a team view on each.

迪顿说，在一个由不同观点的人组成的庞大团队中，他们花了一段时间才在比赛前达成一致。 尽管如此，他们还是以谦逊、关心和诚实的态度这样做了。

“I really enjoyed it, because everyone who is on our team comes from such a different background – we're all different ages, we come from different families and different environments,” said Pellissippi student and Ethics Bowl team Co-Captain Hailey Davis. “And I think just having those different perspectives and having a deliberation over what we thought about was really fun for all of us.”

戴维斯正在学习心理学，她加入了道德碗团队，因为她想尝试一些新的东西，并挑战自己，提高自己的公共演讲技巧。 What she found through her experience was a supportive community and the ability to have difficult conversations she wouldn’t have otherwise.

It was an “eye-opening” experience, Davis said, and being a part of Pellissippi’s first-ever Ethics Bowl team was an honor.

“It was really nice to collaborate with people from other parts of the country, who I did notice also shared several viewpoints with me,” Davis said. “It was very respectful conversation. The fact that so many people from so many different places can come through and keep that on such a respectful level is really impressive.”

Deaton thanked retired Pellissippi Professor Charles Cardwell, whose endowment with the Pellissippi State 基金会 funded the Ethics Bowl team’s inaugural season. Deaton and Ethics Bowl co-coach Court Lewis are looking forward to continuing Pellissippi’s participation in the event.

迪顿说，道德碗为参与者提供了一个容易受到伤害的环境，因为他们知道同行们会尊重所有的观点。

“The point isn’t to win,” he said. “The point is to grow. The point is to model that collaborative dialogue.”

佩里西比大学的哲学教授刘易斯说，伦理碗是哲学家们最终所做事情的一个缩影。

“We examine really tough questions in a thoughtful way, and we like to dialog about them,” he said. “It's not about being right or wrong, but it's about discovering truth. 作为哲学家，我们热爱智慧。 I really enjoy seeing our team practice wisdom, and the critical-thinking approach that illustrates what philosophers do.”