PHI CHAPTER 2

2.Saving face

- To perserve ones image - Accepting claim BOTH 1 AND 2 USE SELECTIVE ATTENTION. GIVING SPECIAL TREATEMENT TO ONE STATEMENT AND NOT OTHERS

Skeptisim

- to have knowledge (to be able to decide if something true or false we have to be absoultely certain. -Knowledge beyond possibible or reasoable doubt

2. "All truth are relative

- to what you believe

1. Subjective relativism

-If you beleieve it to be true, it makes it true. -Truth is a matter of what one believes -Infallbilty - not able to commit error because the truth of the statement is only depedndent on wheather or not I beleive Issue: Not everyone beleives things that are true

1. Personal interest/ self interested thinking

-To descide to accept a claim/argument soley on the groud that it will benefit our interest - How do we know its hapening? I serve emotional reaction

3. Pressure to conform/peer pressure/ conforsim

1. Appeal to popularity- saying you like jb because freinds do -popularit-political and relgion -memebership to particular group depends upon your adherance to all of the groubs beliefs 2. Appeal to common pratice - when pressure comes from what other people are doing- watch GOT sterotypes

Ensure That Nothing Has Been Left Out

A common flaw in reasoning is the failure to consider evidence or arguments that do not support preferred claims or positions. For example, you may secretly want a particular claim to be true, so you knowingly or unknowingly look for evidence in its favor but ignore evidence against it. The chances of making this mistake increase markedly when you are reasoning for the sake of self.

Philosophical Obstacles

A worldview is a philosophy of life, a set of fundamental ideas that helps us make sense of a wide range of important issues in life. The ideas are fundamen- tal because they help guide us in the evaluation or acceptance of many other less basic ideas. They are answers to the "big questions" of life, such as, What do I know? Is knowledge possible? What is real and what is not? How do I know which actions are morally right? The interesting thing about worldviews is that we all have one, for we all have adopted (or inherited) certain fundamental ideas about the world. You may have unknowingly absorbed the ideas from your family or society, and you may not have thought much about them, but you have a worldview nonetheless. Even the rejection of all worldviews is a worldview.

The Almighty Self

As humans we spend a great deal of time protecting, maintaining, and comforting our own mental life, our own selves—a perfectly natural urge that does no harm until we push our self-serving efforts too far. How far is too far? From the standpoint of critical thinking, we have taken things too far when we accept claims for no good reason—when our thinking is no longer systematic and rational.

Be Alert to Ways That Critical Thinking Can Be Undermined

If you understand the techniques and principles of critical thinking, and you have practiced applying them in a variety of situations, you are more likely than not to detect your own one-sided self-centered thinking when it occurs. An alarm should go off in your head: "Warning—faulty reasoning." When your alarm sounds, double-check your thinking, look for lapses in arguments and claims, and weed them out.

The Power of the Group

Individualism, independence, and freedom of thought are what we want, what we must have. Or so we say. Despite our apparent longings, we humans spend a great deal of our time trying to conform to, or be part of, groups. We want to belong, we want the safety and comfort of num- bers, we want the approval of our beloved tribe.

Critical thinking takes place in a mental environment consisting of our ex- periences, thoughts, and feelings. Some elements in this inner environment can sabotage our efforts to think critically or at least make critical thinking more difficult. Fortunately, we can exert some control over these elements. With practice, we can detect errors in our thinking, restrain attitudes and feelings that can disrupt our reasoning, and achieve enough objectivity to make critical thinking possible.

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Philosophical Obstacles • Philosophical skepticism is the doctrine that we know much less than we think we do. One form of philosophical skepticism says that we cannot know anything unless the belief is beyond all possible doubt. But this is not a plausible criterion for knowledge. To be knowledge, claims need not be beyond all possible doubt, but beyond all reasonable doubt.

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Philosophical Obstacles • Social relativism is the view that truth is relative to societies—a claim that would also seem to make critical thinking unnecessary. But this notion is undermined by the same kinds of problems that plague subjective relativism.

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Philosophical Obstacles • We may also have certain core beliefs that can undermine critical thinking (the second category of hindrances). Subjective relativism is the view that truth depends solely on what someone believes—a notion that may make critical thinking look superfluous. But subjective relativism leads to some strange consequences. For example, if the doctrine were true, each of us would be infallible. Also, subjective relativism has a logical problem—it's self-defeating. Its truth implies its falsity. There are no good reasons to accept this form of relativism.

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Psychological Obstacles • None of us is immune to the psychological obstacles. Among them are the products of egocentric thinking. We may accept a claim solely because it advances our interests or just because it helps us save face. To overcome these pressures, we must (1) be aware of strong emotions that can warp our thinking, (2) be alert to ways that critical thinking can be undermined, and (3) ensure that we take into account all relevant factors when we evaluate a claim.

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Psychological Obstacles • The first category of hindrances also includes those that arise because of group pressure. These obstacles include conformist pressures from groups that we belong to and ethnocentric urges to think that our group is superior to others. The best defense against group pressure is to proportion our be- liefs according to the strength of reasons.

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The most common of these hindrances to critical thinking fall into two main categories: (1) those obstacles that crop up because of how we think and (2) those that occur because of what we think. The first category is comprised of psychological factors such as our fears, attitudes, motivations, and desires. The second category is made up of certain philosophical beliefs.

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Social Relativism

To escape the difficulties of subjective relativism, some people posit social relativism, the view that truth is relative to societies. The claim is that truth depends not on an individual's beliefs, but on society's beliefs.

3. Social relativsim:

Truth is relative to soceity - Muslim women vs american - What counts as true depends on soceity lived in

Watch Out When Things Get Very Personal

You are most likely to let your self-interest get in the way of clear thinking when you have a big personal stake in the conclusions you reach. You may be deeply committed to a particular view or belief, or you may want desperately for a particular claim to be false or unjustified, or you may be devoted not to particu- lar claims but to any claims that contradict those of someone you dislike. Such zeal can wreck any attempt at careful, fair evaluation of a claim.

2. Philosphical/ world view 1. Subjective relativism -If you beleieve it to be true, it makes it true. -Truth is a matter of what one believes -Infallbilty - not able to commit error because the truth of the statement is only depedndent on wheather or not I beleive Issue: Not everyone beleives things that are true 2. "All truth are relative"- to what you believe 3. Social relativsim: Truth is relative to soceity - Muslim women vs american - What counts as true depends on soceity lived in 4. Skeptisim- to have knowledge (to be able to decide if something true or false we have to be absoultely certain. -Knowledge beyond possibible or reasoable doubt

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Also, they would readily admit that there are some things about ourselves that obviously are relative because they are one way for us and another way for someone else. You may like ice cream, but someone else may not. Your liking ice cream is then relative to you. But the truth about these states of affairs is not relative.

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But in general, category 1 obstacles are those that come into play because of psychological factors (our fears, attitudes, motivations, and desires), and category 2 impediments are those that arise because of certain philosophical ideas we have (our beliefs about beliefs). For example, a category 1 hindrance is the tendency to conform our opin- ions to those of our peers. This conformism often grows out of some psychological need that is part of our personality. A common category 2 problem is the belief that objectivity in thinking is impossible or that we really don't know anything or that we don't know what we think we know.

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Critics like to point out that just as subjective relativism is self-defeating, so is social relativism. The claim that "All truth is relative to societies" is self-defeating because if it is objectively true, then it is an example of an objective truth—and that means that the claim is objectively false. If you accept relativism, you may be tempted to care very little about critical thinking, and that would be your loss. Fortunately, there is no good reason why you should neglect critical thinking in the name of relativism.5

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For critical thinkers, the best way to deal with the power of the group is to proportion your belief to the strength of reasons. After thinking critically about claims favored by groups, you may find that the claims are actually on solid ground, and you really do have good reason to accept them. Or you may find that there is no good reason for believing them, and so you don't accept them. Either way, critical thinking will give you a clearer view of the group and yourself.

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If your evaluation or defense of a position evokes anger, passion, or fear, your thinking could be prejudiced or clouded. It is possible, of course, to be emotionally engaged in an issue and still think critically and carefully.

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Like the influence of the self, this endemic pressure can lead to wishful thinking, rationalization, and self- deception. Group thinking can also easily generate narrow-mindedness, resis- tance to change, and stereotyping (drawing conclusions about people without sufficient reasons)

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Many critics of subjective relativism maintain that it can undermine critical thinking in a fundamental way. In large part, critical thinking is about determin- ing whether statements are true or false. But if we can make a statement true just by believing it to be true, then critical thinking would seem to be unnecessary. The subjectivist fallacy, they say, may be an excuse to forgo the tough job of criti- cal inquiry.

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No one is immune to category 1 obstacles. We are all heir to psychological ten- dencies and habits that affect our behavior and channel our thinking.

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Objective truth is about the world, about the way the world is regardless of what we may believe about it. To put it differently, there is a way the world is, and our beliefs do not make it. The world is the way it is, regardless of how we feel about it. These same philosophers would probably be quick to point out that some objective truths are about our subjective states or processes. It might be true, for example, that you're feeling pain right now. But if so, the claim that you are feel- ing pain right now is an objective truth about your subjective state.

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Objective turth- free from personal or subjective feelings/ biases

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Phcholocal Philocial

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Psychologocal 1. Personal interest/ self interested thinking -To descide to accept a claim/argument soley on the groud that it will benefit our interest - How do we know its hapening? I serve emotional reaction 2.Saving face - To perserve ones image - Accepting claim BOTH 1 AND 2 USE SELECTIVE ATTENTION. GIVING SPECIAL TREATEMENT TO ONE STATEMENT AND NOT OTHERS 3. Pressure to conform/peer pressure/ conforsim 1. Appeal to popularity- saying you like jb because freinds do -popularit-political and relgion -memebership to particular group depends upon your adherance to all of the groubs beliefs 2. Appeal to common pratice - when pressure comes from what other people are doing- watch GOT sterotypes

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Skepticism If knowledge were impossible, critical thinking—as a way of coming to know the truth or falsity of claims—would seem to be out of a job. Most of us, though, believe that we can acquire knowledge. We think that we know a great many things—that we are alive, that our shoes are a certain color, that there is a tree on the lawn, that the Earth is not flat, that rabbits cannot fly, that 2 1 2 5 4. But not everyone would agree. There are some who believe that we know much less than we think we do or nothing at all. This view is known as philosophical skepticism, and thinkers who raise doubts about how much we know are known as philosophical skeptics. This is no place to dive into a debate on skepticism, but we can take a quick look at the most important type of philosophical skepticism and see what, if any- thing, it has to do with critical thinking. This form of skepticism says that knowl- edge requires certainty—if we are to know anything, we must be certain of it. This means that our knowledge isn't knowledge unless it is beyond any possibility of doubt. If knowledge requires certainty, however, there is very little that we know because there are always considerations that can undermine our certainty. But it seems that our knowledge does not require certainty. All of us can cite many situations in which we do seem to have knowledge—even though we do not have absolutely conclusive c nreasons. We usually would claim to know, for example, that it is raining, that our dog has spots, that we were born, that the moon is not made of green cheese—even though we are not absolutely certain of any of these. These situations suggest that we do know many things. We know them not because they are beyond all possible doubt, but because they are beyond all reasonable doubt. Doubt is always possible, but it is not always reasonable. Rejecting a reasonable claim to knowledge just because of the bare possibility that you may be wrong is neither reasonable nor necessary. Critical thinking does have a job to do in our efforts to acquire knowledge. Its task, however, is not to help us find claims that we cannot possibly doubt but to help us evaluate claims that vary in degrees of reasonable doubt—that is, from weak reasons (or no reasons) to very strong reasons.

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Subjective Relativism Like science, critical thinking may be underpinned by a number of propositions that few people would think to question. Science, for example, is based on the proposition that the world is publicly understandable—that it has a certain struc- ture (independent of what anyone thinks), that we can know the structure, and that this knowledge can be acquired by anyone. Critical thinking is based on similar ideas. Among the most basic is the notion that the truth of a claim does not depend on what a person thinks. That is, your believing that something is true does not make it true.

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The consequences of self-centered thinking can be, well, self-destructive. In the realm of critical thinking, this devotion to yourself can prevent careful evaluation of claims, limit critical inquiry, blind you to the facts, provoke self- deception, engender rationalizations, lead you to suppress or ignore evidence, and beget wishful thinking. And these mistakes can decrease your chances of success (however you define success) and hamper your personal growth, matu- rity, and self-awareness. Such egocentricism can also leave you wide open to propaganda and manipulation by people who appeal to your personal desires and prejudices.

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The idea that truth depends on what someone believes is called subjective relativism, and if you accept this notion or use it to try to support a claim, you're said to commit the subjectivist fallacy. This view says that truth depends not on the way things are but solely on what someone believes. Truth, in other words, is relative to persons. Truth is a matter of what a person believes—not a matter of how the world is. This means that a proposition can be true for one person, but not for another.

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The influence of self on your thinking can take another form. You may be tempted to accept claims for no other reason than that they help you save face. We all like to think of ourselves as excelling in various ways. We may believe that we are above average in intelligence, integrity, talent, compassion, physical beauty, sexual prowess, athletic ability, and much more. But we not only like to think such things about ourselves, we want others to think the same about us.

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The problem arises when you accept a claim solely because it furthers your interests. Self-interest alone simply cannot establish the truth of a claim. To base your beliefs on self-interest alone is to abandon critical thinking.

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The rule of thumb is: If you sense a rush of emotions when you deal with a particular issue, stop. Think about what's happening and why. Then continue at a slower pace and with greater attention to the basics of critical reasoning, double-checking to ensure that you are not ignoring or suppressing evidence or getting sloppy in your evaluations

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There's another kind of group influence that we have all fallen prey to: the pressure that comes from presuming that our own group is the best, the right one, the chosen one, and all other groups are, well, not as good. You can see this kind of ethnocentrism in religions, political parties, generations, social classes, and many other groups. The assumption that your group is better than others is at the heart of prejudice.

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This approach is at the heart of science. A basic principle of scientific work is not to accept a favored theory until competing (alternative) theories are thor- oughly examined. (

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This kind of preferential treatment for some statements and not others is part of a common phenomenon called selective attention (see Chapters 4 and 5). In selective attention, we notice certain things and ignore others—usually without even being aware that we're doing it. We may ignore facts that contradict our beliefs and search out facts that support them. Scientific research has repeatedly confirmed this behavior. In a typical study, researchers showed subjects both evidence for and evidence against the reality of extrasensory perception (ESP).

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This means, of course, that several factors must be present for the process of critical thinking to be fully realized. If the process fails to be systematic, or falls short of being a true evaluation or for- mulation, or ignores rational standards, critical thinking can't happen. Because we are fallible, there are a thousand ways that this failure of reason could come about. And there is no cure for our fallibility. We should expect then that thinking critically will often be difficult and even unpleasant (as painful truths sometimes are), and indeed it is. But there are ways to (1) detect errors in our thinking (even subtle ones), (2) restrain the attitudes and feelings that can distort our reasoning, and (3) achieve a level of objectivity that makes critical thinking possible.

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To many, this kind of relativism, like the subjective kind, also seems to render critical think- ing superfluous. Social relativism is attractive to many because it seems to imply an admirable egalitarianism—the notion that the beliefs of different societies are all equal. But a lot of philosophers maintain that it has most of the same defects that subjective relativism has. For example, according to social relativism, individuals aren't infallible, but societies are. The beliefs of whole societies cannot be mistaken. But this notion of societal infallibility is no more plausible than the idea of individual infallibility. Is it plausible that no society has ever been wrong about anything— never been wrong about the causes of disease, the best form of government, the number of planets in our solar system, the burning of witches, the Nazi policy of killing six million Jews?

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We can sort the most common impediments to critical thinking into two main categories: (1) those hindrances that arise because of how we think and (2) those that occur because of what we think.

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We could never be mistaken about where we parked the car or what we said about jelly beans or what some general said about carpet bombing. Personal infallibility is, of course, absurd, and this possibility seems to weigh heavily against subjective relativism. Many critics think that subjective relativism's biggest problem is that it's self- defeating. It defeats itself because its truth implies its falsity. The relativist says, "All truth is relative." If this statement is objectively true, then it refutes itself because if it is objectively true that "All truth is relative," then the statement itself is an example of an objective truth. So if "All truth is relative" is objectively true, it is objectively false.

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We may decide to accept a claim solely on the grounds that it advances, or coincides with, our interests.

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When examining a claim or making a choice, how can you overcome the excessive influence of your own needs? Sometimes you can do it only with great effort, and sometimes the task is much easier, especially if you remember these three guidelines: • Watch out when things get very personal. • Be alert to ways that critical thinking can be undermined. • Ensure that nothing has been left out.

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When the pressure to conform comes from your peers, it's called—surprise— peer pressure. When the pressure comes from the mere popularity of a belief, it's known as—believe it or not—an appeal to popularity (also known as an appeal to the masses). When the pressure comes from what groups of people do or how they behave, it's called an appeal to common practice. In all cases, the lapse in critical thinking comes from the use of group pressure alone to try to support a claim. Group pressure can happen quickly. For example, if you're listening to a speech by a member of your own political party, you may immediately find yourself positively disposed toward the speaker—not because you agree with him but because he's a member of your group. Group pressure can also take a while.

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When there are rational grounds for an opinion, people are content to set them forth and wait for them to operate. In such cases, people do not hold their opinions with passion; they hold them calmly, and set forth their reasons quietly.

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