Using Critical Reasoning to Reduce the Gap
Being a technique of adopting the inconveniences of life, critical thinking is a goal-oriented reflective judgment regarding what to believe or what to do. It helps elucidate goals, study assumptions carefully, recognize unknown values, measure evidence, fulfils actions, and evaluate the ultimate decisions. Once we reflect on our majors, most of us would choose pre-medicine, pre-law, business, economics, or some other science courses of the vocational type that may provide students with more or less definite and bright future.
After graduation, the vast majority of students can easily find a good job or get some funds to start researches in the chosen spheres of medicine or technology. However, there are the classes like philosophy, anthropology, or the ones from the humanity fields whose knowledge and skills are considered less valuable and can hardly be used in building a good career. Tutors make their students study the courses which are defined as “unpractical”, and not all students are confident of the necessity to pay their attention to such sciences.This explains why it is remarkably imperative to find a number of powerful reasons to promote students learning the “unpractical” courses and prove the worth of information offered. After taking some humanity courses, especially philosophy, I found the analysis of moral issues in philosophy helps to understand the idea of critical reasoning and the set of skills which can be utilized in various fields and bring benefits for students during the decades.
Students have to face numerous controversies and challenges to prove their abilities. Let’s define all these problems as “it” and make use of reasoning rules to make the final decision and understand what has to be done. It can provide us with a tool to analyze the problems in 360 degrees and predict possible consequences: from the beginning of recognizing the issues till the end of generalizing the decisions and values, critically reasoning act performs the function of a bridge that connects the activities which “are” in progress and which “ought” to be done in respect to particular values.Common sense is exceptionally indispensable in any decision making process. The assumptions that lead to different consequences seem to be the best form of common sense to rely on.
For example, people decide whether the euthanasia ought to be chosen. Euthanasia bases its arguments on two different grounds. First, there are those who fight against euthanasia presume that the medicine is used to help people overcome the death, and euthanasia violates the function of medicine as well as doctors’ duties, which is accepted by most people as common sense. But again, there are those who support the idea of euthanasia claim that medicine is created to remove pain and provide patients with care; this is why euthanasia is used by the doctors as the only possible treatment to help patients and deprive them of constant terrible pain that does not have time limitations. Therefore, euthanasia ought to be permissible. The different definition of medicine leads to different conclusions.
If people believe that medicine aims at saving lives, it is easy to reach the agreement that euthanasia is morally wrong and should be forbidden. So, before the decision of what ought to be done is made, it is necessary to clarify the assumptions and make use of critical reasoning.Human common sense plays a very important role in reduction of the gap. This common sense is cultivated by means of upbringing and varieties between cultures. Different context has to be taken into consideration during such critical reasoning process, and identification of the issues from different cultural environments should help to reduce the gap between the opinions and generalize the agreement.
Looking at the sexual morality in china and America, this displays that fact distinctively. In the United States, human rights and freedoms are highly regarded; this is why Americans may demonstrate their preferences and interests in sex, homosexual communities, etc. Unlike the Americans, the Chinese are deeply influenced by the Confucianism under which the ideas of etiquette are integral.People are more conservative to sex as well as to other relative topics. If a child is in the room, parents should not kiss each other or demonstrate some kind of sexual attraction.
Chinese people think that Lady Gaga shows a kind of “soaked in sex-exploitation” (Schumacher and Bookchin) and promotes inappropriate emotions among children. With the help of such comparison of cultural background, it is evident that the gap existed in critical reasoning is based on different upbringing as well as different cultural and ethical norms, liberal or Confucius respectively. From a pure moral perspective, it is hard to define what is right or wrong because each culture has its own standpoint. It is wrong to wear too sexual clothes on public, still, it is right to respect the ideas of homosexual communities; it is wrong to kiss on public or in child’s presence, still, it is obligatory to explain children how it is necessary to demonstrate personal feelings. This is why to reduce the gap of has to be done and what has to be forbidden, it is better to consider advantages and disadvantages of the chosen activity and then to make a choice.
At the end of decision making in which people have to find a way to deal with problems, people like to choose something that is offered at the beginning and ignore other possible options to save time. People find it normal to “narrow down our field of possibilities and zero in on a single interpretations of a situation or person” (Brafman and Brafman 177). When we encounter a problem, it is easy for us to forbid the bad behavior as quickly as possible instead of considering other options in order to solve the problem, reduce the bad effect, and gains some benefits. To make a decision, it is necessary to evaluate the circumstances and weigh the possibilities. Then it is the time to brainstorm all the options possible and consider each option’s consequence. Such type of critical reasoning makes people regret less in case they choose a wrong option.
For instance, the University should ban the consumption of alcohol during parties held within the university grounds as the result of such parties is usually the same: multiple hospitalizations, police problems, and personal discontents. The University senate should consider whether there are some other options instead of forbidding the parties, and what may happen in case drinking beverage is prohibited on campus. Are there any other measures to be taken considering the problem at hand? The answer is definitely “yes”. Instead of making the students give up drinking and promote passive parties, the University can let students reduce the norms of drinking that will be more effective as it arouses students’ initiative.According the survey “Effects of beverage alcohol price and tax levels on drinking”, students are sensitive to the prices of alcohol beverages; this is why the increases of prices on alcohol beverages may prevent students from buying a lot of alcohol drinks. In addition, we should also consider the consequences of chosen option – prohibition of dinking beverage on campus.
The prohibition reduces the possibility of alcohol consumption; still, it cannot change student’s desire to drink. And this is a real problem that has to be solved. Inadequate knowledge about alcohol impacts, frequent abuses, and unpredictable situations are the results of students’ wrong behavior. The University should not ban the alcohol beverage on campus; still, it is possible to organize special lectures or meetings during which the theme of alcohol is discussed. In such way, the gap of the problem is reduced considerably: teachers are able to share their experience and help students, students do not suffer from diminishing their rights, and the University faces fewer problems caused by inappropriate student behavior.Generally, all the above-mentioned ideas and approaches seem to be good reasoning rules in critical thinking.
With the help of such uncomplicated rules, it is feasible to comprehend that the gap between diverse opinions may be abridged, and the genuine problems and the inevitability of ultimate or ideal state of affairs may be evaluated together. Nevertheless, it is not exceptionally effortless for us to exploit all those rules in order to understand the ethical issues and the world; it is still an excellent attempt to struggle and witness the outcome. Critical reasoning may be used as a tool to unravel problems in addition to preparing students to thrive in some kind of inquisition. We ought to frequently ask ourselves whether what we pursue or consider as Supreme, is in reality as we reflect in our imaginations.
That attitude is capable of leading us to an excellent life, where we are proficient to appraise, revolutionize, and accomplish the paramount outcome ever.
