Critical Thinking And Ethical Decision Making

According to Paul & Elder, “critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a vision of improving it.” Their argument for the need to utilize critical thinking is the fact that without focus, most of the thinking done by people is partial, many times uninformed, biased, distorted, and prejudiced. What is not easily recognized is the fact that the very fabric of life is

To survive in such a multifaceted and diverse world we as people must possess the ability to think critically in highly complex situations. The world is an extremely challenging place, all of us are forced to adapt by constantly challenging existing principles and performing certain methods to ensure our growth both physically and mentally. Many claim that contemporary society needs a skill called critical thinking to adapt and survive. Critical thinking is a higher level of intellectual progression that makes use of diverse information, skills and attitudes in interpreting situations and confronting problems. Critical thinking is done

Once a strong understanding of critical thinking and ethics is developed, one can recognize factors that can negatively affect this thought process and our morals Allowing a recognition of the barriers to critical thinking is another way that it can lead to success academically and in our future careers Barriers to critical thinking include emotions, resistance, and stress. Emotions can negatively impact our ability to make ethical decisions. Fear of failure can lead to less risk taking, and even the inability to express our ideas that could lead to success. Anger is another strong emotion that can cloud our ability to make ethical decisions and think critically. Often in a business environment, employees can react to changes in their field with anger rather than using critical thinking skills. Personal biases, which are almost always emotionally related, will also act as a barrier to our success in critical thinking. Resistance is the use of immature defense mechanisms that are impulsive, maladaptive, and non-analytical, and acts as a barrier to critical thinking. When one feels overwhelmed, whether it’s from work or from school work, it is natural to turn to defense mechanisms. When this becomes a habitually way to deal with issues, resistance becomes a barrier to our success and critical thinking abilities. Stress can also play a role in negatively affecting our critical thinking ability. In today’s business world,

Each individual will approach critical thinking with a different opinion or view. This is called Ethical Lens Inventory. Just like any other personality trait our personal Ethical Lens will be influenced by our backgrounds and upbringing. The preferred Ethical Len I use in decision-making is autonomy and rationality. I will always look out for the rights of the individual. When thinking critically I take myself out of the situation and use reason to make the right decision

As Paul and Elder point out, critical thinking is self-guided and self-disciplined thinking that assists us in reasoning in a fairminded way (FOCT, 2017). It allows us as humans to live a conscious and consistent life where rationality, reasonability and empathy and present when faced with problems. While I am actively learning how to become a better critical thinker, I have learned that the first step to successfully think critically, I needed to diminish my power to think egocentric. In my professional life, I find myself evaluating situations with more clarity and looking more closely for factual content in order to base my decisions with more

In conclusion, critical thinking is an important tool in life as it helps solve matters and challenges facing the society and as such important to identify ones line of optimum mind

The main concepts presented in the article are the varying definitions of each author on the concept of critical thinking. The information the author uses are definitions which are the opinions of varied authors and are similar in foundation in that to apply critical thinking one must be able to identify a problem, pose a question(s), provide valid supporting evidence, and come to a conclusion. Although the author’s definitions do not identify a problem, questions, evidence, or conclusions, the relationship Petress (2004) shows is that the reader must apply this process themselves as it is not always given. The information used does appear to be relevant, significant, and valid. The references the author listed does provide enough information for me to come to this conclusion. Since this work is a literature review and not a case study, numerical data are not necessary to determine validity of the information.

Critical thinking is a vital task that must be done in our everyday lives. In “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking” found at criticalthinking.org, Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul explain critical thinking as “the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances”. Even tough there are many different types of methods to achieve a better quality of critical thinking, Dr. Elder and Dr. Paul discuss four specific ones in the article. All strategies, however, force you to put yourself in an uncomfortable and difficult position to develop a better quality of thinking.

However, issues such as conformity and disagreement, external validity, and assumptions of single explanations are likely to come between us and our personal desires and thoughts. These issues no matter what their determining the way we see the world and more so, are likely to decide what and whom we support. These issues, however, are either inborn or learned through the process of socialization and therefore are of significance to both the environment and our ways of operation. Therefore, there is need to award much importance to critical thinking and to stand by our decisions rather than the conformities of the rest who fall under our encryptions or

Critical thinking and ethics tend to go hand in hand. One cannot possibly complete the full stages of critical thinking without using their ethics. This may mean questioning their own ethic beliefs or strengthen their ethic belief for that topic.

Critical thinking is defined by Victor-Chmil as “the cognitive processes used for analyzing knowledge” (2013, para.1). Critical thinking is knowledge based and

Critical thinking is the questioning of ideas. It is the process in which you take an argument and analyze it in order to conclude whether that argument is valid. Thinking critically is a good skill that can help others make intelligent decisions and helps them understand what to believe or not believe. Critical thinking is involved in our daily life. For example, every day we make decisions and before every decision we think critically if that is the right decision. We take into consideration the possible consequences of such decision and from that we reach a conclusion. Critical thinking involves disciplined thinking and it teaches you to think for yourself. It is personal growth and confidence that results from learning to exercise your mind to its fullest potential.

The concepts of critical thinking and creative thinking are both gaining increasing importance in the world today. Critical thinking allows people to understand difficult concepts in a manner that is clearer and more defined. They can more readily understand those concepts if they employ critical thinking. In all portions of everyday life, a person is expected to make independent judgments. Those judgments are based on experience and knowledge. Without the ability to think critically, every situation that a person comes across would have to be considered in isolation from all other situations. When a person encounters a problem that is a new one, he or she may be able to use critical thinking to solve those problems.

This paper explores critical thinking skills and teaching them in an educational setting. Teaching critical thinking is highly debatable. Many feel as though it is not a necessary skill that needs to be learned and others feel as though it is not a skill that can be taught. In this paper I will discuss what critical thinking is and ways it can be taught in an educational setting.

What is critical thinking to you? To some it may mean making wiser choices, taking time to critically analyze a situation, or to just put greater thought in your everyday life. According to Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Pauls’ article, “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking”, critical thinking is defined as the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances. To us, critical thinking is a very important aspect of life and something we can all improve on. It allows us to think outside the box and put ourselves in others shoes and really look at things differently. We made sure to think about our own thinking habits while discussing these articles and to notice if we were ever being close-minded.