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Critical Thinking

The Power of Effective Decision Making

David A. Hunter Ph.D.© David Hunter 2005

Contents

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Chapter 1: Critical Thinking, An Intellectual Virtue_____________3THE NATURE OF CRITICAL THINKING______________________________________3

WHY REASONS MATTER____________________________________________________5

STAGE FOUR CRITICAL THINKING_________________________________________6

PERSONAL AUTONOMY____________________________________________________8

THE MTV METHOD_________________________________________________________9

OPEN-ENDED PROBLEMS__________________________________________________11

THE AUTONOMY EXERCISE_______________________________________________13

Chapter 2: Critical Thinking: A Leadership Virtue______________15CRITICAL THINKING AND LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS____________________15

GOOD DECISION MAKING_________________________________________________17

PRACTICAL OPEN-ENDED PROBLEMS_____________________________________19

BUILDING LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS____________________________________21

ARE YOU A STAGE 4 LEADER?_____________________________________________21

THE JUSTIFICATION EXERCISE____________________________________________22

Chapter 3: The Structure of Reasons_____________________________25REASONING AND ARGUMENTS____________________________________________25

RECOGNIZING ARGUMENTS_______________________________________________25

IDENTIFY THE PROPOSITIONS ASSERTED__________________________________27

DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT REASONS_________________________________30

SUB-ARGUMENTS_________________________________________________________32

LOGICAL STRENGTH______________________________________________________33

IMPLICIT PREMISES______________________________________________________35

QUIZ______________________________________________________________________36

Chapter 4: Assessing the Evidence_______________________________39CLAIMS ABOUT MEANING_________________________________________________39

Definitions_______________________________________________________________________39Frameworks______________________________________________________________________41

CLAIMS ABOUT MATTERS OF FACT________________________________________43Specific Claims___________________________________________________________________43General Claims____________________________________________________________________46

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Chapter 5: Drawing Conclusions from the Evidence____________57REASONING ABOUT ALTERNATIVES_______________________________________57

CONDITIONAL REASONING________________________________________________59

REASONING WITH ANALOGIES____________________________________________62

Chapter 6: Reasoning about Values______________________________67THE MEANING OF “OUGHT” STATEMENTS_________________________________67

WHAT MAKES AN OBLIGATION BINDING?_________________________________68

RESOLVING CONFLICTING OBLIGATIONS_________________________________69

Chapter 7: Assessing and Constructing Arguments_____________71CLARIFY MEANING_______________________________________________________71

ASSESS FOR TRUTH_______________________________________________________72

EXPLORE THE VALUE______________________________________________________73

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Chapter 1: Critical Thinking, An Intellectual Virtue

THE NATURE OF CRITICAL THINKING

Robert Ennis, one of the leading researchers in the field of critical thinking, offered the following, now classic definition of critical think-ing.

Deciding what to believe is a matter of deciding what the facts are, figuring out what the world is like, or at least what one little corner of it is like. Deciding what to do is a matter of deciding first what to value or to strive for, or how to weigh competing values, and then, second, how best to achieve it.

To make either kind of decision we first need a method, some concep-tion of how we can go about deciding what the facts are or what we should value. Decision makers thus face two kinds of questions.

Often, perhaps typically, decision makers face a complex mix of both questions. For we cannot know how to get what we most value with-out knowing something about the resources we have and the obsta-cles we face. Likewise, we cannot decide what we ought to value without knowing something about what we can in fact achieve. In such cases, decision making requires aligning our beliefs about how the world is with our values about how it should be.

Bad decisions often result from a failure to line up our beliefs and our values in this way. We fail to achieve reasonable goals because we did not know enough about our actual resources or about the obsta-cles in our way. Even worse, we strive hard to reach unrealistic goals, ones that we would never have chosen had we known more about the facts at hand. Critical thinking can help prevent these kinds of errors

Question of Belief: How should I decide what to believe?

Question of Value: How should I decide what to value?

Critical Thinking is reasonable and reflec-tive thinking focused on deciding what to be-lieve or do.

by providing a method for approaching, analyzing and resolving cases of misaligned beliefs and values.

When Ennis said that critical thinking is reasonable part of what he had in mind is that it is guided by rules. Some of the rules concern the conditions under which beliefs are justified or not justified, and what kinds of evidence are appropriate for beliefs of different kinds. Other rules concern what conclusions we can reasonably draw from the evidence we have. Together, these rules form a systematic method for making or evaluating a decision about what to believe or do.

Critical thinking is reflective because using this system of rules re-quires constant monitoring and careful judgment. In this way, critical thinking is like a craft or practice in that doing it well requires think-ing about what one is doing while one is doing it. Perhaps virtuoso critical thinkers can think critically automatically, in the way a virtu-oso jazz musician plays without thinking about it. But for the rest of us, thinking critically requires regular practice and constant self-as-sessment.

Of course, we are all critical thinkers to some degree. Indeed, critical thinking can be taught only to someone who already can think criti-cally to some extent. John Dewey famously put the point this way: “A being who could not think without training could never be trained to think; one may have to learn to think well, but not to think.”1

Creative thinking

A lot of attention has been paid in recent years to creative thinking and to its important role in effective decision making. There is no doubt that creativity is essential to making good decisions. Thinking of alternative conclusions, finding objections, examples and counter-examples, and reframing problems are all creative acts we will discuss in what follows. Developing the skills to think creatively is essential to becoming a good thinker.

But it is just as essential that one be able to think critically about these alternatives, examples and counter-examples. There is a differ-ence between a helpful and effective reframing of an issue and one that makes the problem harder to solve. Evaluating alternatives, con-sidering whether a given claim is supported by the evidence, deter-mining and comparing the credibility of different sources of informa-tion and constructing well-reasoned arguments are all critical, as op-posed to creative, acts, requiring the skills and knowledge discussed in this book.

WHY REASONS MATTER

Critical thinking is reasonable in a second and more fundamental sense. Being a critical thinker requires having reasons for our deci-sions, whether about what to believe or what to do. It is not enough simply to believe that the world is some way: we need to have good evidence, or better yet some proof, that it is that way. And it is not enough simply to desire some goal: we need to show that it is a rea-sonable and worthwhile goal, one we can actually achieve and one who’s achievement will have been worth the effort. In the absence of adequate evidence or justification, being a critical thinker requires that we remain undecided about what to believe or to do.

Reasons are needed because decision making is aimed at getting things right. We want our beliefs to be true and our actions to be ef-fective. By basing our beliefs only on adequate evidence we increase the chance of getting things right. Regrettably, of course, this is not a guarantee against error, but beliefs based on inadequate evidence or on no evidence at all will be true only by luck and actions based on unreasonable expectations or inadequate planning succeed only by chance. It is surely poor policy to rely on luck and chance when de-ciding what to believe or do.

I will say more later about what precisely this demand for reasons amounts to and what counts as adequate reasons in different kinds of cases, but we can note now that reasons for a decision are adequate only if they are in a certain sense impersonal or universal. Whether a decision is based on adequate reasons has nothing to do with who is making the decision. Something counts as a reason for me to believe or do something only if it counts equally as a reason for everybody else. The demands of rationality are the same for all of us.

It is sometimes said that everyone is free to have their own beliefs. This is uncontroversial if it means that no one should be forced to be-lieve something, or that it is sometimes OK for people to disagree about the facts. But this attitude of tolerance does not mean that we are free to believe what we want regardless of the evidence. In the absence of adequate evidence the proper response is to withhold be-lief, not to cling stubbornly to a point of view. When people we recog-nize to be experts disagree about some issue, reason demands that we should remain agnostic. And when others disagree with us and we cannot produce adequate evidence to support our views we should step back and admit that we might not be right. Far from indicating intellectual cowardice, agnosticism in the face of inadequate evidence reveals a mind that is open to the demands of reason.

Reasons are obviously needed to justify a decision about what to do to achieve some goal or end, but one also needs to have reasons for choosing that goal itself. Having a conception of the good life, or at least of what it would be for one’s own life to be good, is itself a good thing, since it can help us decide what to do and what to pursue. Hav-ing such a conception provides structure to our lives, a framework within which we can define and evaluate our life. But if there are no constraints on what conception we can choose, if it does not matter what conception of a good life we pick, then the life we lead, even if it is in perfect coherence with that conception, is ultimately arbitrary.

Perhaps at some point, this demand for reasons must end. Perhaps we must ultimately admit that “Look, this is what I value, and I cannot justify or rationalize it. But I do value it, even if others do not.” There are deep philosophical and moral issues involved here, and it may well be that ultimately our goals have whatever value they do simply in virtue of the fact that we chose them. Still, there is an important dif-ference between actively choosing and committing to goals one can-not rationalize or justify and merely finding oneself with them. Lead-ing an examined life requires honesty and clarity about the source of one’s values, even if that source is ultimately one’s own choice.

STAGE FOUR CRITICAL THINKING

Being a critical thinker requires having mastered certain skills and methods needed for thinking through various kinds of problems and we will consider some of these methods in Chapters 3, 4 and 5. But being a critical thinker requires more than just having these skills, since anyone can fail to employ the skills one has. A critical thinker must also want to use the critical thinking skills she has.

In the last few decades, a consensus has emerged among researchers that there are identifiable stages in becoming a critical thinker, and that the stages are only indirectly related to one’s skills. The stages have been described and distinguished in different ways and more re-search is needed to determine the precise developmental path. But the research suggests something like the following series of stages.

Stage 1. Belief Seeker: sees the need for decision-making.

A Belief Seeker takes the goal of decision making to be simply acquiring belief. She uncritically takes tradition, personal expe-rience and the word of perceived authorities as sources of truth, seeing no special need to question whether these sources are reliable, or to compare them when they yield conflicting evi-

dence. When questioned about her beliefs, she describes their origin, how she came to have them, instead of offering reasons for retaining them.

Stage 2. Confirmation Seeker: sees the need for evidence-based deci-sion making.

A Confirmation Seeker takes the goal of decision making to be finding a confirmed belief. Unlike the Belief Seeker, she appreci-ates the need to have evidence or reasons for her belief. But she sees this as a need to find evidence to support the beliefs she al-ready has. She ends her inquiry when she finds evidence to sup-port her beliefs. Consequently, she treats evidence that con-firms her beliefs as more reliable than evidence that undermines them and favors available evidence over efforts to collect more evidence.

Stage 3. Evidence Seeker: sees the possibility of conflicting evidence.

An Evidence Seeker sees the goal of decision making to be find-ing a balance of evidence. Unlike the Confirmation Seeker, she understands that evidence must come before belief, and so ac-tively seeks out alternative points of view and different sources of evidence. While she recognizes different sources of evidence, she cannot see how to compare them or how conflicts in evi-dence from different sources can be rationally resolved. Conse-quently, she resists reaching a final decision, treating every be-lief as equally justified.

Stage 4. Justification Seeker: sees the need to evaluate evidence.

The Justification Seeker sees the goal of decision making to be a belief based on the best of the available evidence. Like the Evi-dence Seeker, she actively seeks out alternative points of view and different sources of evidence, and prefers to withhold belief than to have an unjustified belief. But she understands the con-ditions under which different sources are reliable, knows what kinds of support are needed for claims of different kinds, and is able to rationally adjudicate conflicts in evidence from different sources.

Research suggests that people proceed through these stages roughly in order, though many never fully reach stage 4. The transition from one stage to another may take longer for some than for others, and reaching the higher stages seems to correlate with post-graduate edu-cation or extensive professional experience. A person’s stage may de-

pend on the subject matter, so that a stage 4 thinker about medical is-sues may be a stage three thinker about moral issues. There is no evi-dence of regression in stages, though this is not inconceivable. As re-search continues a clearer picture of the developmental stages will emerge.

Even though more research is needed, the model of the four stages is helpful in understanding what it is to be a critical thinker. For I think we can all recognize ourselves or people we know in the stages. I have known students who clearly fell in one or another stage, and I have watched some transition from one to another. I have even no-ticed myself acting as if I were in stage three, refusing to consider how to sort out conflicting evidence. And sometimes, pressed by my children or students about some decision or belief, I reveal myself as a stage 2 thinker, content with the available evidence when it is clear that further inquiry might well reveal conflicting evidence. It can take a real effort to admit that my decision was hastily made, that I failed to walk the walk. Perhaps the natural, inevitable attitude is to overes-timate one’s critical thinking prowess. The exercise at the end of Chapter 2 may help identify room for real improvement in one’s own critical thinking capacity.

PERSONAL AUTONOMY

Socrates, the grandfather of modern philosophy, is reported to have claimed that the unexamined life is not worth living. In part he meant that it is all too easy to adopt the beliefs and values of our times and let them determine the structure and path of our life. Such a life would be bad, Socrates thought, not because the beliefs and values would necessarily be mistaken or ones we would not have chosen on our own. Relying on authority and tradition has its place, and no ad-vanced science is possible without an accumulation of inherited truths. But an unexamined life is bad, Socrates thought, because un-less we decide for ourselves what to believe and what to value we are really leading someone else’s life, not our own.

The idea of leading a life of one’s own is the idea of Autonomy, which literally means “self-governance”. To be autonomous is to give laws to oneself, to determine for oneself the structure and course of one’s life. Should I go to law school or graduate school in philosophy? How do I find a balance between success in my career and the fulfillments that comes from family? Being a critical thinker does not guarantee a life of autonomy, since as Socrates would have been the first to admit, it is an act of great bravery to live a life of one’s own. But it is hard to see how one could be autonomous, how one could decide for oneself what makes a life worth living, without being a critical thinker.

Rene Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, decided to take up Socrates’ challenge for autonomy. In a striking series of meditations, Descartes described how he tried to uncover and evaluate the beliefs and values he had inherited from his family, teachers and society. He decided to retain only those beliefs and values for which he could pro-vide adequate reasons. Not every philosopher agrees with the conclu-sions he reached, or with the standards he set for what should count as “adequate reasons”, but his deep commitment to autonomy and to the practice of critical thinking left a lasting impression on modern thought.

The self-examination exercise described below is modeled on Descartes’ own experience.

THE MTV METHOD

Being a critical thinker involves knowing how to make decisions for oneself about what to believe and what to value. In later chapters we will consider some of the logical tools and techniques that can make this easier to do. But the tools and techniques are useful only if we al-ready have a clearly framed question or problem. In fact, often the most difficult and usually the most important task is to get clear on just what the decision is about. The MTV method can help with this initial task.

Decisions about what to believe share an abstract form with decisions about what to value, and the MTV method applies in similar ways to both. In Chapter 6, I will discuss in more detail how to apply this method in connection with decisions about value. For now I will focus on decisions about what to believe.

The method rests on the fact that we must ask three kinds of ques-tions about a given belief or claim: What does it mean? Is it true? Why does it matter?

Meaning Before deciding whether to accept some claim, statement or belief, we need to be as clear as we can about what it means. This is a matter of getting clear on how would things have to be for that claim to be true. Several question are central in trying to clarify meaning:

How should I formulate the claim in my own words? What kind of claim is it:

o a definitional claim about meaningo an empirical claim about how the world is

o a generalization about some phenomenao a claim about the logical relations between factso a normative claim about the nature or worth of some

value or ideal What are the key terms involved, and how should I define

them? Can I provide a real life example, or a fictional illustration

of the claim. How can I distinguish this claim from similar, related

ones? What else would be true if this claim were true?

TruthBefore deciding whether to accept some claim we need to consider the reasons to think it is true. But we also need to consider reasons to think the claim is not true. What kinds of reasons are relevant to the truth of a claim depends on what kind of claim it is.

Deciding whether a definition is true requires comparing a proposed definition to dictionary entries and to the opinions of others. Unfortu-nately, there is no foolproof way to determine whether a proposed definition is true. And because linguistic usage continuously changes, there is little point in hoping for a lasting definition. For most practi-cal purposes, it is enough to achieve an explicit agreement among those involved in the decision.

Deciding whether an empirical claim is true requires relying on sources of information or evidence. There are many different sources, including

perceptual experiencetestimony or the word of an outside authoritymeasurementmemorycontrolled experiment

Certain sources are appropriate for some kinds of claims, but not for others.

Memory is appropriate for deciding whether I left my keys at home, but (at least in my case) not for deciding whether George Bush won Kansas.

An authority, like the New York Times, may be appropriate if the question is how many Democrats voted for the war in Iraq, but not for whether it is raining outside my office right now.

Observation might reveal whether it is sunny now, but not whether it will be sunny tomorrow.

An experiment is needed to decide whether vitamin C can prevent the common cold, but not to decide whether men over 65 are a higher risk of colon cancer.

A measurement that will reveal whether a newly imple-mented protocol has improved productivity might not show us whether it has also increased morale.

In each case, knowing just how things would be if the claim were true can help us to decide how to go about figuring out whether the claim is true.

ValueBefore deciding whether to believe some claim we need to know what hangs in the balance, what depends on it. Here are some of the ques-tions that are relevant to determining the value of the issue.

Why is it important to decide whether to believe this? What is the history of attempts to answer this question?What would deciding this question require me to do?Do I have the resources needed to find the answer? How might knowing the answer help me achieve my goals?

OPEN-ENDED PROBLEMS

In some cases, a decision can be made without addressing all three questions. If the problem and our reasons for wanting to know the an-swer are clear, then we can focus our efforts on the question of Truth. How many of our customers are in the Midwest? In how many states did George Bush win a majority in 2000? What effect would closing this DMV Office have on county receipts? What does the IRS consider “income”? Can I afford this tuition without a student loan? In such cases, there is no serious obscurity in the question or in why knowing the answer might matter to us.

But some problems are open-ended. A problem is open-ended when it is not clear from the outset what would count as a solution to it. In such cases, progress may require addressing all three levels of analy-sis at once. Part of what makes open-ended problems so difficult to solve is that it is easy for a disagreement about truth to camouflage disagreements about meaning and value. In such a case, it will be very hard to make progress until the hidden disagreements are identi-fied, distinguished and sorted out. The MTV method can help.

Hidden disagreements like this are common in philosophy, where the focus is almost always as much on meaning and value as on truth. De-

bates over, say, free will turn as much on distinguishing different senses of “free will” and on why it might matter to us whether we have free will as on whether we are in fact free in any given sense. Does being free require having alternatives, or does it only require that we be able to do what we want? Is freedom important for per-sonal integrity and moral responsibility, or can we conceive of a morally valuable life that is nonetheless determined by forces outside our control? If freedom is just a matter of doing what one wants, even when one’s wants are determined by outside forces, is this a kind of freedom worth fighting for? Answering these kinds of questions re-quires deciding which meaning of the word “freedom” captures the kind of freedom we want to have.

In theory, progress in addressing this problem is best made by first carefully distinguishing different senses of “free will”, different con-ceptions of what being free would be like. Once these different con-ceptions are clear, we can ask which of them best captures why being free matters to us. Invariably, no single conception captures every-thing about why being free has seemed worth fighting for, some cap-ture certain elements of what makes freedom and autonomy worth-while but not others. But once we have identified different kinds of freedom, and decided which ones we want, we can then ask whether we in fact have freedom in any of those senses.

In practice, however, it is nearly impossible to separate these ques-tions so neatly. It is not uncommon for philosophers who seem to dis-agree about whether we have free will to in fact be disagreeing about what they mean by “freedom”. In such a case, they are effectively talking past each other.

THE AUTONOMY EXERCISE

When Rene Descartes took up Socrates’ challenge to lead an exam-ined life and asked himself, “Why do I have the beliefs and values that I do?”, we can distinguish the question of how he came to have that belief or value from the question of why he should retain it. The first is a question about the origins of one’s beliefs and values, about the history of one’s system of belief. By itself, this tells us nothing about whether we should retain that system. The second question is about whether one should retain that belief or value, and so is about decid-ing for oneself what to believe and what to see a worthwhile, about personal autonomy. The Autonomy Exercise is designed to give you a sense of the nature and value of the kind of radical self-examination Descartes undertook.

1. List 4 or 5 core values that you believe a good person exempli-fies.

(Some examples: honesty, charity, patience, generosity, etc.)

2. Meaning: try to define one of them. Some of them may be much easier to define than others. Since one point of this exercise is to practice defining, pick one whose meaning you are unclear about, or which is controversial. You should do each of the fol-lowing:

a. Self-reflection: try to formulate what you mean by it.b. Other opinions: ask three or four friends what they mean

by it.c. Authority: consult three dictionary definitions.d. Note the differences and try to formulate a final definition.

Even small differences in wording can be significant.

3. Truth: be willing, for 1 or 2 days, to let the value guide your life. Here are some things to consider.

a. How well did you succeed? Describe a situation where you failed.

b. Did you notice others failing to live up to it? Describe.c. How did you feel when you were successful/when you

failed.d. Did you find you had to reflect even more on the meaning

of the value, and perhaps even alter your understanding of it? For instance, did you find yourself unsure, on some oc-casion, what (say) genuine honesty in fact involved. De-scribe this reflection.

4. Value. Describe, if you know, how you came to have this value and explain why you will retain it (or abandon it). Some things to consider:

a. Did it come from your family, church, friends, media,…? How do these forces work?

b. Do your friends value it as much as you do (did)? Is it im-portant to you that they do? Why?

c. What reasons could you offer to someone who doubted its value?

Whether this exercise succeeds depends wholly on the amount of sin-cere effort you put into it: the harder you try, the more you will learn about yourself and about what it is like to be autonomous.

Recommended Readings:

Socrates’ views were reported by his student Plato. Descartes’ works can be found in the following:

Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Phi-losophy, 4th Ed. Hackett, 1999.

Plato. The Works of Plato. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 1965

The following are now classic academic studies on the definition, as-sessment or development of critical thinking.

Fisher, Alec and Scriven, Michael. Critical Thinking: its Definition and Assessment. University of East Anglia, Center for Research in Critical Thinking, 1997.

King, Patricia and Kitchener, Karen. Developing Reflective Judgment: Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. Jossey-Bass Wiley, 1994.

Norris, Stephen and Robert Ennis. Evaluating Critical Thinking, Pa-cific Grove, CA, Midwest Publications, 1989.

There are lots of good books available on creative thinking, including:

De Bono, Edward. De Bono’s Thinking Course. Revised Edition. Facts on File Publishers. 1994.

Foster, Jack. How to Get Ideas. Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 1st ed edi-tion, 1996.

Chapter 2: Critical Thinking: A Leadership Virtue

In Chapter 1, I described how being a critical thinker is essential to personal autonomy, and I identified a stage 4 thinker as a kind of ideal critical thinker, someone who not only understands the rational de-mand for evidence-based decisions, but is able to compare, contrast and evaluate evidence from multiple sources before making a deci-sion. In this chapter I want to argue that critical thinking, and stage 4 thinking in particular, is just as essential to effective leadership and overall organizational health.

CRITICAL THINKING AND LEARNING ORGANIZA - TIONS

In the last two decades, the relationships between critical thinking and organizational success have been brought to the fore by two trends. One is the growing recognition, highlighted by David Garvin, Peter Senge and others, that organizational health requires organiza-tional learning, capitalizing on the valuable knowledge implicit in an organization’s workforce. The other is the trend, spearheaded by Tom Peters and others, away from centralized decision making and to-wards empowering small teams of employees to make decisions on the front lines. Organizations whose employees have strong critical think-ing skills and attitudes will be better positioned to benefit from these two trends.

First, Peter Senge, David Garvin and others have focused attention on the importance of organizational learning and, more specifically, on the ideal of a learning organization. Garvin defines a learning orga-nization as follows.

A learning organization is an organization skilled at creat-ing, acquiring, interpreting, transferring and retaining knowledge, and at purposefully modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.

As he points out, the basic idea is that the overall health of an organi-zation should be measured, not solely in bottom line terms, but in terms of the organization’s ability to change and adjust as market and competitive forces change. This flexibility requires a continuous sen-sitivity to those forces, an awareness of what they are and a readiness

to take advantage as they change. Only an organization dedicated to constant learning at all levels can maintain that flexibility.

It is not just leaders who need to be thinking critically about the orga-nization‘s nature and position. This kind of constant learning and re-flection has to be occurring at all levels, nurtured and rewarded from the leaders, so that insights from the front line as well as from the head office are acquired, analyzed and then transferred throughout the organization. Critical thinking about current practices, business assumptions, and the frameworks used to define and assess business strategy need to be going on at all levels. Critical thinking is in this way central to the ideal of developing a learning organization.

Garvin laments the fact that so few American organizations, including business schools and universities themselves, who often pride them-selves on the importance they place on critical thinking and on lead-ing an examined life, have as yet fully dedicated themselves to be-coming learning organizations. I suspect that one of the reasons is that we tend to treat decision making as if it were something very dif-ferent from learning. Indeed, Garvin comments that managers often say to him that they are too busy making decisions to spend time learning. But decision making, or at least good decision making, is in-separable from learning.

My point is not just that good decisions are based on good evidence, and that gathering this evidence requires learning. This is true, but it does not go far enough. Deciding on what else to believe or on the best course of action is itself a matter of learning from the evidence. Decision making, whether its is deciding what to believe or deciding what to do, is aimed at getting it right. We want our beliefs to be true and our plans to be effective. Reframing decision-making as itself a form of learning brings into focus the fact that managers, those who describe themselves as decision makers, could more accurately de-scribe themselves as learners. They are already in a learning organi-zation, even if they do not quite realize it.

A second recent trend in management studies also points to the value of critical thinking for organizational health. Tom Peters and others have argued that organizational success requires small, autonomous teams, with decision making authority. Not only does this streamline the decision making process, enabling faster and better decisions, but it increases employee empowerment, engagement, and commitment. Of course, implementing and empowering such teams is not easy.

No doubt some managers delay forming these kind of teams out of fear they will lose control of the decision making process, though this

is hardly a legitimate excuse. But surely many also fear that devolv-ing decision making powers will increase the risk of bad decisions. One way to address this legitimate worry is to empower the teams with first rate decision making skills, pairing a new authority to make key decisions on their own with a responsibility to employ a first rate decision making process. After all, whether a decision is a good one has more to do with the decision making process used than with lay-ers of managerial oversight. Critical thinking training, assessment and development can play a central role in enabling successful auton-omous teams.

Organizations committed to empowering their employees with greater learning and decision making responsibilities can benefit from invest-ing in the critical thinking skills and attitudes of their employees. Not only will this make it easier for managers to trust what their employ-ees say and decide, but it will make it easier for the employees to take their new responsibility seriously. An organization of learners and de-cision-makers can thrive only to the extent that it knows how to learn and make good decisions.

GOOD DECISION MAKING

I have been discussing empowering employees to make good deci-sions. But just what makes a decision good, what criteria should we use when assessing decisions? One thing we know is that an effective leader guides organizations to decisions that are stable and legiti-mate. Using the tools and techniques of critical thinking can help yield decisions that are stable and legitimate. But what is more, it can also ensure decisions that are manifestly stable and legitimate, and this “manifest rationality” is distinctive of effective leadership.

A stable decision is one that can withstand changes in business condi-tions and information. A decision that is based on good reasons and that is arrived at reflectively is more likely to be stable than one ar-rived at instinctively in the dark. Whether the decision is about cur-rent business conditions or about long-term organizational goals, sta-bility is crucial to success. Sometimes, of course, an organization must change direction and abandon a decision. But even then, the new course ought to be a stable one, since no successful organization can shift in the wind. Especially in times of decision crisis, critical thinking is crucial.

A legitimate decision is one that enjoys widespread buy-in. At a min-imum, this requires that everyone involved believe and value the same things, that all sides agree on the current business conditions or on the organization’s strategic vision. But an agreement is superficial

unless there is also agreement on the underlying reasons, on why it is that one should believe that those are the current business conditions or on why that vision of the future is worth pursuing. Superficial agreement that masks underlying disagreement about the nature or worth of the chosen goals can lead to infighting and, ultimately, dis-unity. The basic point is the simple one that reasons motivate better than orders.

One way to guarantee that a decision is legitimate is to let everyone involved participate in making it. But this is hardly feasible as a deci-sion making strategy for most organizations. In large organizations, effective decisions are manifestly rational. A leader should make clear that their decisions are reasonable and reflective, that they are based on good reasons and arrived at through reliable methods. The best way to do this is to make the reasons themselves clear.

From my own experience serving on various college wide committees and from observing various college administrators, I have learned that it is not enough for a decision to have been well made: it must be seen to have been well made. In part this is a matter of the decision maker’s reputation. A leader with a reputation for reasonable and re-flective decision making stands a better chance of finding followers. But invariably questions get raised about the underlying rationale for the decision, and even about whether relevant alternatives were con-sidered, and the best decision will seem illegitimate without a clearly laid-out explanation of why it ought to be accepted.

I have characterized a good decision as one that is manifestly stable and legitimate. But what about being right? Wouldn’t a decision to believe something that turned out to be false be a bad decision, and if one’s plans failed to achieve their goals wouldn’t that show that it was a mistake to adopt those plans in the first place? The short answer has to be No, and I think we can all recognize why. Even the best made decisions, like the best laid plans, are subject to forces outside our control. Whether a decision was well made has to do with the process used in making it, and not with whether it proved to be the right decision.

Of course, decisions do aim at getting it right, and so we want our de-cision making process to “track the facts”, to be reliable most of the time. When we learn that we made a mistake, the proper response is to inquire into how to prevent that kind of mistake in the future, by ensuring that the process will be sensitive to that mistake’s source. This feedback loop is itself a manifestation of critical thinking. Good decisions, in the sense of decisions that are right, are more likely to derive from good decision making procedures.

There is, though, an important connection between the legitimacy of a decision and its “rightness”. A legitimate decision is one that enjoys widespread buy-in. That means more than just to most accept it. It means that, given the reasons put forward in support of it, most see it as a good or even the best decision. Of course, the fact that most peo-ple believe something does not mean that it is the right answer, but legitimacy can be a helpful check on rightness. If most of the team agree that the decision is a good one, then that is good reason to think the decision is on the right track, even if in the end it proves to have been mistaken.

PRACTICAL OPEN-ENDED PROBLEMS

In Chapter 1, I described the MTV method in relation to an open-ended problem in philosophy. But open-ended problems are by no means restricted to philosophy. They occur anytime a problem in-volves questions about meaning, truth and value all at once. Charting a strategic direction and establishing assessment metrics and targets are open-ended problems. But so is trying to deal with a specific cus-tomer’s complaint. What makes a problem open-ended is not its bot-tom-line significance but the way it brings together questions about meaning, truth and value.

Suppose an organization has low employee morale and wants a plan to improve it. Solving the problem requires answering some question about meaning. What precisely is meant by “morale”? Is it limited to simple job-satisfaction, or to a broader attitude to one’s life? Is it even possible to separate these kinds of attitudes? What is the spe-cific morale issue within the organization? Are the workers feeling bored and unchallenged, or do they feel over-burdened and that they lack the resources they need? These are questions about meaning, about how we should define the problem, about what the problem re-ally is. Little progress can be made until such questions are ad-dressed.

Questions of value are close by. Why is low morale seen as a prob-lem? Does it matter because low morale may reduce productivity. Is the concern that continued low morale would lead to demands for greater compensation? Or is there regional competition for workers, and the fear is that low morale may impel workers to take jobs with the competition? Until answers to these questions about what makes some situation a problem, no substantial progress can be made in solving the problem.

Finally, there are many questions about truth. What evidence is there to think morale is low? How have we been measuring morale, and is that the most reliable method? How can we track changes in morale over time, especially given changing employees and business condi-tions and given that workplace morale is influenced by broader life-is-sues? How does our employee morale compare to employee morale of our competitors? Only once we decide on what we mean by morale, and why improving it matters to us, can we decide what techniques are best at addressing its value to us?

This brief discussion makes clear that questions about how to improve morale cannot be answered separately from questions about what morale is and why it might matter to organizational success. Answer-ing questions about value may forces changes in how the problem is framed, in perceptions about the problem itself. And discoveries about how morale is best measured may well determine how best to think about the nature and value of the phenomena itself.

Deciding on a plan to improve morale faces several risks. Most obvi-ously, the decision may not be effective. A desire to quickly find a so-lution to the problem, to address the questions about truth, may pre-vent a serious attempt to answer the questions about meaning and value. In this case, a plan to improve morale may quickly run into fa-tal obstacles that a more thorough investigation into the nature and value of the problem would have predicted.

An even more serious risk is that hidden disagreements will prevent successful implementation. If there is hidden disagreement about what the problem is or about why it matters to the organization, this will make it difficult to agree to a plan to improve morale. But even if a plan is agreed to, unless the hidden disagreements are recognized, there will be further disagreements when it comes to implement the plan. Managers with different conceptions of the problem will imple-ment a solution in different, possibly even conflicting ways. Managers who disagree about the need for raising morale will disagree about what counts as success.

Only a comprehensive agreement, one that includes agreement at all three levels, can ensure a stable and legitimate decision. The point of distinguishing these three levels is not to suggest that it is trivial to distinguish these kinds of disagreements. It often is not, and to make matters worse it is sometimes impossible to answer one kind of ques-tion without answering another. My claim is simply that knowing that there are these kinds of disagreements, and knowing how to identify and resolve them, is essential to effective decision making.

BUILDING LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS

I argued above that critical thinking is crucial to organizational learn-ing and employee empowerment. But what can leaders do to further organizational learning? Ideally, everyone in the organization should be a stage 4 thinker. But we all know too well that not everybody is. What can be done to promote stage 4 thinking? Several lessons are clear.

Lesson 1. Leaders must themselves be stage 4 thinkers. They ought to be able to consider different points of view, seek out and evaluate different sources of evidence, and base their decisions on the best evi-dence. Not only will this help ensure they make stable, legitimate de-cisions, but by actively and explicitly modeling the kind of thinking they want from others they will manifest their commitment to it.

Lesson 2. Leaders must be sensitive to differences in thinking styles and stages. Hidden disagreements about what it takes to reach a de-cision, about the need to seek out alternatives and to evaluate sources of evidence, are obstacles to stable and legitimate decision making. A leader must be able to identify and correct for differences in thinking styles that prevent the emergence of legitimate and stable agree-ments without alienating others.

Lesson 3. Leaders must create an environment in which employees can improve their thinking styles. Measures to assess the thinking styles of group members should be administered, and appropriate training and development should be encouraged. There is no reason to believe stage 4 thinking is out of reach for anyone, but there is good reason to think it can be achieved only through careful and spe-cific training.

ARE YOU A STAGE 4 LEADER?

Being a stage four thinker is a kind of intellectual virtue, and like any virtue we all have it to some degree, we can all get better at with practice, and we are all reluctant to admit when we fall short. Just as we all want to count as honest, even though we know we sometimes tell lies, we all want to count as critical thinkers, even though we know we sometimes make hasty, uninformed or otherwise poor deci-sions. A relatively straightforward exercise can help us assess for ourselves to what extent we model stage 4 thinking, that is, the extent to which we are stage 4 leaders. The exercise relies on a distinction between lying and BS-ing.

We can all agree that it is often wrong to lie. Saying what you believe to be false in order to mislead someone robs him of the opportunity to make up his own mind on the facts, and everyone has a right to this kind of opportunity. And, by all accounts, known liars make lousy leaders.

But what if someone makes a claim without having done enough to make sure that the claim is true, or even without being completely clear about what the claim requires for truth? What if the claim merely repeats something they have always believed, or taken for granted? What if they are simply BS-ing? It wouldn’t be right to call this lying, since the intent is not to mislead. But there is nonetheless something wrong about making a claim without quite knowing what the claim amounts to, or without being able to back it up.

Indeed, one might think that BS-ing is in one respect worse than lying. For a liar at least has the appropriate concern for the value of truth. Indeed, it is because she sees the value of truth that she refuses to share it. She is greedy about truth precisely because she takes it to be so valuable. But someone who is merely BS-ing, making claims without a proper concern for their meaning or truth, cares less for knowledge and truth than does the liar. A BS-artist is interested in impressing others, or with just talking, than in being right or in com-municating the truth. Which would you rather have for a boss or an employee, a liar or a BS-artist? If you were a boss, which would you promote over the other?

Being a BS artist is incompatible with being a stage 4 thinker. For stage 4 thinkers recognize the need to base their decisions, and so their claims, on an adequate consideration of the evidence, and real-ize that this requires some understanding of how to evaluate different kinds of evidence and claims. So, to find out just how much of a stage 4 leader you are, we can ask: to what extent do I engage in or tolerate BS?

THE JUSTIFICATION EXERCISE

Like the Autonomy Exercise, the Justification Exercise involves self-as-sessment. But the goal of this exercise is simpler. For two or three days, as you go about your normal activities, be willing to be a stage 4 thinker and leader.

When you make or hear a decision, about what to believe or what to do, at work or at home, to employees, employers, friends or family, re-flect a moment, and ask yourself the following questions.

1. MEANING:a. Did I claim precisely what I meant to claim?b. Could I have been more precise/accurate?c. How much time did I spend deciding how best to formu-

late my claim?d. Could I explain how evidence in support of this kind of

claim is best collected, or how to evaluate the reliability of an evidence source?

2. TRUTH:a. How much time did I spend thinking about the evidence I

have for this claim?b. How much time did I spend thinking about the reliability

of the source I relied on?c. Did I say what evidence I relied on? d. How much time did I spend considering alternative an-

swers/decisions?

Describe three or four occasions in which you succeeded or failed.How did the occasion make you feel?Did you notice how others’ reacted?

Did you notice occasions when others succeeded or failed?Did you point this out to them? How did they react?How did others react?

Recommended ReadingsThe following are excellent, recent works on decision making in busi-ness:

Hoch, Stephen J., Kunreuther, Howard C., Gunther, Robert E. Whar-ton on Making Decisions. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2001.

Peters, Tom and Waterman, Robert J. In Search of Excellence. New York, Harper & Row, 1982.

Russo, J. Edward and Schoemaker, Paul J.H., (with Margo Hittleman) Winning Decisions, New York, Doubleday, 2002.

The following are excellent works on organizational learning.

Argyris, Chris. On Organizational Learning. Malden, MA. Blackwell Publishers, 1999.

Garvin, David. Learning in Action. Boston, Harvard Business School Press, 2000.Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline. New York. Doubleday, 1990.

The contrast between a liar and a BS-artist is developed in:

Frankfurt, Harry. On Bullshit, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005.

Chapter 3: The Structure of ReasonsWe have discussed the nature of critical thinker and we have identi-fied Stage 4 Thinking as a kind of ideal of critical thinking. Because being a critical thinker is a kind of intellectual virtue it requires care-ful, reflective practice. But it also requires some basic knowledge, tools and techniques. This Chapter discusses the structure of rea-sons: how evidence can be organized and marshaled to support be-liefs. Chapter 4 discusses different kinds of evidence and when to trust them. Chapter 5 discusses some simple methods for deciding what conclusions to draw from that evidence. Together, these tools and techniques will help you become a Stage 4 thinker.

REASONING AND ARGUMENTS

Critical thinking is primarily concerned with reasoning, which is the process of providing evidence for the truth of a belief or the value of some goal or desire. In both kinds of cases, we support the claim by relating it logically to other claims. In this chapter, we will study the nature of this kind of logical relation.

We will focus our discussion on reasoning that is aimed at deciding what to believe as opposed to what to value. The abstract structure is the same in both cases. In the final chapter, we will look more closely at reasoning aimed at deciding what to value.

Reasoning that is aimed at deciding what to believe or do is tradition-ally called an argument. In ordinary English, an argument is an emo-tionally heated discussion or debate between opponents. But for our purposes, an argument is simply any attempt, whether in writing or in conversation, to provide reasons to accept some decision.

RECOGNIZING ARGUMENTS

The first step in assessing an argument is making sure that the author or speaker really is intending to give an argument. We use language to do lots of different kinds of things, and a piece of text can serve different purposes:

Narrative: describe a series of events.Opinion: state one’s opinion.Explanation: citing an event’s cause.Argument: giving reasons to believe some proposition.

Looking at the letters to the editor page in a local news paper is edu-cational because one can see the variety of motives behind letters to the editor. It often happens that the letter writer’s intent is simply to offer their opinion on some issue, to have their voice heard, or to point out and correct a mistake in a news article. Often, of course, the au-thor’s goal is precisely to give some reason or reasons for her point of view on some issue.

There is, unfortunately, no sure fire way to tell when someone is try-ing to offer reasons for their view. Often, though, an author will make clear that she is giving reasons by using special words to indicate what the argument’s premises are and what its conclusion is.

Premise Indicators Conclusion Indi-catorsSince ThereforeBecause ThusAs SoFor ConsequentlyGiven that As a resultAssuming that It follows thatInasmuch as HenceThe reason is that Which means thatIn view of the fact that Which implies thatGiven that It follows that

If a piece of text or a speech contains these words, then this is good reason to think an argument is present. These words also help us to identify the argument’s conclusion and to distinguish them from her reasons.

In the end, though, the only sure-fire way to tell whether a text con-tains an argument is to ask:

Is the author trying to convince me to believe something?If YES, then it is (probably) an argument.

IDENTIFY THE PROPOSITIONS ASSERTED

Once you have determined that the author or speaker is indeed trying to convince you to believe something or to make some decision by giv-ing you reasons, the next step is to identify all the different claims be-ing made in the argument. Once again, looking at a letter to the edi-tor is helpful here, for it is surprising how poorly letter writers are at making their claims clear.

To identify the claims being made is to identify all of the propositions that are asserted. A proposition is a claim that is true or false.

George Bush is a Republican.Dick Cheney is a Democrat.

You could think of a proposition as a bit of factual information, infor-mation that is either accurate (as in the first example) or inaccurate (as in the second). To assert a proposition is to claim that it is true. To do this, we usually need a complete declarative sentence.

Unfortunately, identifying the propositions asserted in an argument is not as simple as identifying all of the grammatically complete sen-tences in the argument. There are several reasons for this.

1. Different sentences can assert the same proposition.

Bill is a liar.Bill is mendacious.

Jane did better on the test than Peter.Peter did worse than Jane on the test

Because different sentences can assert the same proposition, some ar-guments contain fewer propositions than sentences. Indeed, eliminat-ing repetitiveness is a regular problem in analyzing arguments.

2. A sentence can assert more than one proposition.Consider this sentence

Bill’s wife is mad at him.

This sentence really contains all the following bits of information (and then some):

Bill has a wifeHis wife is madHis wife is mad at him

So that sentence really expresses three propositions.

Another kind of sentence that asserts more than one claim is a con-junction, a sentence containing the word “and”.

George Bush is President and Dick Cheney is VP.Hillary Clinton is a Senator and a Democrat.

These sentences assert two propositions.

3. A complex sentence does not always assert every proposition it expresses. Consider these complex sentences:

If it will rain, then I will bring my umbrella.It will rain or I will bring my umbrella.

In those complex sentences, we find two propositions:

It will rainI will bring my umbrella

And those complex sentences could be true even if one of these propo-sitions was false. If you were to use one of those complex sentences to make a claim, one would not be claiming that it is raining or that you will bring an umbrella. Rather, you would be claiming that some logi-cal relation holds between these propositions. (We will study just

A conjunction is a sentence of the form “P and Q”. “P” and “Q” are the conjuncts. Both conjuncts are asserted.

what those claims are in later chapters.) So, those propositions are not asserted, they are just expressed, by those complex sentences.

To tell whether a complex sentence asserts a proposition it expresses, use the following test:

Ask: could the sentence as a whole be true even if theexpressed proposition were false?

If Yes: then the proposition is merely expressed, not as-serted.If No: then the proposition is both expressed and asserted.

Some other special cases are worth paying attention to. Compare the following sentences:

Americans who love sports drink a lot of beer.Americans, who love sports, drink a lot of beer.

The second, but not the first, asserts that Americans love sports.

The clause "who love sports" is a restrictive clause in the first sen-tence, because it serves to restrict the subject to Americans who love sports. In the second sentence it is an un-restrictive clause, because it does not restrict the subject but says something about that subject.

Finally, compare the following:

Bush is President.Jane said that Bush is President.Ethan wondered whether Bush is President.

All three sentences involve the proposition that Bush is President. But only the first one asserts it. The other two do not assert that he in fact

A conditional is a sentence of the form “If p, then q”. “p” is the antecedent; “q” is the consequent. Neither “p” nor “q” is asserted.

A disjunction is a sentence of the form “p or q”. “p” and “q” are the conjuncts. Neither conjunct is asserted.

is President, because they could be true even if someone else were President. Just because Jane says something, or Ethan wondered it, does not make it true. In the second and third sentences, "Bush is President" occurs as a non-asserted noun clause.

Whether a noun clause is asserted depends on the verb that comes be-fore the “that”. For in the following cases, the proposition that Bush is President occurs as an asserted noun clause.

Miranda knows that Bush is President.Emily proved that Bush is President.

The reason is that in these cases, if the complex sentence is true, then Bush is President. If Miranda knows something, then she is right, and if Emily proved it, then it is true. So, in using these sentences to make a claim about Miranda or Emily one would also be claiming that Bush is President.

For each of these propositions, compose three sentences that express it but do not assert it.

I like ice creamJane is President

DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT REASONS

Once we have identified the argument’s premises and conclusion, we can identify its logical structure, that is, how its premises are sup-posed to relate to its conclusion. More specifically, we need to decide whether the premises are working together to support the conclusion, that is, whether the premises are dependent, or whether they provide independent support for the conclusion.

To see the difference, consider the following arguments.

James has a terrible memory, and to succeed at medical school you have to have a good memory, so James should not go to medical school.

James does not like being around sick people, and he faints at the sight of blood, so James should not go to med-ical school.

These arguments have the same conclusion, that James should not go to medical school, and they differ in their premises. But there is a fur-ther difference, a difference in their logical structure.

In the first argument, the premises work together to support the con-clusion. Neither one, all on its own, provides as much support for the conclusion as the two of them do together. If it is true that James has a terrible memory and also true that doctors need good memories, then all of this, when put together, is good reason to think James should not go to medical school. But neither one, on its own, is good reason to think that Jones should not go to medical school. In fact, the second premise does not even say anything about James at all! The premises depend on each other in the argument.

In the second argument, the premises really have nothing to do with each other. Each one provides some reason to think the conclusion is true, and neither one really depends on the other to provide this logi-cal support. These premises provide independent support for the con-clusion.

Unfortunately, there is no foolproof way to tell whether premises are independent or dependent, but there are some helpful tips:

Words TestIdeally, there should not be words in the conclusion that do not occur in a premise. So: if the conclusion has a word that occurs only in one premise, and one that occurs only in another, then the premises are probably dependent.

James has a terrible memory, and to succeed at medical school you have to have a good memory, so James should not go to medical school.

To get all the key words found in the conclusion, we need both premises.

False Premise TestIdeally, if two premises support a conclusion independently, then each one would support the conclusion even if the other one was false.

So: suppose, for the sake of the argument, that one of the premises was false.

Ask: would the other premise still support the conclusion?

If yes, then the premises are probably independent.If no, then they are probably dependent

If we supposed that James in fact had an excellent mem-ory, then the fact that success at medical school required such a memory could not by itself provide good reason to think James should not attend medical school. Alternately, if we supposed that James had a terrible memory, but that success at medical school did not require a good one, then we would again have no reason to accept the conclusion that James ought not to go to medical school.

PRACTICE EXERCISE

Using the following propositions as conclusion,

Torturing babies for fun is morally wrong.

compose two arguments:

One with two dependent premisesOne with two independent premises.

SUB-ARGUMENTS

Sometimes, an argument contains a sub-argument: an argument for one of the premises.

(i) Because people have a right to life, (ii) they have a right to defend their life. (iii) Gun control violates a per-son’s right to defend their life. So (iv) gun control is wrong.

In this argument, the very first premise, that people have a right to life, is in fact a premise for the second claim, that people have a right to defend their life. This second premise, then, together with the third one, supports the conclusion that gun control is wrong.

PRACTICE EXERCISE

What are the premises and conclusion in the following arguments. Are there any sub-arguments?(Answers are at the end of the chapter.)

Neither parole nor probation is justifiable. They are a demonstrable failure in preventing criminals from committing further crimes. They undermine the deterrent impact of the laws on criminals, while de-

moralizing crime victims with their outrageous leniency. Most impor-tant, they jeopardize public safety.

The Soul is immortal. It does not die, but lives forever. It existed be-fore birth, and will continue to exist after death. It is completely inde-structible. There is nothing that can make it go out of existence. The soul exists forever, and cannot be destroyed. It is therefore separate from the body. The soul is one thing, the body another. The body dies: the soul lives forever. They are utterly distinct.

LOGICAL STRENGTH

Once we have identified an argument’s logical structure, we can eval-uate its logical strength. Since the aim of an argument is to show that a certain proposition is true, an argument should ideally prove that its conclusion is true.

To prove that some conclusion is true, the premises must be true, since you cannot prove anything without getting the facts right to be-gin with. But being true is not enough, since the premises might not be relevant to the conclusion. An argument’s premises must also sup-port the conclusion. Logical strength is a matter of degree.Some arguments are stronger, logically, than others. In other words, some arguments provide more support for the conclusion than others.

Jones stole a watch from the store, so he is a kleptoma-niac.

Although the premise provides modest support for the conclusion, this is a very weak argument.

Jones regularly steals things from store counters, so he is a kleptomaniac.

This is a much stronger argument, but it still does not absolutely prove its conclusion. Perhaps Jones enjoys stealing from store coun-ters.

Jones has been diagnosed with a compulsive disorder that makes him steal, anyone with that disorder is a kleptoma-niac, so he is a kleptomaniac.

This is the strongest possible kind of argument: for if the premises were true, then they would guarantee that the conclusion was true too.

Whether an argument is valid does not depend on whether the premises are true. Consider this argument.

The CN Tower is a heavenly body. All heavenly bodies are made of blue cheese. So, the CN tower is made of blue cheese.

Even though these premises are not true, the argument is valid. This silly example illustrates a serious point: to tell whether an argument’s premises support its conclusion, it is not enough to know whether its premises are true.

If an argument consists of independent premises for a conclusion, then the logical relation of each premise to that conclusion needs to be assessed on its own. Even if the fact that James is squeamish about the sight of blood is not a good reason for him not to go to medical school, the fact that he dislikes being around sick people might be a good one. Where there are lots of independent reasons for some as-sertion, each reason has to be assessed on its own merits.

IMPLICIT PREMISES

In ordinary life, we often do not explicitly formulate all the premises when we reason.

Bill Clinton is a man. Therefore, he is mortal.

This is an argument, but it leaves out an important premise. It is obvi-ous what that premise is.

All men are mortal.

When we add that premise we have an argument that is valid.

An Argument is VALID just in case it is not possible for the premises to be and the conclusion to be false. In other words, if the premises were true, then there would be no way the conclusion could be false.

A premise that is left out of an argument, is an implicit premise (A.K.A., a hidden assumption).

Consider the following argument:

Some students are failing French.Therefore, they are not enjoying it.

What is the implicit premise?

Rule 1: the implicit premise should close the logical gap between the stated premises and the conclusion. I.e., it should make the argument valid.

2 candidates.People never enjoy something they find difficult.Students do not enjoy classes they are failing.

Both candidates would make the argument valid. But (a) is a much more general claim than (b), and so contains a lot more information. It is thus a more controversial claim.

Rule 2: the implicit premise should not commit the speaker to more than is necessary. I.e., it should be the least controversial premise that would make the argument logically strong.

So we want to MAXIMIZE logical strength, while MINIMIZING con-troversy. This is often a difficult balance to achieve with certainty.

But identifying missing premises is a really helpful step in assessing an argument. For, as we have seen, there are two questions we need to ask in deciding whether an argument is good: are the premises true, and do they provide sufficient logical support for the conclusion. Disagreements over an argument can thus take two forms: a disagree-ment about the truth of the premises or a disagreement over whether the premises really do support the conclusion. Adding missing premises that make the argument logically strong lets us to focus our attention, in assessing the argument, on whether the premises are true. What is more, sometimes the missing premise is so implausible that finding it will all by itself settle the question whether the argu-ment ought to be accepted.

QUIZ

True or false? If you think it is false, give an example to show this.

• 1. If the premises of an argument are false, then they do not support the conclusion.• 2. If an argument has true premises, and a true conclusion, then the argument is logically strong.• 3. If an argument has a false conclusion, then its premises do not support that conclusion.• 4. If an argument has true premises and a false conclusion, then its premises do not support its conclusion.

Text Analysis Answers:

Here are the different assertions in the first argument.

1. Neither parole nor probation is justifiable.2. Parole and probation are a demonstrable failure in preventing

criminals from committing further crimes.3. Parole and probation undermine the deterrent impact of the

laws on criminals.4. Parole and probation demoralize crime victims with their outra-

geous leniency.5. Parole and probation jeopardize public safety.

Assertion 1 is the conclusion, and each of 2, 3, 4 and 5 provide inde-pendent support for it.

Here are the different assertions in the second argument. Notice that the text was very repetitive, so I have left out any assertions that were made more than once. Which ones to leave off is a judgment call, but it gets easier with practice.

1. The soul is immortal.2. The Soul existed before birth3. The Soul will continue to exist after death4. The Soul is separate from the body5. The body dies

In this case, 2 and 3 work together to support assertion 1. They form a sub-argument for the assertion that the soul is immortal. As-sertions 1 and 5 work dependently to support the primary conclu-sion, assertion 4, that the Soul is separate from the body.

Quiz answers :

1. If the premises of an argument are false, then they do not support the conclusion.

FALSE: whether the premises support the conclusion depends only on whether, if they were true, would the conclusion have to be true too. Not on whether the premises are in fact true.

2. If an argument has true premises, and a true conclusion, then the argument is logically strong.

FALSE: while it is good for an argument to have true premises and a true conclusion, this is not enough. The premises must also sup-port the conclusion, and true premises need not support a conclusion.

3. If an argument has a false conclusion, then its premises do not sup-port that conclusion.

FALSE: while true premises cannot provide logical support for a false conclusion, false ones can. So, just because an argument has a false conclusion, this does not yet mean that its premises do not sup-port the conclusion.

4. If an argument has true premises and a false conclusion, then its premises do not support its conclusion.

TRUE: Premises support a conclusion when it is not possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. So, if you know that the premises are true and that the conclusion is false, then you know that the argument is not valid.

Chapter 4: Assessing the EvidenceIn Chapter 3 we discussed the abstract structure of arguments, rea-soning from a premise or set of premises to a conclusion. But we didn’t say much about the different kinds of premises there are, the different kinds of evidence one might appeal to or seek out in trying to reach a conclusion. In this chapter, we will identify several kinds of premises and discuss under what conditions they are acceptable. We start with claims about meaning, including claims about frameworks, and then explore the much broader category of claims about the facts.

CLAIMS ABOUT MEANING

There are two kinds of claims about meaning.

DefinitionsA definition is a claim about the meaning of a word. In principle, the definition of a word should specify the essence of what the word names or refers to. The definition of “apple pie” ought, that is, to say as precisely as possible what makes something an apple pie. This is a tall order, and a quick glance through any standard dictionary reveals that this ideal is rarely reached. In practice, we can identify several lower standards for a definition. Ideally, a definition should:

1. Provide a rule for being a referent of the word.

A definition of “apple pie” should be a rule for telling whether something is an apple pie. It should give us in-sight into deciding, on a specific occasion, whether the waiter has served what we ordered.

2. Include a genus and a species.

A definition of “apple pie” should say what general kind of thing the word applies to, and also which specific things of that kind. It should say, for instance, that an apple pie is a dessert (the genus), and then specify what sort of dessert it is (the species).

3. Be neither too broad nor too narrow.

A definition is too broad if it includes things that are not really included in the concept.

“An apple pie is an apple filled dessert.” is too broad, since it includes apple filled donuts.

A definition is too narrow if it excludes things that are not really included in the concept.

“An apple pie is a pie shaped apple filled cin-namon flavored pastry” is too narrow: it ex-cludes things that really are apple pies, such as the rectangular apple pies sometimes served at church dinners.

Constructing a definition: the SEE method

A three step method can help in constructing definitions. First, state (S) the definition as clearly as possible in as short a sentence as possi-ble. Next, provide an elaboration (E), even in a few sentences, by of-fering definitions of the key terms. Finally, give an example (E) from real life or a fictional illustration.

If the definition involves several key concepts or terms, it is also help-ful to explain how these concepts are related to one another. Does one of them depend on another, or are they independent of each other? Here, again, examples can be really helpful.

Here is a sample definition of “knowledge”:

Knowledge is justified true belief. More fully, to know something is to have an opinion or attitude about the facts that is accurate to the facts and that is based on adequate evidence. These three elements to knowledge—justifica-tion, truth and belief—are independent one form the other. That is, knowledge requires more than simply hav-ing a true belief, since lucky guesses do not yield knowl-edge. And knowledge requires more than just a justified belief, since a well grounded belief can nonetheless be false. Ancient astronomers had good reason to think that the Sun orbited the earth, but they were still wrong.

The first part (purple) states the definition succinctly, with both a genus (belief) and a species (justified and true). The second part elab-orates on this statement, indicating how the three elements (belief, truth, justification) are inter-related. The final part offers some exam-ples both to illustrate the inter-relations, but also to illustrate knowl-edge itself.

An important step in evaluating a proposed definition is looking for counter-examples. A counter-example is a case, either a real one or a fictional one, that shows that the definition is either too broad (in-cludes things that it should not) or too narrow (excludes things that it should include). Responding to an alleged counter-example requires either showing that it is not a genuine counter-example to the defini-tion or else revising the definition to include/exclude examples of that kind. Frameworks

One of the most important tasks in deciding what to believe or to do is to get clear on the question at hand or on the problem needing to be solved. This is a matter of framing the issue, or defining the prob-lem. There are almost always different ways to frame a question or problem, and what framework we adopt is crucial because a frame-work determines what alternatives are open to us, what the key words and phrases are, and what it will take to answer the question or solve the problem.

In his auto-biography, John Sculley of Apple Computer, describes a classic case of reframing during his time with Pepsi.2 The problem was how to compete with Coca-Cola and, more specifically, how to deal with the fact that Coke’s distinctive glass bottle was so well known and loved. For a long time, Pepsi tried one bottle design after another to no avail. Nothing they tried made a dent in the huge differ-ence in market share between Pepsi and Coke. Then, after some in-spired market research, Pepsi introduced a much larger bottle, con-taining far more cola than the classic Coke bottle, and almost overnight Pepsi increased its market share, nearly eliminating the huge advantage Coke had enjoyed for years. Because Coke was un-able to produce large sized bottles with the traditional look, and be-cause the competition was now for size, rather than shape, Coke virtu-ally ended production of its distinctive bottle.

This story shows the importance of properly defining or framing the problem. The original assumption, shared by both Coke and Pepsi, was that customer purchase decisions were based primarily on bottle design. This assumption framed the problem and determined possible solutions. The goal was to design a bottle the customers would like best, and the problem is that there are a limited number of possible shapes and no cheap ways to decide which the customers will prefer. But after carefully studying customer preferences, Pepsi discovered that customers would choose greater volume over preferred shape.

They would buy a larger volume of Cola even if it was packaged in a container with a less preferable shape. Realizing this, the problem shifted markedly: how to identify and produce the largest container that customers will buy.

This case also illustrates the subtle interactions between the frame-work we use to define a problem (in this case, the best packaging) and factual assumptions (in this case, customer preferences) about the way the world is. Identifying the factual assumptions that lie behind our frameworks is central to getting clear on the problems we face, especially when those assumptions are false. This is very important since the framework defines, not just how we see the problem or is-sue, but also what would count as a possible solution to it.

The SEE method used to decide on or evaluate a definition can also be used to decide on or evaluate a framework, since a framework is sim-ply a definition of a problem, task or challenge. Begin by stating a problem, as simply as possible. Then elaborate on it by saying more about the key terms and assumptions. Finally, use an example or illus-tration to make the problem clear.

Compare the following frames for the problem about low employee morale discussed in Chapter 2.

Framework 1: Employee morale is low and we need a plan to raise it. The employees have reported in informal surveys that their work is monotonous and that they lack the authority to make changes that would increase productivity. This has resulted in increased sick days and tardiness. We need to assess how we can best reduce the repeti-tive nature of the work and devolve decision making to the line work-ers.

Framework 2: Employee morale is low and we need a plan to raise it. Our competition has just increased compensation for its workers and our foremen are hearing rumors that we will not follow suit. There are some reports of our workers seeking interviews with our competi-tion. We need to study our compensation packages.

From the first sentence statement of the problem, one could not tell what the problem really is. Subsequent sentences clarify the nature of the problem by both spelling out what “low morale” means, and the kind of evidence involved in the claim that morale is low. Notice also how the framing of the problem leads directly to relevant (and differ-ent) suggestions for solutions.

CLAIMS ABOUT MATTERS OF FACT

We have been discussing how to decide on definitions and frame-works. But most of the claims in an argument are claims about mat-ters of fact, about the way things are. We can distinguish specific claims from general claims.

Specific Claims

A specific claim is a claim about an individual thing or object, as op-posed to a claim about some kind of thing. For example,

This raven is blackGeorge Bush won the election in 2004John is six feet tall

are specific claims, because their truth depends on how things are with some specific object or phenomena. As reflection on these exam-ples make clear, belief in a specific claim can be justified by or based on evidence from observation, either one’s own or a report of some-one else’s observation. The third example is one where some mea-surement is needed. Let’s consider each of these sources of evidence in turn.

ObservationAs the first example suggests, belief in specific claims can be justified through observation, whether one’s own or someone else’s. I might be able to tell through my own observation that a given raven is black, or I might learn this from a neighbor who has seen it.

Observation is, in general, a highly reliable source of evidence. Of course, we all know the kinds of conditions under which it ceases to be reliable. And we know how to tell whether those conditions obtain. I won’t say more about this here.

TestimonyMore can be said about when we should trust what another person says. In general, it is right to trust the word of another person only when

a. appeal to expert testimony is appropriate.

For some kinds of topics there is no such thing as truth. For instance, there are no experts on matters of taste, or personal preference, such as whether oysters are deli-cious. Appealing to an expert on such a matter is inappro-priate.

b. the witness is competent .

a. the witness must be properly trained in the relevant field, must have the needed expertise

b. the witness must have studied the relevant facts of the case, must be properly informed.

c. the witness must not be biased in any way.

If a belief is based on the word of another person when that appeal is not appropriate, or when the witness is in some way incompetent to know the fact at hand or is biased in some way, then the belief is not justified. However, this does not mean that the belief is false. An un-trustworthy witness might still speak the truth.

MeasurementResults of measurement can be assessed along three independent di-mensions. The precision of a measurement is a matter of how dis-criminating the measuring instrument is. The accuracy of a measure-ment is a matter of how good the measuring instrument is at detect-ing what it is designed to detect. The reliability of a measurement is a matter of whether repeated uses of the instrument yield the same result.

To see the difference between precision and accuracy, suppose we have two bathroom scales. Scale A reports differences in weight as small as ¼ lb., while Scale B reports only differences in weight as small as 1 lb. But Scale A is not very well designed and can be off by as much as 2 pounds, while Scale B is quite well designed and is al-most never off by more than 1 pound. Suppose Jones gets on the Scale A and it reads 185 3/4 lbs, and then gets on Scale B and it reads 185 lbs. What should he conclude about his weight?

The reading from Scale A is more precise, since it gives readings down to the ¼ lb. But because it could be off by as much as 2 lbs, all that Jones can conclude from what Scale A tells him is that he weighs something between 183 ¾ and 187 ¾. Because Scale B is very accu-rate, even though it is not as precise, he can conclude from its reading that he weighs something between 184 and 186.

This example shows that even though Scale A is a much more precise measuring instrument than Scale B, because it is not as accurate as Scale B, measurement made using it are far less informative. The general lesson here is simply that we must be on our guard not to trust a more precise measurement just because it is more precise. We also need to consider how accurate the measurement is. Usually, ac-curacy is more important than precision.

Of course, reliability is an important factor too. The bathroom scale at my house, for instance, is not very reliable at all: by leaning for-ward on it, or by waiting a few moments, one can drop a couple of pounds. An unreliable scale is necessarily not very accurate. But reli-ability is not the same as accuracy, since an inaccurate scale might al-ways give the same inaccurate measurement. So, it is important not to confuse reliability (giving the same measurement) with accuracy (giving the right measurement.) Again, it is accuracy we want in a measuring instrument, and it is important not to confuse accuracy and reliability.

The distinctions between accuracy, precision and reliability apply to opinion polls too. We are sometimes told, for instance, that 45.5% of the population has some attitude towards some policy or other. This is a very precise result, since it reports differences in tenth’s of a per-cent. But, as we also know, polling results can have a very large “margin of error”, sometimes 2 or 3 percentage points. So, a poll with that kind of margin of error is not very accurate even though it is quite precise. What is more, there are significant questions about the reliability of polls: do they yield the same results every time the ques-tions are asked, or when the question is worded slightly differently? Here, as with Jones and the morning scale, it is accuracy that we care about most, and we need to be careful not to confuse accuracy with either precision or reliability, even though both precision and reliabil-ity are important.

A final issue to keep in mind in the case of measurement is measure-ment bias. Measurement accuracy can be affected by the biases of both the measurer and, especially when humans are being measured, the thing measured. We all have a natural tendency to privilege con-firming evidence over evidence that runs counter to what we believe or want to be true, and this tendency affects our attempts to measure: we tend to over assess the accuracy of measurements that confirm our beliefs or hypotheses and discount the accuracy of disconfirming measurements. And when we know that we or our attitudes are being measured we tend to adjust them, or at least our expressions of them, to yield the measurements we want (or we think the measurer wants).

Children always stand on their toes at the doctor’s office when their height is measured, and blood pressure readings tend to be higher in the doctor’s office than at home.

Pharmaceutical tests are an interesting case involving measurement bias. It is well known that subjects and researchers involved in phar-maceutical tests tend to downplay or misreport their symptoms if they believe they or the subject are receiving the medicine as opposed to the placebo. To correct for this, pharmaceutical tests need to be dou-ble-blind: neither the researcher nor the subjects knows who is re-ceiving the placebo until after the study is completed and “code” is broken. By eliminating the risk of measurement bias, this increases the likelihood of objective descriptions of the symptoms and so more accurate assessments of the medicine’s effectiveness.

General Claims

A general claim is a claim whose truth depends on how things are with a group or category of things, and not just with any one member of that category. The following are examples of general claims.

All ravens are blackVitamin C reduces cancer riskThe average basketball player is 7 feet tall.

And these examples point to the range of different kinds of general claims, or generalizations. The first is a categorical generalization; the second a causal generalization; and the third is an averaging generalization. Let’s consider each kind in turn.

Categorical Generalizations

A categorical generalization is one that relates two categories or classes of things. There are four broad kinds of categorical generaliza-tions, and we can refer to each of them using a letter of the alphabet.

A All As are BsE No As are BsI Some As are BsO Some As are not Bs

The words “All”, “Some”, “No” are Quantifiers, since they specify how much of the subject class is said to be included in the predicate class. Of course, in English we have lots of additional quantifiers:

“most”, “a large number”, “85%”, “few”. Even our numerals, like “65” and “2005” can be used as quantifiers. But for our purposes, we can restrict attention to “all”, “some” and “no”.

It is very important to be clear about the logical relations among cate-gorical generalizations. Suppose that the following A generalization is true.

A All Ss are Ps

What does the truth of this show about the truth of the following:

E No Ss are PsI Some Ss are PsO Some Ss are not Ps

It shows that the E and the O generalizations must be false, and that the I generalization must be true. If all of the Ss are Ps, then it cannot be true that none of them are or even that some of them are not, but it must be true that some of them are.

But what if we instead knew that the A was false? What could we then conclude about the other three generalizations? Here we can not conclude nearly as much. In fact, the only thing we can know for sure is that the O is true. If we know that not all of the Ss are Ps, then this must be because some of the Ss are not Ps, which is what the O gen-eralization says. But this does not mean that none of the Ss are Ps, as the E generalization states, since perhaps some of them are. But it also does not show that some of the Ss are Ps, as the I generalization states, since, for all we know, none of them are.

We can prove this to ourselves by considering English language exam-ples of a false A.

All cats are male.

Clearly, in this case, the O (“Some cats are not male”) is true. But the E (“No cats are male”) is false too. And the I (“Some cats are male”) is true. But consider this different example.

All men are immortal.

As before, the O is true. But this time, the E is true too, and the I is false. This shows that you cannot conclude with certainty, just from the fact that an A generalization is false, anything about the corre-

sponding E or I propositions, though you can tell with certainty that the corresponding O is true.

The logical relations among categorical generalizations are subtle. We can summarize them in the following way.

Contraries: A and E are contraries of each other, at least one must be false, but both could be false.

Sub-Contraries: I and O are sub-contraries of each other: at least one must be true, but both could be true.

Homework: find an English language example of a true I where the corresponding O is false, and then vice-versa.

Contradictories: A and O are contradictories, as are E and I. Con-tradictory generalizations always have opposite truth values: if one is true, the other has got to be false.

Alternates: A and I are alternates, as are E and O. Truth flows with certainty only from A to I and from E to O, but not from I to A or from O to E. But falsity flows with certainty from I to A and from O to E.

Knowing the logical relations among these categorical generalizations can help us to avoid drawing some hasty generalizations.

1. Concluding from the falsity of A to the truth of E.

This can happen when one confuses “Not all” and “All are not”.

To say that not all Ss are Ps is not the same as saying that all the Ss are not Ps, that is, that no Ss are Ps. In fact, even if not all of the Ss are Ps, this does not show that none of them are.

“Not all” is a way of saying that an A generalization is false. But, as we just learned, this does not prove that the corresponding E generalization is true. It might be false too.

Homework: think of three examples of a false A where the corresponding E is also false?

2. Concluding from the truth of an I to the truth of the correspond-ing O, or vice-versa.

This happens because in ordinary life, when someone says that some Ss are Ps, we assume that they are not sure whether all of them are, since if they were sure then they would have so. So we conclude from what they said that some Ss are not Ps. This little inference we draw is not justified by the logical relations between I and O, but by additional information we have about what people would say.

But we know from the logic that it is a mistake to con-clude, just from the fact that some I is true, that the corre-sponding O is true too (and vice-versa).

3. Concluding from the truth of an I to that of the A, or from the truth of an O to that of the E.

It is clear when it is appropriate to believe that some Ss are Ps, or that some are not. So long as you know of one S that is (or is not) P, then you know that some Ss are Ps (or are not). But it is not nearly so clear when it is appropri-ate to believe that all the Ss are Ps, or that none of them are. In fact, there is no recognized method, short of checking every last S, of knowing with certainty whether all of them, or none of them, are P.

The rule of thumb is: be cautious before concluding any-thing about all the Ss.

Causal Generalizations

A causal generalization is a claim about the cause of some phenom-ena. For instance, the following are causal generalizations.

Motrin relieves headachesVitamin C helps to prevent cancer.Inflation causes unemployment

We do make claims about specific causal events, such as that the Motrin I took relieved my headache. But the truth of such specific causal claims always relies on the truth of some general causal claim, such as that Motrin relieves headaches. So we can restrict our atten-tion here to general causal claims.

Unfortunately, the word “cause” is ambiguous in English. To say “X causes Y” can mean several different things:

Sufficient condition: X is enough to make Y happen:

Drowning causes death.

Drowning is not the only of death, but it is enough to cause death. So drowning is a sufficient cause of death.

Necessary condition: Y would not have happened if X had not

Watering makes your lawn grow.

Water is not all that a lawn needs to grow. Sunshine and nutri-ents are also needed. But without water, the lawn will die. So, watering is a necessary cause for lawn growth.

Whenever some event or phenomena occurs, some set of conditions sufficient for it to occur must have been present, and that set must in-clude all the conditions necessary for it to occur.

How to identify a necessary cause: one can try to identify an ef-fect’s necessary cause by comparing cases where the effect is present. The idea is that whatever is necessary for the effect must be present whenever the effect is present. So, to find the necessary cause, look for the common factor.

After eating lunch at the same restaurant, five individuals became ill with hepatitis. What caused the illness? In-spectors from the Health Department learned that while the five individuals had eaten different meals, they had all eaten tomatoes in their salad. Furthermore, this was the only food that they had all eaten. So, the inspectors con-cluded, the tomatoes had probably caused the hepatitis in-fection.

This reasoning supports only the conclusion that eating the tomatoes was a necessary cause of the illness, not that it was a sufficient cause. It does not show that other factors were not involved. Maybe the tomatoes together with something else were together sufficient. The most we can conclude using this method is that the tomatoes are part of the story, not that they are the whole story.

Moreover, the conclusion is only probable for several reasons.

Overlooked causes: Perhaps there was an infected utensil that was used only for the salads of those who were infected. Because there are always so many different factors present in any series of cases, there can be no guarantee that one has identified all the neces-sary ones.

Multiple causes: perhaps both the potatoes and the liver were infected, and not the tomatoes, and that those who were infected ate either the potatoes or the liver, and that the fact that they all ate the tomatoes is a coincidence. This method, of finding what is in common across many cases works only if the same cause is responsible in each case. Whether this is so is something we need to find out, not some-thing we can assume.

Overlooked effects: the method works only if one really has identified all the cases where the effect is present. Maybe someone who got sick did not report it, and was not included in the study, and perhaps that person did not have the tomatoes. This would show that eating the tomatoes was not a necessary cause at all.

How to identify a sufficient cause: one can try to identify a suffi-cient cause by comparing cases where the effect is missing. The idea is that any of the effect’s sufficient causes will be missing when-ever the effect is missing. So whatever is present when the effect is present and missing when the effect is missing will be sufficient.

After conducting a study on the work force at a certain factory, engineers found that 5 workers performed their task less efficiently than the others. A list was made of the various factors that were present and absent in the em-ployment conditions of these five workers. It was discov-ered that among 8 likely candidates, only one factor was missing for all 5: they all complained about not getting any share of the profits. So, the engineers concluded that having a share in the profits makes workers highly effi-cient.

This reasoning supports only the conclusion that profit-sharing is one way to increase worker efficiency, not that it is the only way. It re-veals at most that profit sharing is a sufficient cause, not that it is a necessary cause. What is more, and as before, the conclusion is only probable since they might have overlooked other conditions that were also missing when the effect was missing, there might have been multiple causes in this case, and cases when the condition was miss-ing and the effect was present might have been overlooked.

The discussion so far shows just how difficult it is to reason well about causes. Unfortunately, matters are even more complicated. For a fac-tor might be a necessary part of a sufficient cause of some effect, without being on its own either necessary or sufficient for the effect. Being infected with HIV is not itself sufficient to kill, since there are (it seems) infected people who never develops AIDS. But being HIV-positive is part of a sufficient condition for death, since it together with whatever leads to full blown AIDS is fatal. Of course, having HIV is not necessary for death, since there are lots of other causes of death too. So, being infected with HIV is a necessary but not suffi-cient factor in a sufficient but not necessary cause of death. Got it?

Necessary and sufficient causes.The following example illustrates how we can combines both these strategies to try to identify conditions are that individually necessary and jointly sufficient.

Eight inhabitants of a town contract a rare form of the plague. A doctor flies to the town with a serum she thinks might be a cure. Only 4 of the inhabitants accept the cure, the other 4 insist on using home remedies. But all eight had been treated with home remedies before the doctor arrived. Eventually, the 4 who received the serum recov-ered, while the other 4 died. What had caused the recov-ery? The Doctor noticed that among those who survived, no single home remedy was given to all; and that each home remedy had been given to at least one of those who did not survive. The Doctor concluded that the serum caused the recovery.

Here the Doctor’s conclusion is that the serum is necessary for a cure (since it was present every time the cure was present) and sufficient too (since it was absent every time the cure was absent.) As before, though, this conclusion is only probable, for all the reasons we have noted.

Designing an experiment to identify a cause. Suppose you want to figure out what causes some phenomena, P. The first thing you need to do is make a list of possible causes. You then have to design an experiment that will show, for each possible cause, whether it is necessary or sufficient. It is very important that only one possible cause be tested at a time. That is, you need to vary only that one condition. In other words, you must control for variations in the other conditions. If your initial hypotheses were right, and if your ex-periment was well designed, then you will discover a cause. If not,

then you have to reconsider either the hypotheses or the experimental design.

Homework:

1. Suppose you wanted to discover what causal conditions are responsible for the growth of a tomato plant. Design an experiment that would reveal what conditions are necessary and sufficient. Explain how the experiment’s design would reveal each kind of cause.

Be aware of assumptions you make as you design the experiment, especially when you list the possible necessary and sufficient causes!

2. Design an experiment to test whether ingesting vitamin C prevents the common cold. List the specific reasons why the results of the experiment constitute only probabilistic evidence for the conclusion that vitamin C does, or does not, prevent the common cold.

Averaging Generalizations

An averaging generalization is one that makes a claim about the aver-age or typical member of some group or class.

Typical ravens are black.Our average customer is from the mid-west.

Sometimes, we formulate averaging generalizations in the way we for-mulate ordinary generalizations: we say “Bachelors love to party” which sounds like it might mean the same as “All bachelors love to party”, but could also mean something more like “The average bache-lor loves to party.” Figuring out whether the speaker has a categori-cal generalization or an averaging generalization in mind can be hard.

Reasoning using averaging generalizations is tricky simply because there are so many ways of finding a so-called “average”, and some are more informative than others for certain decisions. I’ll start by identi-fying the three basic kinds of “averages”, and then discuss some ex-amples.

Let’s suppose that 20 people shopped at Super Saver one day and that this how much they each spent.

1 spent 5 dollars6 spent 20 dollars8 spent 57 dollars3 spent 89 dollars

2 spent 175 dollars

One might reasonably ask: what was the average purchase that day?

To find the mean purchase, divide the total dollars spent by the num-ber of shoppers. In this case, the mean is $73.90.

To find the median purchase, find the number of dollars spent such that half of the shoppers spent more. In this case, the median is $57.

To find the mode purchase, find the number of dollars most fre-quently spent. In this case, the mode is $87, since more shoppers spent that much than spent any other amount.

The three measures are independent of one another and are sensitive to different kinds of factors. The mean, but not the mode or median, is sensitive to highs and lows. If one of the shoppers has spent $350 instead of $175 that day, the mean would have been $87.64, but nei-ther the median nor the mode would have changed.

The median, but not necessarily the mean or the mode, is sensitive to the numbers of shoppers in a given range. The median would have been lower had more shoppers spent less than $57. But so long as these low spenders spent different amounts, the mode of $87 would have been the same. And if the high spenders had at the same time spent a lot more, to make up for the increased number of low spenders, the mean would have been the same.

So what was the average purchase that day? Well, there is no univocal answer to this question. Here are the facts:

Half the shoppers spent less than $57.The purchase per shopper was almost $74.More shoppers spent 87 than any other amount.

Once we have made the questions about averages more precise by distinguishing different kinds of averages, it makes no sense to con-tinue to ask about the average purchase.

An especially striking example of an error in reasoning about aver-ages occurred during the run-up to the ill-fated Challenger space shuttle flight. The explosion of the space shuttle was caused by a fail-ing o-ring, and it was well known to NASA’s engineers that the rings could fail under certain temperature conditions. By studying past cases of damage to the rings, they had discovered that most of the cases of damage occurred at or above 60 degrees, and that only a few

cases occurred at lower temperatures. They concluded from this that the risk of damage was greater at higher temperatures. On the basis of this, they had decided that the risk to the Challenger was minimal on launch day, which was a cool day. Unfortunately, this conclusion does not follow. Only after the disaster, when they did further stud-ies, did they look at cases where there had been no damage to the o-rings. They discovered that most of the space shuttle trips at or above 60 degrees involved no damage to the o-rings at all, and that every trip at temperatures below 60 degree did involve damage.

In effect, the engineers had failed to heed the difference between the following averages.

The average temperature in cases of damage.The average damage at different temperatures.

The second average is what they needed to know in trying to deter-mine the relative risk of launching the shuttle at various tempera-tures. And to figure this out, they needed to examine case where there was no damage, as well as cases of damage. Perhaps their un-derstandable focus on damaged o-rings, as opposed to undamaged ones, prevented them from properly framing the problem.3

Homework:

Home Value: Several houses in your neighborhood, many of which are comparable to your house, but some of which have many more up-dates, have sold recently. You would like to use these sales prices to figure out the value of your house. Which kind of average should you look at? Why?

Sales Predictions: You have six months worth of monthly sales re-ceipts for the 20 salespeople on your team. Which average would you look at, and why, in order to:

Calculate the anticipated total sales for next month?Establish a uniform expected sales goal for your sales

force?

Tax Cut Benefits: The government proposes to cut taxes and an-nounces that the average tax cut will be $800. Explain the different ways this announcement might mislead someone who is not sophisti-cated about averages.

Chapter 5: Drawing Conclusions from the Evi-dence

In Chapter 4, we considered several different kinds of evidence, and discussed when evidence of that kind is trustworthy. Now we can con-sider how one should draw conclusions from that evidence. We will examine three forms of reasoning, forms that can be applied to rea-soning about any subject matter at all: reasoning about alternatives, conditional reasoning, and reasoning by analogy.

REASONING ABOUT ALTERNATIVES

Reasoning about alternatives is a matter of ruling out possibilities un-til only one remains. As Sherlock Holmes described it: elementary. Still, it is worth saying a bit about some of the tricks involved.

Reasoning about alternatives takes the following form:

Either P or Q is trueP is not trueSo: Q must be true.

After introducing some terminology, well consider some facts about meaning, and then discuss when such reasoning is logically sound.

In a disjunctive statement

P or Q “P” and “Q” are called the disjuncts. Note that a disjunctive statement asserts neither disjunct. If you said:

either it will rain or it will be sunny,

you would not be asserting that it will rain and you would not be as-serting that it will be sunny. In fact, you may not know which of them is true. But in using that sentence, you would be asserting that there is a relation between the disjuncts: that at least one of them is true.

“P or Q” is true just in case at least one of the disjuncts is true.

Suppose that you discovered that one of the disjuncts was not true. In that case, you could conclude that the other one was true, since you are claiming that one of them is true. The following argument, deny-ing a disjunct, is thus a valid one.

P or QNot-PTherefore, Q

To say that an argument is valid is simply to say that its premises pro-vide the strongest possible kind of logical support for the conclusion. In other words, in a valid argument, if the premises are true the con-clusion would have to be true to.

A common mistake in reasoning about alternatives is to instead af-firm a disjunct.

Either P or Q.P____________Therefore, not-Q.

This is reasoning from the fact that some disjunct is true to the con-clusion that the other disjunct is not true. This is not a valid form of reasoning.

But the issue is a bit subtle, since sometimes we use the word “or” in a special way. The inclusive sense of “or” says that at least one dis-junct is true. The exclusive sense of “or” says that at least one but only one disjunct is true.

Her new baby is a boy or her new baby is a girl.But it is not a boySo, it must be a girl

Typically, in using the first premise of this argument, one would be saying that one but only one of the disjuncts is true. But this is partly because you would be taking it for granted that no baby can be both a girl and a boy. In other words, in using these sentences to say those things, you would in effect be relying on a hidden assumption. In rea-soning, it is always better to make hidden assumptions explicit.

Her new baby is a boy or her new baby is a girl.If her baby is a boy, then it is not a girl; and if her baby ids a girl, then it is not a boy.But it is not a boySo, it must be a girl

Adding this implicit premise makes the argument valid. But it is now no longer a straightforward case of ruling out alternatives. In fact, it is now a mixture of both reasoning about alternatives and conditional reasoning. So, let’s discuss conditional reasoning a bit and then re-turn to this example.

CONDITIONAL REASONING

Conditional reasoning, like reasoning about alternatives, is a very common form of reasoning and can be applied to any subject matter. It is reasoning involving a conditional, a statement like the following

If P, then Q In a conditional, “P” is called the antecedent, and “Q” is called the consequent.

In a hypothetical statement we do not assert either the antecedent or the consequent. Instead, we assert that a relation holds between them: that it is not the case that the antecedent is true and the conse-quent is false. Suppose one said:

If Jones did it, then he should be jailed. One would not be saying that Jones did do it, let alone that he should be jailed. To get clearer on what we would be saying, we need to con-sider the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions.

A conditional claims that the truth of the antecedent is sufficient for the truth of the consequent. That is, it claims that the truth of the an-tecedent would be enough for the consequent to be true too.

If you get an A in the class, then you will pass.

This conditional says that getting an A is one way to pass the course. It does not claim that it is the only way. But neither does it claim that there is some other way. It is simply neutral on whether there are other ways to pass the course.

A conditional also claims that the truth of the consequent is neces-sary for the truth of the antecedent. Our example conditional says that to get an A in the course you have to pass it. This seems right, even if that is an odd way to put it. A more natural way to put the idea that passing is necessary for getting an A would be the following.

You get an A in the class only if you pass it.

But, in fact, these are probably just two ways of saying the same thing.

There are, unfortunately, lots of different ways in English of making a claim about necessary and sufficient conditions. An important one is the following:

P unless QJones will be jailed, unless he surrenders.

In using this sentence one would be saying that the only way for Jones to avoid being jailed is for him to surrender. In other words, if he does not surrender, then he will be jailed.

If not-Q, then PIf Jones does not surrender, then he will be jailed.

Now that we have considered the meaning of conditionals, and some of the different ways we have in English of formulating them, let’s turn to reasoning with them. There are three valid forms of the Hypo-thetical Syllogism.

Pure Hypothetical Syllogism:

If P, then Q.If Q, then R.If P, then R.

If Jones is a bachelor, then he is a man.If Jones is a man, then he is mortal.If Jones is a bachelor, then he is mortal.

Modus Ponens:

If P, then Q.P_________Q If Jones is a bachelor then he is a man.Jones is a bachelor.Jones is a man.

Modus Tollens:

If P, then QNot-Q_____Not-P

If Jones is a bachelor then he is a man.Jones is not a man.Jones is not a bachelor.

It is also worth noting two forms that are not valid.

Denying the antecedent:

If P, then Q.Not-PNot Q.

If Jones is a bachelor, then he is a man.Jones is not a bachelor.Jones is not a man.

Affirming the consequent:

If P, then QQ________P

If Jones is a bachelor, then he is a man.Jones is a man.Jones is a bachelor.

REASONING WITH ANALOGIES

We reason using analogies in two ways. We use specific analogies when we draw a conclusion about some specific phenomena by com-paring it to some other specific phenomena. We use model analogies when we draw a conclusion about some specific phenomena by com-paring it to some abstract model of that kind of phenomena.

Both kinds of analogies involve a comparison of cases, events, phe-nomena, objects, or etc.

Case A has attributes a, b, c, and z.Case B also has attributes a, b, and c.

So, Entity B also (probably) has attribute Z.

The conclusion is supposed to be supported by the fact that A and B are analogous— or similar— in relevant respects.

The last time productivity levels dropped this quickly, they rose again pretty quickly on their own.So, probably productivity levels will rise again shortly.

When I am in pain, I wince, scream and say “Ow!”Jones is wincing, screaming and saying “Ow!”So, Jones is probably in pain.

Inflation is creeping up.In our economic models, creeping inflation is followed by creeping unemployment.So, we will probably see creeping unemployment..

Reasoning by analogy is often a very effective way to defend a conclu-sion, but it has important limits. All that an argument by analogy can show is that the conclusion is probably true. The reason is simply that there is no guarantee that the compared cases really are analogous in every relevant respect.

While the basic logic of reasoning by analogy is the same with both specific and model analogies, it is helpful to consider them separately.

Specific Analogies

Specific analogies involve drawing a conclusion about some specific phenomena by comparing it to some other specific phenomena. There are several principles we should keep in mind when evaluating whether a specific analogy gives us good reason to accept its conclu-sion.

1. Relevance of the similarities. The more relevant the similarities are, the stronger the argument.

If the relevant conditions present last time productivity fell suddenly are also present now, then the stronger the analogy. If, however, there are important differences in the two occurrences, then the anal-ogy is weaker.

2. Number of similarities. The greater the number of relevant similar-ities, the stronger the analogy.

If the only relevant similarity is that employee morale was low, then this is a weak analogy. If, however, in both cases morale was low, ab-senteeism was high, repair times were longer than unusual, and etc., then the analogy is stronger.

3. Nature and degree of dissimilarity. The fewer the number of rele-vant dissimilarities the stronger the analogy.

Any two cases are bound to be dissimilar in some ways. Even if there are lots of relevant similarities, if there are also lots of relevant dis-similarities, then this will weaken the analogy.

4. Specificity of the conclusion. The stronger the conclusion, the weaker the argument.

In general, it is harder to prove more than to prove less, and this holds true with analogies too. Concluding that productivity will rise by 3 points is stronger than claiming it will simply rise by some amount.

Parts and wholes

Two related kinds of reasoning by analogy involve drawing a conclu-sion about a thing from a claim about its parts, and vice-versa. This is a very common kind of reasoning, regularly exploited in advertising. Foods are often said to be healthy solely on the basis of the fact that they contain minerals and vitamins which are themselves healthy. While it is true that the minerals and vitamins in a food are healthy, it does not follow that the food itself is healthy. Donuts loaded with vita-min C are nonetheless on balance unhealthy, because of their high fat and sugar contents. Conversely, a food that is on balance healthy might well contain unhealthy constituents. So, you can’t know just from the fact that a thing has some property that each of its compo-nents has that property too or vice-versa. Each case must be settled on its own merits.

Homework: think of an example where the inference from a part to a whole is justified, and one where it is not.

Analogy and the law

Our legal system relies on arguments by analogy. Similar cases should be treated similarly. Current cases should be treated in the way as earlier similar cases. If a case is decided a certain way, then future cases that are relevantly similar should also be decided that way. Many of our laws are actually rulings by judges in actual cases. These decisions constitute the common law, and serve as precedents for deciding future cases.

In defending an accused person, the defense lawyer will try to find past cases that are similar to the current case, in which the accused person was found not guilty. Likewise, the prosecutors will try to find past cases that are similar in which the accused person was found guilty. A past case which is similar to the current one in all relevant respects, and not dissimilar in any relevant respect, is said to be on point.

Model Analogies

Reasoning using models is very common in science. A scientist tries to understand a complex phenomena, the weather or planetary mo-tion, by developing a model of the phenomena. The model might be an actual physical model, but it is more likely to be a description of the phenomena. Typically, the description is mathematical: the rela-tions among the elements in the phenomena are described in mathe-matical terms.

In developing the model, the researcher abstracts away from some of the complexity, and this abstraction underlies both the power and the limits of reasoning by models. Abstracting away is the same as ignor-ing for the sake of the inquiry. When scientists model the motion of the planets in our solar system, they might ignore the gravitational effects of distant stars, because such effects are relatively small. This enables them to develop a simplified description of the motion of our solar system, a description that still works well enough to predict and describe the future locations of, say, Mars. This simplicity is the great power of reasoning using models.

The great limit is that because some elements are ignored, the de-scription and the explanation cannot be complete. The researcher who ignores the gravitational effects of distant stars knows that they have some effect, and so knows that her description of our solar system is incomplete. But, so long as she remains aware of this limit, the bene-fits of an abstract model outweigh its risks. In designing a model, we need to be careful about what elements we ignore as we abstract away from some of the known complexity.

But finding that the model does not fit right is a way of discovering what the relevant elements are, or even of discovering previously un-known elements. A retail business might, for instance, try to develop a model of a typical customer, one that captures the typical shopper’s financial and educational background or where they live in the region. The model might provide very useful information for marketing, inven-tory and sales decisions. It would, of course, be wrong to think that everyone fitting that model is a customer (though they may all be po-tential customers) and just as wrong to think that anyone not fitting the model is not a potential customer. The model is used as an anal-ogy, and it can be of great use so long as it does not become confused for a definition.

A business plan is another a kind of model, designed at an abstract level, ignoring a lot of the details of day to day operations. Reasoning about goals and measuring success using a business plan is reasoning by analogy using a model. Any business plan must abstract away from some of the complexity that will pervade its normal operations. It pro-vides a model of how the business should run. And like a scientific model of the solar system, testing the model against reality can illumi-nate the reality itself, bringing to the surface hidden features of the business, but even more interestingly, testing the model against real-ity can bring to the surface hidden assumptions that lead to develop-ment of the model itself.

Chapter 6: Reasoning about ValuesWe have been discussing mostly reasoning about matters of fact, rea-soning aimed at deciding what to believe about the world around us. But a good deal of our ordinary reasoning is aimed at deciding what to do, and this often involves a mix of decisions about what to believe and what to value. In this Chapter, I will discuss some of the ele-ments involved in reasoning about values.

THE MEANING OF “OUGHT” STATEMENTS

Our interest is with the connection between values and action. Our values determine what we are required, permitted or forbidden from doing. Any action that is required is also permitted. And any ac-tion that is forbidden is not permitted. But an action can be permitted but not required.

Actions that are required by our values are typically expressed using an “ought” statement, like the following.

One ought to pay taxes.One ought to exercise three times a week.One ought to tell the truth.

But as these examples make clear, there are many different kinds of things we mean when we say what someone ought to do, different kinds of “ought” statements. In effect, there are different kinds of val-ues.

Prudential. A prudential obligation is an action that is required in or-der to maintain one’s health or wealth.Legal. A legal obligation is an action that is required in order to obey the law.Moral. A moral obligation is an action that is required in order to do one’s moral duty.

It is important to notice that these three kinds of values are indepen-dent one form the others. That is, an action could be required by the law and prudent while being morally wrong. For instance, restaurant owners were legally forbidden from serving African Americans in cer-tain southern states in the middle of the last century, and obeying this law was the prudent thing to do since they otherwise were at risk of losing their business. However, we can now see that this was morally the wrong thing to do.

Homework: describe an action that is:Morally required, but legally wrong.Legally required, but imprudent.

WHAT MAKES AN OBLIGATION BINDING?

As we have seen, there are different kinds of “ought” statements, re-flecting the fact that there are different kinds of values. In certain cases, it is pretty clear what makes “ought” statements binding, that is, what makes us subject to them, but in other cases, the matter is not very clear at all.

Legal obligations derive from the relevant laws and statutes. What le-gal obligations one has depends on what laws are in force in one’s community. Though laws can and do change over time, whether one is subject to a law is not a matter of decision. It is not up to me whether I am required to file my taxes, even if it is up to me whether I do file them. Legal obligations bind unconditionally.

Prudential obligations are different. What it takes to maintain or en-hance my health and wealth depends on the facts, of course. As we know, being healthy requires eating properly and exercising regularly. But unless I care about my health and wealth I have no obligations to do what prudence requires of me. Prudential obligations only bind me if I want to be healthy and wealthy, if being healthy and wealthy is something I value. Prudential obligations bind conditionally.

What about moral obligations? Do they bind us unconditionally, like legal obligations, or only conditionally, like prudential obligations? One traditional answer is that moral obligations bind us absolutely, whether we want them to or not. But whereas it is clear what the source if our legal and prudential obligations is, it is not so clear what the source is of moral obligations. This makes it difficult to know just what moral obligations we in fact have. But it is hard to see how moral obligations, whatever their source, might bind only condition-ally. If lying really is morally forbidden, then presumably it is forbid-den for everyone, and not just for those of us who value being morally good. At least, this is what traditional conceptions of morality have held.

It is important not to confuse the question whether moral obligation bind unconditionally with the question whether our moral obligations vary from case to case. Consider lying. Most us would agree that ly-ing to a police officer is morally wrong, and not just illegal. But what

about lying to someone in order to prevent a murder? What if lying to Jones would stop him from killing our children? Would lying be morally wrong in that case? I suspect most us would say that lying to Jones would be morally permitted (or even morally required). What does this show us about the nature of moral obligations?

It shows us, I think, that whether telling a lie is morally wrong can de-pend on facts about the case. In particular, it can depend on whether the lie would prevent something even worse from happening. If this is right, then what our moral obligations are may vary from one situa-tion to another.

But even if this is right, this would not show that moral obligations are conditional in any way. Our moral obligations might apply whether we want them to or not, whether we care about being morally good or not, even if what moral obligations we have vary from one situation to another.

RESOLVING CONFLICTING OBLIGATIONS

We have been discussing different kinds of obligations and the differ-ent ways they can bind us. Sometimes our obligations conflict. What are we to do when our obligations point in different directions, when we have an obligation to both do and refrain from doing some action? How can we resolve conflicting obligations?

There are different kinds of conflict. In the case of competing values, both values can be pursued at once, but the conflict is that in pursuing both, one will end up with less of each than one would have had one pursued only one value. Being honest might compete with being kind. When a friend asks our opinion about a decision they have made, we want to be honest with them, but we also want to be kind, and so avoid causing them pain. How can we resolve this conflict?

We can, of course, be honest with them in a kind way, and it might be that telling them the truth will make them happier in the long run, even if it does bring temporary pain, and that being kind requires looking out for our friend’s longer term well being. In this case, there would be no real conflict, being kind and being honest both require that one say what one believes.

But it might be that the more honest we are the less kind we are, and vice-versa. It is not that we have to choose between honesty and kind-ness, since we could pursue both at once. The conflict, though, is that we have to find a balance that maximizes both. This is the Maxi-Max strategy.

Values can also conflict by being contrary. In some cases of conflict, one cannot pursue both values at once: pursuing one requires sacrific-ing the other to some extent. This kind of dilemma is familiar from non-moral cases. An organization might value both employee morale and productivity. And it may face a situation where it has to sacrifice one for the other, where it can either enhance morale or enhance pro-ductivity, but not both. In such a case, the problem is to decide how to order one’s values.

One strategy in this kind of case is to compare different Maxi-Min balances. A maxi-min balance is an action that maximizes the one value while minimizing the sacrifice required of the other. There are always, in such cases, two balances, since there are two values that could be sacrificed. What is the maximum increase in morale we could achieve with the least harm to morale, and what is the maximum in-crease in morale with the least harm to productivity? Once those two balance points have been found, one can compare them and decide which trade-off, which balance, is the best.

Chapter 7: Assessing and Constructing Argu-ments

Now that we have discussed the value of critical thinking, and de-scribed the methods, tools and techniques required for being a critical thinker, we can step back and provide a summary of how a skilled critical thinker approaches the task of evaluating or constructing a proposed decision. Not surprisingly, the tasks are the same whether one is constructing and presenting a decision of one’s own or whether one is assessing and evaluating a decision proposed by someone else.

CLARIFY M EANING

It is very important to be sure that the proposed decision, whether your own or another’s, is as clear as possible. In Chapter 4, we dis-cussed how to assess and evaluate definitions of terms. Those skills apply equally to defining the problem the decision is meant to ad-dress. So long as there is room for disagreement about what the prob-lem is, or about what the proposed solution is, there can be no lasting and widespread agreement on the decision itself.

If reasons are being presented to support the decision, as they must be if you are the one presenting a proposed decision, then make sure those are clear too.

Here are some questions to keep in mind:

1. Are any of the words used ambiguous or unclear?2. Can I give a definition of the key words?3. Can I provide examples and counter-examples?4. Have I carefully distinguished claims about what the belief

means from claims about whether it is true?5. Can I clearly and precisely state how the world would be if the

belief were true, or if we did what the decision would require us to do?

Frames

It is just as important to make sure that the problem at issue has been properly defined, and this is a matter of framing it properly. I de-scribed a framing problem involving Pepsi and Coca-Cola in chapter 3. But they occur in lots of contexts.

When I was a child, my family lived in the north of England, and my father, born and raised in Canada, was intrigued by the fact that so many of the houses had their water and plumbing pipes running up the outside, exposed to the freezing cold. Of course, to no one’s sur-prise, these pipes regularly froze during the winter causing huge in-convenience and requiring costly repairs. When my father asked his landlord why houses were built this way, the reply was immediate: when the pipes are on the outside they are easy to access when they freeze. I have laughed at this story for years, but only recently did I realize that it illustrates perfectly the importance of properly framing a problem.

The unusual building practice was designed to solve a problem: how to access frozen pipes. If you think of the problem in that way, then their building solution makes good sense, since it is much easier to ac-cess pipes when they are on the outside rather than built inside walls. But, at least from a Canadian’s perspective, accessing the frozen pipes was not the real problem. The real problem was that the pipes were freezing! Rather than ensure easy access to frozen pipes, what was needed was a way to keep them from freezing in the first place. As soon as this is seen to be the problem, the solution is straightfor-ward: put the pipes inside the heated walls.

Getting clear on the problem is a matter of defining it properly, and the skills needed for this are the very same as those needed for con-structing an adequate definition of a key word.

ASSESS FOR TRUTH

We have seen that there are two questions we need to ask in assess-ing the reasons given in support of a decision, whether it is a decision about what to believe or what to do. It is VERY important to keep these questions separate, since it is one thing to agree with reasons but not with the conclusion and it is quite another to reject the rea-sons but accept the conclusion. Unless you are clear what you are do-ing, no one else will be clear either.

1. Are they true?1 John Dewey, How We Think, Boston, D.C Heath and Co., 1910. The reference is to its republication by Dover in 1997, p. 29.2 This case is described in Winning Decisions, by J. Edward Russo and Paul J.H. Shoemaker, Doubleday, 2002, pages 10-11. Their discussion draws on John Sculley’s autobiography, Odyssey, Harper & Row, 1987.3 This case is described in Winning Decisions, by J. Edward Russo and Paul J.H. Shoemaker, Doubleday, 2002, pages 202-205. Their discussion is based on Siddhartha R. Dalal, Edward B. Fowlkes, and Bruce Hoadly, “Risk Analysis of the Space Shuttle: Pre-Challenger Prediction of failure,”, Journal of the Ameri-can Statistical Association, 84, no. 408 (December 1989): 945-57.

What kind of claim is it? Specific, general, definition?What is their source? Where did the evidence come from?

Experiment, measurement, memory, etc?What are the conditions for trustworthiness of that

source?Does this evidence meet those conditions?

2. Do those reasons really support the conclusion?

What kind of reasoning is being used:Conditional, alternatives, analogies?

If it is not clear what kind of reasoning is at issue, can I reformulate it in one of those forms?Does the reasoning meet the conditions for being valid, or at least logically strong?

Does it commit one of the fallacies?How good is the analogy?

We can now add a third question:

3. Is the presentation thorough and comprehensive?

Were relevant alternative conclusions/decisions consid-ered and shown to be inferior?Were reasons against the proposed decision stated and addressed?

EXPLORE THE VALUE

Any decision has to occur in a broader context. Understanding that context is sometimes crucial for understanding the decision. If you are not sure what it is, or if you do not make clear what it is, you will fail to properly evaluate or present a decision.

Some questions to keep in mind:

1. What is the issue the belief is about?2. What problem is the decision being advanced to solve?3. What is the history of attempts to solve that problem, and are

there helpful lessons from past cases?

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