New to Ethics Bowl
Mary Lee is a junior at Skyline High School in Sammamish, WA.
My name is Mary Lee, and I’m a junior at Skyline High School in Sammanish, WA. In March 2025, I was on a team that competed in the Washington State Ethics Open, a variation of the state Ethics Bowl, hosted by PLATO. Sophia Sun, Dhruv Arora, Ishi Sharmah and I formed a team of novices, having never competed in an Ethics Bowl competition before— but somehow, we managed to make it to the final round against Lakeside School. We ultimately took home 2nd Place. The excitement and joy we felt during the Ethics Open was the culmination of several years of effort as a team, not only in preparing for the event, but also in working for a chance to compete at all.
How it all started: In my freshman year of high school, I began to “get into” philosophy. Out of curiosity, I started exploring the primary sources section of my school’s library at lunch, and came across treatises by Locke, works by Descartes, and most memorably, Hobbes’ Leviathan. I soon learned about the Washington State Ethics Bowl and PLATO. Immediately, I reached out to Sophia, Dhruv, and Ishi because I had a feeling they might be interested in the competition as well. My instincts proved to be right. They were immediately eager to join Skyline’s first Ethics Bowl team. I accepted the role of captain to set team meeting dates and structure our preparations. Although I knew my teammates only as acquaintances, we would soon be good friends and a tight-knit team.
Disappointment: As my 2023 ended, our Ethics Bowl preparations began in earnest. We started meeting as a team to review past Ethics Bowl cases, watch recorded matches on YouTube, talk strategy, and argue about ethics. When fall rolled around, I met with my school’s head of Associated Student Body to ascertain what steps we needed to take to officially compete under Skyline’s name at the Ethics Bowl in the spring. To our distress, we spent the next four months struggling with our school’s administration to gain permission to compete. In January, after we had spent months preparing for the competition, they gave us a final “no.” We were disappointed, but we eventually set our sights on competing the following year (2025).
Preparations: At the beginning of this school year, we were more determined than ever to compete. We were excited to hear that PLATO would be piloting a new Ethics Bowl format called the Ethics Open. The event would be open to the public, free, and not affiliated with the larger National High School Ethics Bowl. This change in format made it possible for us to register to compete without any difficulties with our school’s administration, to our great relief and excitement.
Through fall and winter, Dhruv, Sophia, Ishi and I worked hard to dissect the six new released cases, think deeply about them, and prepare presentations. They cases focused on issues ranging from the ethics of tipping and gene editing to how AI should be used in classrooms. I believe that our team succeeded because we were passionate about the cases: Sophia, who aspires to attend a military academy after high school, wrote our presentation for the “Military Recruitment” case. Dhruv, who will be studying computer science next year in college, wrote our presentation for the “AI in Schools” case. Ishi, who has published articles on the morality of America’s tipping culture, laid down the bedrock of our moral reasoning in our “Tipping” case presentation. We did not have a team coach, but we tried not to let that hold us back.
The big day! The day of the Ethics Open finally arrived, and to say we were excited is an understatement. As we drove together into Seattle, we blasted the NHSEB’s “Let’s Get Ethical!” Spotify playlist. As the morning’s three rounds progressed, each team we were privileged to compete against added to our understanding of the cases and challenged us with views we had not explored.
When it was announced that we had made it to the final round against Lakeside School, we couldn’t believe it. We felt a bit out of our league competing against Lakeside because of their winning streak at the WA Ethics Bowl, but we were nonetheless thrilled to have made it to the final round. That round was challenging, but Sophia delivered our presentation beautifully and we had a productive discussion of military recruitment ethics. Even after the round was over and the judges took a few minutes to tally up their score sheets, we couldn’t stop chatting about the case with Lakeside. The round was a win in our book even though we ended up taking home second place.
To some, participating in an Ethics Bowl may seem intimidating, or maybe just too niche to try. But as my team and I found out firsthand, it is a competition for everyone, and any high schooler who cares about ethics can succeed at it, even without prior experience. No matter what a student’s plans are after high school, learning to view aspects of the world through an ethical lens is an important skill, and once you learn to view the world this way it is very hard to unlearn. I am so grateful to PLATO for providing my team and I with the rich experience that this year’s Ethics Open was. We can’t wait for next season!
