2026 Tertiary Ethics Olympiad Resources

Welcome to the resource website for the 2026 Tertiary Ethics Olympiad. The links here will provide you with everything you will need to prepare teams for the upcoming Ethics Olympiad. This information will be particularly useful to anyone new to the Ethics Olympiad. Coaches should feel free to pass this link on to their eth-letes (team members). 

The Ethics Olympiad has a proven track record of providing a creative vehicle for developing skills in communication, critical thinking and respectful discourse while dealing with important and interesting ethical issues.

Universities have entered 5-10 students to participate in the Ethics Olympiad. At the Olympiad, we refer to team members as “Eth-letes” as like ath-letes they are in training for excellence but here in ethical reasoning. Unlike debating, students can take the position they want at an Ethics Olympiad. They work as a team, with teams from other universities to come up with the best possible answer to difficult ethical questions. 

During the day all they will be involved in a series of three heats where they will be scored according to set criteria that rewards, clear, concise, respectful discourse around interesting ethical cases. Gold, Silver and Bronze medals will be awarded to the top three university teams. 

CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO THE MAIN ETHICS OLYMPIAD WEBSITE

This initiative builds on the very successful Ethics Bowls in the US. The National High School Ethics Bowl is coordinated by the Parr Centre for Ethics at the University of North Carolina.

An Ethics Olympiad is a competitive yet collaborative event in which students analyze and discuss real-life, and timely, ethical issues.  It differs from a debate in that students are not assigned opposing views; rather, they defend whatever position they believe is right and win by showing that they have thought more carefully, deeply, and perceptively about the cases in question.  

Experience shows that the event encourages and promotes ethical awareness, critical thinking skills, civil discourse, international engagement, and an appreciation for diverse points of view.

In the United States, tertiary institutions have run “Ethics Bowls” on a yearly basis since 1995. Each US state holds regional Ethics Bowls and this culminates in the National US Ethics Bowl. 

Well before the date of the Ethics Olympiad, the participating coaches are given a packet of case studies that
present ethical issues to study. The goal for the teams is not to do research on the cases, but to be able to formulate well structured, logical answers to a single question that is asked about the cases.

In 2013 a trial was held involving US schools and Australian schools using video conferencing technology and Skype to bring the schools communities together. The trial was a great success. Thereby the Ethics Olympiad was born and has been run since then annually with many schools involved. 

In 2020 we had to cancel all the Senior Ethics Olympiads due to the outbreak of Covid 19 but we ran online trials instead for member schools using Zoom and these were sufficiently successful that we decided to run the Middle School Olympiads online and in 2021 Senior and Junior School Ethics Olympiads were conducted online. This has proved to be a wonderful success with many regional and remote schools able to be involved and access to excellent judges throughout the world. Each year we run regional heats for Senior High School students followed by a final in July.

The Tertiary Ethics Olympiad commenced in 2021 and has been run annually since then. We use the same format however the cases are more appropriate for a tertiary context. 

All hospitals and universities have “ethics” committees, many companies have an official “ethics” code, and lawyers are required to take “ethics” training. But when academic philosophers use the term “ethics” they’re talking about the reason-guided study of what we morally ought to do. That isn’t to say that doctors, companies and lawyers don’t use reason (they most certainly do), or don’t make decisions about what we morally ought to do (they most certainly try). It just means that what makes philosophical ethics distinct is that the ultimate grounding for philosophers’ conclusions is reason itself, as opposed to preferences, company policy, or legal precedent.

Philosophers use reason to form “arguments,” which are composed of a series of claims, called premises, intended to logically support another claim, called the conclusion. They construct, share, evaluate and revise these arguments in a collective effort to figure out what makes the most sense. No conclusion is beyond revision, and any good philosopher is
willing to change his or her mind on most any issue, if given good enough reason to do so.

Click here for a copy of Dr Matthew Deaton’s book written specifically for students participating in the US Ethics Bowl.

Click here for the 2026 cases.

• Click here for the 2025 Coaches Resource Kit. This resource kit includes copies of the score sheet, rules and a guide for coaches preparing a team or teams. 
• Tips on how to coach a team/teams. Click here
• Click here for a printable version of the cases. 

• Click here for a printable version of the 2025 Eth-letes Resource Kit. This resource kit contains the scoresheet and other helpful information for students preparing for an Ethics Olympiad. 
• Click on this link for a printable version of the 2025 Senior Schools cases.

Teams

• Remember, this is not a debate. Teams can agree with each others position.
• Teams should consist of not more than 5 members and no less than three members.
  
• At the start of each heat, fresh scrap paper will be needed for team members to make notes during the match, but pre-prepared notes and any other materials are prohibited.
• The moderator/judge will keep the official time of each period of the match. Teams may use their own timers with the following restrictions and conditions: the timer cannot be any device that stores data or connects to the internet and a team may not time the portions of the match when the other team speaks or confers.
• We urge teams to provide an outline of their presentation when it begins—that is, the team should explain who will be discussing which aspect(s) of the case and why. This way, a moderator/judge will know what kind of presentation to expect.
  
• You will work together as a team to come up with the best response to a question provided to you on the day. While the Ethics Olympiad is a team event and we encourage all team-members to play a role, there are no formal requirements for how speaking roles should be shared or allocated. Teams can benefit from being flexible and strategic in how they allocate and share these roles, catering to strengths and specializations. That said, anecdotally, judges report that having multiple perspectives from different speakers generally tends to enrich the presentations and makes the arguments presented more compelling.
• Team members are encouraged to read the cases carefully beforehand and the linked resources to understand the full breadth of the cases, determine their positions, and make the strongest possible presentation. Although teams may use outside research to prepare for a match, they should not assume that merely presenting factual information will impress the judges. Teams need to propose valid, sound, persuasive arguments that are buttressed by facts to score well. If a team introduces a specific fact not contained in the case, the team should cite the source (e.g. “according to a 2011 article in National Geographic…”).
•  
• Please make sure your ‘microphone’ is turned off unless your team is invited to speak by the moderator/judge during your assigned times.
  
• During private conferences (the 2-minute conference or one-minute conference), team members should ideally be located in one room, in which case they can turn their microphone off. If team members are located in multiple locations they will need to organise a separate online forum for team meetings. If they are using this facility they must not be speaking on that forum at any time apart from the allotted team conference times.

Moderator/Judges

• Judges should direct their questions to teams based on the discussion, not to individuals.
  
• The moderator/judge can allow a team to finish a sentence once time has expired.
  
• A timer will be used so that everyone can see. But if for some reason that is not working teams will get two standardized time notifications from the moderator/judge during their presentations: one three-minute warning and one when one-minute warning.
  
• The moderator/judge controls the room during matches and should address any unacceptable behaviour including, but not limited to: Coaches, or audience members communicating—verbally or non-verbally.
  
• If there are outside distractions, noise interference,  it is up to the moderator/judge, not a coach or a parent, to decide if the round should be paused.
  
• Teams must answer the case question during their presentation period. Teams are judged and scored on how well their members clearly and systematically address and respond to the question asked.
  
• Teams will not be penalized or rewarded whether one person speaks or everyone in the team contributes. Judges should neither penalize nor reward a team for using either approach: both are welcome.
  
• When one team confers or speaks, the other team and any audience members must remain silent although writing and passing notes is permitted. (For example, when Team A is given the case and question, they are allowed to confer for two minutes and then present for five minutes. During those five minutes, Team B is permitted to write notes but must remain silent.
  
• The decisions of the moderator/judges is final and the heats will be totalled at the end of the day and the results publicised within 24 hours. Where there is a tie the Head judge will select the winner from the following process. The highest scores in the first heat….if that is still a draw the highest score in the second heat and so on.
  
• If there is a complaint or challenge to the results this should be put in writing to the organisers.
  
• The results will be emailed to coaches and moderator / judges.