Competing against NCAA Division I colleges like Clemson University, a team of Oklahoma Christian University students placed third among 36 schools in the 2019 Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl held March 2-3 in Baltimore, MD.
Senior Brendan McKinley said the team demonstrated that schools like Oklahoma Christian can compete well against large schools despite the disadvantage of size, and proved their Christian background is not an indicator of ability or the types of argumentation they utilize.
“It was an excellent opportunity to grow and meet students with different collegiate experiences,” McKinley said. “I feel like there are sometimes assumptions among a lot of the bigger schools that we’re going to present a certain way because we’re a small, Christian team, and we only compete with three people, but we manage to consistently subvert those assumptions.”
In competition, the team argues a viewpoint on the given topic based on an ethical theory of their choosing. The whole team assists in preparing and researching the positions, a process which includes considering the potential responses of differing ethical theories and knowing how to defend against them.
“In a round, our team presents once and comments once,” McKinley said. “During presentation, we are tasked with answering a question based on a controversial, ethically relevant case. Our answer needs to be grounded in ethical theory, and it needs to consider potential opposing viewpoints. During commenting, we have to make observations, which are not necessarily rebuttals, but they can be useful, about another team’s presentation.”
The team met on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. in the business building to prepare for their competitions. Through these practices, McKinley said he learned much more than how to defend a particular argument to win.
“I’ve learned that it’s incredibly important to find out what you believe and, more importantly, be able to justify it,” McKinley said. “I’ve also learned that ethical theory, as a field, has historically been dominated by white male voices and as a consequence most of our modern social ethic is both phallocentric and Eurocentric. It’s crucial that we make room for minority voices in all of our cultural constructs, especially ethics.”
Despite the team’s differences and the challenges they faced during the preparation, McKinley said they enjoyed working together to have a successful season of competition.
“It was definitely a lot of early mornings,” McKinley said. “We have to memorize all of our positions on each of the cases, so it’s a lot of practice to get to that point. We have to iron out our personal ethical differences, as we’re definitely not an ideologically homogenous team. I, for example, lean very left politically, while others on the team definitely do not. It’s hard work, but it’s a good time, lots of good banter.”
Sophomore Samuel Day also said the team is very close and works well together to achieve their high levels of success. According to Day, participating on the team has caused him to grow and embrace the challenge of answering difficult questions, which are relevant to his life.
“It has been awesome in helping me critically think through some of the tough issues that will come up now and in the coming years,” Day said. “It is a great mental exercise.”
Although some of the team members did not get to compete at nationals because only one Oklahoma Christian team could compete, they helped the team with preparation and argumentation. They also had success in other tournaments throughout the year, including the state tournament, where Oklahoma Christian teams took first and second.
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