[piano intro] [film reel whirring] [gentle music] [paper rustling] [wind blowing] [paper rustling] [school bell ringing] [tone beeps] - [Student] Yeah, we definitely thought that there were some situations where you can do a bad thing to have a good result.

- [Student] Scientists have general responsibilities to essentially not be negligent or reckless.

- The Ethics Bowl is based around the idea of a conversation.

It's a give and take exchange between two equally situated parties, and it's interestingly different than debate.

The views that the students hold aren't actually assigned to them.

- [Narrator] Ethics Bowl is a club at our school that's a part of a national organization which hosts competitions for students to discuss ethical and moral issues.

- A lot of times, we start with our gut instinct and, like, we feel this way, but why do we feel this way?

And a lot of times, it goes back to, like, normal societal expectations and, like, rules.

And we have to go even deeper than that though.

Why does this exist?

Why is this seen as immoral?

That further step has really contributed to how I look at problems outside of Ethics Bowl.

- The students are all very capable and very bright.

So, my primary role is basically to fill out the paperwork for them and just be the support they need.

- Yeah, everyone sees things differently, but it's definitely not about like, "Whoa, they have a different opinion than us, and it's, like, totally bad and totally wrong."

It's not really about that, it's just about like, I don't know, looking at why we see things differently, which I guess is really the spirit of the Ethics Bowl, is just exploring different ways that people view the world.

- I think the spirit of the Ethics Bowl is to kind of create a space for people to have more conducive style debate, because all of the cases have a lot of gray area, and that's kind of the point.

- We try and cover as much of, like, everything the case could bring up as we can in our discussions.

So, like, my research docs are usually just like links to articles and like a bajillion questions that I've come up with while Googling it.

So it's like, I feel like generally, at least for regionals, the questions, we were, like, pretty prepared for them.

- Like, who would be held accountable for damages caused by lethal force robots?

I don't know, maybe the people operating them?

- Yes.

[group laughing] - Maybe the people who implemented them into the police force.

Okay, this is not a reliable source, so don't quote me on this, but I feel like I saw a TikTok saying there's no tranquilizers that work on humans.

- Okay, but if we had spent the amount of money that we've spent to, like, developing weapons, into doing this, it would've happened.

- Tranquilizers are not my idea.

I'm not saying that.

- That's a now thing.

- [Narrator] This year, our team advanced all the way through regionals, which leaves us here, preparing.

- We view success as participating well, not in whether we win, not in whether we lose.

Our goal is that we just kind of abide by, like, the mission statement of the Ethics Bowl, and that we literally just do it the right way.

- I feel like, I feel way better about nationals if I think about it as four rounds on Saturday.

- That's true.

- Mm-hm.

- Like, four rounds is totally manageable.

That's not bad at all.

- I'm definitely excited.

Also nervous.

I'm a generally pretty introverted person.

- I'm feeling pretty good about this weekend.

Well, I'm excited about this weekend.

I don't really know how I feel about how prepared we are for this weekend.

I feel like you never really know.

I mean, we put in, like, a lot of work, but sometimes it's sort of, with, like, Ethics Bowl, it's hard to really, like, see how much work you've put in.

- Okay.

Which one should we do today?

- Okay, yeah, we should probably decide soon.

- Yeah.

20 minutes have passed.

[group laughing] I don't know how.

- Wow.

- I'm trying to, like, stay calm.

[chuckles] 'Cause if I let myself think about it too much, I'll get nervous and anxious.

I keep calm by watching a lot of "Survivor."

[laughs] - As someone who lives next to other people, you have an expectation that you're not gonna, like, make their life really suck.

- Like, you didn't sign up to have this neighbor that's gonna be really loud.

- I've played a lot of "Sims" in the past 24 hours, and the neighbors, who are really loud, are really getting on my nerves 'cause my Sim cannot sleep, and they won't respond when I pound on their door.

- [Crista] Those neighbors are being really immoral.

- Yeah.

- My thoughts about the competition, I'm really excited and I think it'll be a good time, but, yeah, I'm a little nervous.

- Ethics Bowl used to make me really nervous 'cause I don't really like public speaking that much.

I've gotten better at it.

So I used to dread Ethics Bowl competitions, but now I'm actually feeling kind of excited.

- [Interviewer] Anything that you want to say?

- I'm not saying I hope we win.

That would jinx us.

[birds chirping] - The National High School Ethics Bowl is an outreach program that's designed to get students thinking, talking, and ultimately, we hope, working together on really tough issues that define their citizenship in a democracy.

- I have to say there's a special place in our heart for these high school students.

We have almost 400 schools nationwide doing this activity, and so these kids are the top 24 teams in the whole country.

- I love judging.

I think it's incredibly fun.

- [Interviewer] Are you one of the judges?

- I'm judging at least one round.

Depends how many judges drop out.

- He is a substitute judge.

- It's so fun.

- I competed for three years.

Like, I enjoy moderating more so than judging.

Like, because I know how I would answer certain things, because I always view it the way I first viewed it in the eyes of a competitor.

[gentle music] - All right.

Good morning, everybody.

- [Audience] Good morning.

- [Alex] You all look great.

It's giving [indistinct].

- [Narrator] So, the typical structure of a match is where the first team is given a case.

- Should parents be allowed to earn a profit from the use of their children's image online?

- [Narrator] They have to present their case in the question.

- Discussing this case, I actually read an article about a mom who has her two boys really online who said that, like, she tries to tell them what their audience really looks like by taking them to, like, baseball stadiums, but they're just incapable of understanding it.

And she mentioned it as a joke, and I read it and I was like, "That means that your kids should not be on the internet.

That means that they're completely unable to consent to what you're asking them to do."

But there is a point where, like, now, if my mom asked me if I could participate in a video, I'm very able to understand what that means and what that looks like, and I'm able to consent, so I could definitely participate in that.

- We're really emphasizing that that money should always be going to the child, and it should not be going into your own personal pocket for your own personal profit.

- [Narrator] And the second team gives them feedback to revise their point.

- There's a lot of ways that, like, money can go towards children.

I wanted to know if you meant that, like, literally, as in they have, like, a bank account in their name, like, the money is literally going towards them, or more in like a figurative, like, theory sense, so they're going towards, like, maybe their future college fund.

- [Narrator] After they've revised, that first team gets a Q&A with the judges.

- You said that it's the parent's obligation to find another opportunity, right?

What's society's obligation?

There's a whole bunch of people paying you a bunch of money to do this.

And that parent may not have another economic opportunity that's comparable, and we're telling them, "It's unethical for you to take advantage of this."

Isn't the problem society that's only gonna pay you for that?

- Society will often, like, bring immoral choices to you.

Like, for example, working as an engineer for a fracking company or something like that, and that's, like, your best job prospect, you're gonna earn a lot more money if you're working for fracking rather than working for, like, I don't know, some competing green energy company, it's still an immoral thing to join and, like, purposely work for a goal that you are, you know, morally against.

- [Narrator] And then the second team goes with the same format and a different case question.

[gentle music] - And what do you think good friendship requires of Deborah in this situation, and what does it require of Joe?

- I mean, we're wondering if you think that there can be utility in a friendship with someone who harms somebody that you care about.

- Do we think that there's a moral difference if we're talking about a quote, unquote, harder drug like heroin or cocaine, where there is a higher potential for addiction or harm?

- Like, we don't know what psychedelics will do to us long term, we don't know about a lot of the effects, and it's largely unstudied, so by that criteria, wouldn't this fall into something that you all would say is morally impermissible?

- I think with some of the drugs that pose a higher potential for addiction, the issue is that that risk is an immediate risk, not just to you, but also to everyone around you.

I think that that, like, risk of just damage only to really yourself has less moral weight.

- [Judge] Chapel Hill High School.

- [Judge] Chapel Hill High School.

- Chapel Hill High School has won this round.

[group applauding] [students chattering] - I'm still just waiting for Regis.

- I know.

- The other school that we talked to just goes... We go, "How did it go?"

They go, "It went."

- Yeah.

- And then they go, "They were really charismatic, and," what did they say?

Like, well-spoken.

- Well-spoken.

- They had ultimate rizz.

So I guess that's why we want to come again.

- They said it hurt.

- It hurt?

- Yeah, they said it hurt.

- Who?

- Going against Regis.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Why?

- 'Cause of all the rizz!

- What is rizz?

Is it a term I don't know?

- Rizz from charisma.

- Oh.

- It's when we just, like- - Okay, okay.

- It's literally high school boy.

A high school boy talks to a girl, other high school boy goes, "You got rizz."

[group laughing] - No, literally, one time I was in the school parking lot, talking to, like, my friend, and then this guy drives by, rolls his windows down, and just shouts like, "Is that rizz?"

[group laughing] - [Mr.

Campbell] Anybody need a Ziploc bag?

There's still some more.

- I do need a Ziploc bag.

- You got it, man.

- [Student] Wait, can I have one too, please?

[gentle music] - So, penniless portraiture, it deals with a couple different instances of how people in the street get photographed and their likeness to some extent, their existence ends up being used in, like, B-roll footage for news channels.

There's a distinction between performance and simply existing.

Performance implies intentionality on the behalf of the person who's being photographed.

- Everyone at this bench and at the other one has signed away a right to be photographed and recorded in the way that we actually are right now, because what we're doing is, to some degree, spectacle.

We are engaging in, like, a presentation of our capacities and our abilities in a way which is expected to be, like, digested or interpreted or somehow viewed.

But our simple presence in this space, absent the sort of framing of this Ethics Bowl round, wouldn't warrant the same agency over our own image the same way it does, like, that we literally, like, we have from the tournament.

- Would it ever be permissible to use compensation as a way to achieve consent for the creation of the art?

If that person's now more receptive, is it still morally permissible to take that photo?

- This is already done in many media sectors.

I mean, like modeling, people are paid for their photo to be taken.

And what we say on this is that if the artist makes clear the use of it and in a non-exploitative way, it is fine to offer it, but of course, we have consent as the highest, like, standard, and then compensation can be used for it if they're clear about the use.

- Suppose I have some really unusual tattoo on my foot so that anybody who knows about it could identify me if they saw a photo of my foot, because they would be like, "Oh, yeah, that's the guy with a really unusual, with that..." You know, "He's the only person who has that tattoo on his foot."

Would then a photograph of my foot require my consent in order to be published?

- So, I think that delves then into, like, a secondary and perhaps murkier question.

There's a double aesthetic question there because of the tattoo artist involved as well.

So, like, the purveyor of the, first, art, and then the, like, holder of it, secondarily.

- Excellent point.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for confusing the issue that way.

Let me change it to a birthmark.

- Okay.

[group laughing] Well, then, again, there's the question of the parents.

[group laughing] - [Announcer] With a score of 1.5 votes, Regis High.

[group applauding] - I didn't know that was possible.

[laughs] [students chattering] - I just grabbed them all together, picked them up, and they kept spinning around and around and around each other.

And now that they've deflated inside some, all of the deflated ones are keeping all of the... - [Speaker] Do you have the balloons?

- Currently, they are being untangled.

- [Speaker] Where are you?

- I'm in the kitchen.

- What if we had two undergraduates, one holding each balloon, while Alex is talking?

- [Speaker] No.

[group laughing] - The composition is incredible.

- [Student] It's one or three.

[students chattering] - I'm very excited to announce to you the eight teams that will advance to the second day, beginning with number eight, Skyline High School.

[group applauding and cheering] Number seven, Doral Academy Prep School.

[group applauding and cheering] Number six... Number five... Rank number three, Regis High School.

[group applauding] Rank number two, Chapel Hill High School.

[group applauding and cheering] I know it's been a long day.

You've done a lot of hard work.

Pat yourselves on the back.

Being here is a feat.

It is an accomplishment.

There remains much to do.

[students chattering] [students chattering continues] - Thank you.

- You guys are so good.

Yeah, we hope you guys win.

- [Mr.

Campbell] All right, here we go.

Now we'll get a little tree behind you there.

All right.

[students chattering] - [Students] Yay!

[gentle music] [students chattering] - Philosophy is so abstract and it seems so difficult, and, like, I think I sort of felt that, like, that I couldn't do that.

There wasn't a place for me.

There is, like, value for everyone to participate in, in this kind of discussion, and in, like, philosophy, and that it has value for everybody.

- Believe it or not, we were not paid to say that.

[group laughing] - So, is there an obligation other than to other people that you think someone might say could be more important?

- I think we do believe that your obligation to other people comes first.

- With a score of three votes, Chapel Hill High wins the match.

Thank you and congratulations to both teams.

[group applauding] [students chattering] - This is gonna be a crazy round.

It's gonna be Chapel Hill v. Skyline.

Regis v. Medford.

All great teams left.

Who will make it?

[laughs] [gentle music] - [Announcer] Does the fact that young girls look up to female athletes as role models obligate those athletes to behave in particular ways?

[students whispering] - We believe that, yes, the fact that young girls look up to female athletes as role models does obligate them to behave in particular ways because these role models have the power and influence that come from their position.

- However, we don't believe that this responsibility is to fit the box that exists around a lot of female athletes, this idea that there's two types of women.

There's the super feminine, like, ideal of beauty kind of woman, and then there's the athlete, who's, like, strong and can, like, show, like, break all these gender stereotypes.

- But you have to recognize that women have historically been looked down upon in society or put in, like Crista said, into this box of how they're supposed to look, and had this inability to be multidimensional.

- Overall, we believe that the fact that young girls look up to female athletes as role models absolutely should influence their behavior, and the fact they should avoid trying to fall into one dimensionality and just promote a positive image that shows that they can be, you know, multiple things, because of the history of injustice against female athletes and the fact that they have power.

It doesn't matter that their main job is to do gymnastics.

The fact that they have a platform at all, that they have any sort of influence, means that they need responsibility as to how they use it.

- So this is really interesting, 'cause we actually disagreed with you on most of your points.

So I'm really interested in seeing you expand on yours and kind of understanding where you came from.

- We noticed that a lot of emphasis was put on her being a female athlete.

Were she to be a male athlete, would that change anything?

What if she was of a separate minority demographic?

Are we concerned that additional pressure is being placed on minority individuals to be held to higher standards or not?

- With men, there's not the same stigma, so this already changes things.

They already have the space to be who they are and to be multidimensional, so they don't have the same concerns with having to put forth and fight against any stigma.

- And going off of that into your question specifically about minorities being in the spotlight and the additional pressures that could be put on them, we think that, yes, unfortunately, it is a harsh reality.

Because racism is so prevalent in society and intolerance in general, people are constantly looking to push stereotypes and restrictions on you.

Because you're in the public eye, you're automatically placed as a representative of your own group.

And with that power, you have more influence than others.

- You spoke about the importance of these young women as role models to be authentic to who they are as female athletes.

How is that complicated by the fact that they're being paid by sponsors for some of this content that they're creating?

- The moral thing to do, we believe, to, like, accept the sponsorships that are in line with your values, that don't conflict that, and that don't make you go against what you're representing as an athlete.

- I wanted to ask how far you think she could go.

If, instead of being flirty, the videos were erotic or even pornographic, but still legal, then would you say, "Well, yeah, she has the right to do that too," despite the fact that she's a role model?

- I think, honestly, that she does have the right to do that, that based off of the way that we see it, honestly, as long as she's also showing that while she does that, she can also show up at her gymnastics meets and, like, show out and do what she does best, then that is showing young girls that you can be whoever you wanna be.

And that a lot of the, like, the stigma around that content doesn't really come from a place of it necessarily being wrong or something.

We don't really believe that it's something that should be looked down upon and seen as, like, forbidden or sinful to, like, show that.

So I guess it's because it's more taboo, it may seem like more of an extreme.

But I mean, it's all about that multidimensionality, right?

- Many people would object to pornography because it subordinates women.

It has effects not just on her, but on all the other women who are now viewed more as sex objects.

If, in fact, it did have that effect, and you had evidence for that, would that change you position, or still she has the right to do it?

- Can I confer for a minute?

- Sure.

[students whispering] - So, we believe that, like, you do have the right to, like, commoditize your body however you really see- - Commodify.

- Commodify?

- Commodify.

- Commodify your body however you see fit.

But it definitely gets more complicated, and that we don't believe that, like, pornography is inherently exploitative of women or inherently puts women down, that it's sort of like female athletics, where, like, there's no reason why female athletics should be looked down upon more than men's, it's just because it's been run by men for forever.

There's no reason that pornography should put down women, it's just because it's been run by men for forever.

So there is room in there.

But if it was portraying in it that way, maybe she's not being the best role model, but that doesn't outweigh her own right to commodify her own body however she sees fit.

- [Announcer] Okay.

I am excited to announce that with a score of two to one and literally the closest game I've ever seen ever, Skyline High School is the winner of this match.

Thanks and congratulations.

- Thank you so much.

You were incredible.

[group applauding] [group applauding continues] - We did good.

- You did it.

[students chattering] [students chattering continues] - We can get into some good documentary with a shaky camera running after us, and we, like, run out of the building.

- Every single match, I have it written on our paper, like, we totally lost this one.

There's no way.

I have a vibe about it.

They're gonna vote for the other... We totally, totally lost.

- That was the only match I've ever felt, like, confident that we would win.

- It's harder when it's a round when you feel like it was so unmatched and when you felt so confident, to then lose.

- You know, I had a dream.

It's coming back to me now.

Y'all had us fill out, like, a sheet that was, like, one way that we want to be portrayed in this documentary, one way that we don't want to be portrayed in this documentary, but we'll be willing to let you portray us in.

[student laughing] It's coming back to me now.

- Like, filling out that form?

Oh, of, like, this is a way we would not like to be portrayed in this documentary.

- Hateful.

- Hateful?

- I'm not being very in the spirit of the Ethics Bowl.

- No, but our emotions are valid.

- Yeah.

I'm just having a moment.

- Let's say, hypothetical, follow me.

I'm driving.

Somebody pulls in front of me.

A lot of us decide what?

"I'm mad at them."

- Yeah.

- "You interrupted what I thought was the best path for me, which was to continue down the road, speeding."

Okay?

What if, what if that person pulling in front of me actually stopped me from getting where I thought I wanted to go?

And it saved my life, 'cause had I got there on time, I would've gotten T-boned at the intersection.

Likewise, what if you made the finals?

But don't ask me how this happens.

If something occurs at the finals where you say things that you now regret, and it causes you to start to question your own, you know, quality as a person.

- So, we placed third, which is pretty exciting.

I'm super proud of everyone here.

We put so much work in to get here, and it's really cool to see it all pay off like this.

- Most of us didn't know each other except for having seen each other in a few other classes before this, and then we go to being so comfortable with each other's ideas.

- If you're gonna dissect someone's, like, basic moral principles, you're gonna get to know them a bit.

[students laughing] - Yeah, I feel like from the beginning, we were never expecting to make it this far, and when I say beginning, I mean, like, September, when we first started the club meetings, and we were like, "Oh, yeah, I guess there's a competition at the end of this."

- [Student] Shout out to our missing member, Matthew.

- Oh, Matthew!

- Matthew!

- [Student] He is in fact part of our team.

- [Crista] I don't really think any of us in the fall were prepared to make the commitment that we ended up making.

If we didn't want to make that level of commitment, we wouldn't have, but we ended up finding that we meshed really well together.

We had a really good time together.

- [Mr.

Campbell] This is where we burst the bubble.

[students chattering] - All right, yeah, so I would say, like, this team I would say is the most successful one that I've coached, and it really has nothing to do with a plastic shrine that we have now that we can... But it's really just about, like, what I like most about Ethics Bowl, and I think this team embodies this more than any other, and I hate saying team in the plural because it's six individuals that are all unique, gifted.

And, like, not gifted like they have a high IQ, even though I'm sure they all do, but honestly, I could care less, right?

That doesn't measure the quality of a person.

But they are all, like, uniquely gifted in their quality, their integrity, their character, their value of community.

And, like, what I like most about Ethics Bowl is it gives us this opportunity.

It's almost like the playground by which kids can kind of, like, build community.

And so I would argue, like, this team more than any team I've coached is like what I feel like humanity is capable of.

And I think that's really awesome, because we don't see that a lot.

And when we do, it ought to be acknowledged, so.

And Ethics Bowl created that environment, so.

- Thank you!

- Thank you.

[students applauding] [gentle music] - [Mr.

Campbell] Can I tell you I have so much more respect for the idea of filmmaking now?

[students laughing] - What I really think, like, if I hadn't done Ethics Bowl, going into college op season, having to do all these, I'm not even sure if I would've made it.

- [Nora] Ethics Bowl has made me, like, take a step back and really be able to look at other people's, like, viewpoints.

- Actually Understanding, like, the fundamental human reason that people feel a certain way about an issue I think really helps you become a lot more empathetic.

- Ethics Bowl allows you to have conversations that do have nuance in a way that, often, you can't find in other realms.

- [Maya] So you can actually have, like, productive conversations with people.

- [Crista] This last year, I've just seen what a huge impact it had on how I see the world.

- [Photographer] One, two, three.

- The Ethics Bowl!