About APPE Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl®

Competition Process

The APPE Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl® is a tiered competition.  During the months of November and December each year, 12 regional competitions take place at various locations throughout the United States. The top scoring 36 teams in those regional ethics bowls qualify to compete in the APPE IEB® National Competition held in the early spring each year in conjunction with the APPE annual international conference. 

In advance of competition, each APPE IEB® team receives a set of cases created to explore a variety of topics within practical and professional ethics.  Cases are written by the APPE IEB® Case Writing Committees and are drawn from areas such as:  the classroom (e.g. cheating or plagiarism), personal relationships (e.g. dating or friendship), professional ethics (e.g. engineering, law, medicine), or social and political ethics (e.g. free speech, gun control, etc). 

Teams prepare an analysis of each case. During each competition match, a case is selected from the set and a moderator poses questions based on that case. These questions seek to delve deeper into the multiple ethical dimensions of the case. A panel of judges probes the teams for further justifications and evaluates answers.  Rating criteria are based on intelligibility, focus on ethically relevant considerations, avoidance of ethical irrelevance, and deliberative thoughtfulness.

Learn more about competition cases, rules, and competition guidelines. 

Background & History

Learn more about the history of the APPE Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl®, including former winners.

Are you an Ethics Bowl alum? 

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