Stanford Practical Ethics Club and Ethics Bowl

 

Students from SPEC attend an event on Media Ethics
Students from SPEC attend an event on Media Ethics.

The Stanford Practical Ethics Club (SPEC) was founded in 2017 to promote in-depth discussion of real-world ethical issues, to help students engage with ethical theory and ethical practice, and to facilitate participation in intercollegiate ethics events.  The ethical concerns SPEC considers—from the right to data privacy to the moral value of art—are inherently interdisciplinary, and this is reflected in the variety of majors represented by the club's members, including Philosophy, English, International Relations, Economics, Public Policy, STS (Science, Technology, and Society), and Earth Systems. SPEC welcomes anyone and everyone to join, whether for a single conversation or for a full four years.

You can typically find SPEC students passionately engaged in discussion and debate in the dining halls of FloMo during their weekly gatherings over dinner (and, more recently, over their online Discord channel to keep connected during these challenging times).

Ethics Bowl

The Ethics Bowl Team won 1st place at the California Regionals at San Luis Obispo in December 2023.
The Ethics Bowl Team won 1st place at the California Regionals at San Luis Obispo in December 2023. 

Congratulations to our 2023-24 Ethics Bowl Team for placing 1st in the California Regional Competition!

Each year, SPEC sends a team to the annual undergraduate Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl.  Ethics Bowl is an intercollegiate 'debate' tournament where teams of 5 undergraduates from schools across the country present arguments about challenging ethical dilemmas to one another.

This year's team members are: 

Ally Yun
Cameron Loughney
Georgios Mikos
JD Pruett
Natalie Feldman
Ursula Neuner

And a second team, including:

Dyllan Han
Mirabai Herz
Garret Molloy
Arusha Patil
Charlotte Yan

Those interested in learning more are warmly invited to email Collin Anthony Chen at canthony [at] stanford.edu (canthony[at]stanford[dot]edu), and to subscribe to SPEC's practicalethicsclub [at] lists.stanford.edu (subject: Subscribe%20me%20to%20SPEC%20mailing%20list) (mailing list).

For more information about the APPE Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl, visit their website.