Should nudity be tolerated in public?

Should nudity be tolerated in public?

The Ethics Olympiad requires students to take an in-depth look at a multitude of issues facing society.

Following months of exemplary coaching from Scotch’s Scholar in Residence Akram Azimi, we encountered many schools, issues, and contrasting opinions on the day of the competition. To take one of the cases we found particularly controversial: ‘Should nudity be tolerated in public?’

To tackle this question, we took a utilitarian and rights-based approach. For those who do not understand what utilitarianism means, it claims that an action is morally justifiable if it maximises the total happiness of the most amount of people.

When going into the philosophical discussion, it was important to remember that it was not a debate aiming to undermine or ‘beat’ the other team. Instead, the discussion was used to build on each other’s ideas to form the most sensible conclusion. As for the discussion itself against the very formidable Presbyterian Ladies’ College, we were ultimately weighing up the rights of the individual versus the rights of the collective.

Nicholas Lovegrove (Year 9), Simon Pocock (Year 9), Tane Croon-Hargraves (Year 10), Adrian Garbowski (Year 10) and Aidan Marstrand (Year 10)

When understood in a utilitarian framework, we argued that public nudity should not be tolerated in almost all settings. This question asked us to consider the extent to which we can allow someone to be publicly nude and, in doing so, infringe on others’ cultural and social expectations to be free from uninvited exposures. In short, when in public, keep your pants on. In our response to the question, we wanted to emphasise that the desired outcome should be to maximise the happiness of the majority of people who do not wish to be publicly nude or witness displays of public nudity and weigh this against the relatively small number of public nudists. This position contributed to Scotch winning the state competition and placing eighth out of 32 schools in the national competition.

Overall, the Ethics Olympiad was an engaging, stimulating and worthwhile experience for everybody involved across all teams and all schools. Throughout the process, our methods of reasoning, philosophical knowledge and the way we tackled arguments all changed. It was particularly worthwhile, giving students the necessary confidence and conversation skills to interact with anyone of any view.

Year 10 students Alex Hudson, Xavier Balnaves, Oliver Spurling, Oscar Ho and Alistair Walker

So, as prior Ethics Olympiad finalists, we would like to give a huge thank you to Head of Enrichment Mr Sterrett and Akram Azimi for guiding us through this experience. Finally, we would strongly urge any up-and-coming Senior School boys to seize the opportunity and take on the Ethics Olympiad for 2023.

Tane Croon-Hargraves and Alastair Walker

Year 10