Current issues and enduring questions 9th edition ebook

Critical Thinking Easy

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ELEVENTH EDITION

Current Issues and Enduring Questions

A Guide to Critical Thinking and Argument, with Readings

SYLVAN BARNET Professor of English, Late of Tufts University

HUGO BEDAU Professor of Philosophy, Late of Tufts University

JOHN O’HARA Associate Professor of Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing, Stockton University

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Acknowledgments

Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on page 758, which constitutes an extension of the copyright page. Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover.

Preface

This book is a text — a book about reading other people’s arguments and writing your own arguments — and it is also an anthology — a collection of more than a hundred selections, ranging from Plato to the present, with a strong emphasis on contemporary arguments and, in this edition, the first in full color, new modes of argument. Before we describe these selections further, we’d like to describe our chief assumptions about the aims of a course that might use Current Issues and Enduring Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking and Argument, with Readings.

Probably most students and instructors would agree that, as critical readers, students should be able to

summarize accurately an argument they have read;

locate the thesis (the claim) of an argument;

locate the assumptions, stated and unstated, of an argument;

analyze and evaluate the strength of the evidence and the soundness of the reasoning offered in support of the thesis; and

analyze, evaluate, and account for discrepancies among various readings on a topic (for example, explain why certain facts are used, why probable consequences of a proposed action are examined or are ignored, or why two sources might interpret the same facts differently).

Probably, too, students and instructors would agree that, as thoughtful writers, students should be able to

imagine an audience and write effectively for it (for instance, by using the appropriate tone and providing the appropriate amount of detail);

present information in an orderly and coherent way;

be aware of their own assumptions;

locate sources and incorporate them into their own writing, not simply by quoting extensively or by paraphrasing but also by having digested

material so that they can present it in their own words;

properly document all borrowings — not merely quotations and paraphrases but also borrowed ideas; and

do all these things in the course of developing a thoughtful argument of their own.

In the first edition of this book we quoted Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill. Burke said,

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill.

Our antagonist is our helper.

Mill said,

He who knows only his own side of the cause knows little.

These two quotations continue to reflect the view of argument that underlies this text: In writing an essay one is engaging in a serious effort to know what one’s own ideas are and, having found them, to contribute to a multisided conversation. One is not setting out to trounce an opponent, and that is partly why such expressions as “marshaling evidence,” “attacking an opponent,” and “defending a thesis” are misleading. True, on television talk shows we see right-wingers and left-wingers who have made up their minds and who are concerned only with pushing their own views and brushing aside all others. But in an academic community, and indeed in our daily lives, we learn by listening to others and also by listening to ourselves.

We draft a response to something we have read, and in the very act of drafting we may find — if we think critically about the words we are putting down on paper — we are changing (perhaps slightly, perhaps radically) our own position. In short, one reason that we write is so that we can improve our ideas. And even if we do not drastically change our views, we and our readers at least come to a better understanding of why we hold the views we do.

Features

THE TEXT

Part One: Critical Thinking and Reading (Chapters 1–4) and Part Two: Critical Writing (Chapters 5–7) together offer a short course in methods of thinking about and writing arguments. By “thinking,” we mean serious analytic thought, including analysis of one’s own assumptions (Chapter 1); by

“writing” we mean the use of effective, respectable techniques, not gimmicks (such as the notorious note a politician scribbled in the margin of the text of his speech: “Argument weak; shout here”). For a delightfully wry account of the use of gimmicks, we recommend that you consult “The Art of Controversy” in The Will to Live by the nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer reminds readers that a Greek or Latin quotation (however irrelevant) can be impressive to the uninformed and that one can knock down almost any proposition by loftily saying, “That’s all very well in theory, but it won’t do in practice.”

We offer lots of advice about how to set forth an argument, but we do not offer instruction in one-upmanship. Rather, we discuss responsible ways of arguing persuasively. We know, however, that before one can write a persuasive argument, one must clarify one’s own ideas — a process that includes arguing with oneself — to find out what one really thinks about a problem. Therefore, we devote Chapter 1 to critical thinking; Chapters 2, 3, and 4 to critical reading (Chapter 4 is about reading images); and Chapters 5, 6, and 7 to critical writing.

Parts One and Two together contain thirty readings (seven are student papers) for analysis and discussion. Some of these essays originated as op-ed newspaper pieces, and we reprint some of the letters to the editor that they generated, so students can easily see several sides to a given issue. In this way students can, in their own responses, join the conversation, so to speak. (We have found, by the way, that using the format of a letter helps students to frame their ideas, and therefore in later chapters we occasionally suggest writing assignments in the form of a letter to the editor.)

All of the essays in the book are accompanied by a list of Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing.1 This is not surprising, given the emphasis we place on asking questions in order to come up with ideas for writing. Among the chief questions that writers should ask, we suggest, are “What is X?” and “What is the value of X?” (pp. 226–27). By asking such questions — for instance (to look only at these two types of questions), “Is the fetus a person?” or “Is Arthur Miller a better playwright than Tennessee Williams?” — a writer probably will find ideas coming, at least after a few moments of head scratching. The device of developing an argument by identifying issues is, of course, nothing new. Indeed, it goes back to an ancient method of argument used by classical rhetoricians, who identified a stasis (an issue) and then asked questions about it: Did X do such and such? If so, was the action bad? If bad, how bad? (Finding an issue or stasis — a position where one stands — by asking questions is discussed in Chapter 6.)

In keeping with our emphasis on writing as well as reading, we raise issues not only of what can roughly be called the “content” of the essays but also of what can (equally roughly) be called the “style” — that is, the ways in which the arguments are set forth. Content and style, of course, cannot finally be kept apart. As Cardinal Newman said, “Thought and meaning are inseparable from each other… . Style is thinking out into language.” In our Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing, we sometimes ask the student

to evaluate the effectiveness of an essay’s opening paragraph,

to explain a shift in tone from one paragraph to the next, or

to characterize the persona of the author as revealed in the whole essay.

In short, the book is not designed as an introduction to some powerful ideas (though in fact it is that, too); it is designed as an aid to writing thoughtful, effective arguments on important political, social, scientific, ethical, legal, and religious issues.

The essays reprinted in this book also illustrate different styles of argument that arise, at least in part, from the different disciplinary backgrounds of the various authors. Essays by journalists, lawyers, judges, social scientists, policy analysts, philosophers, critics, activists, and other writers — including first-year undergraduates — will be found in these pages. The authors develop and present their views in arguments that have distinctive features reflecting their special training and concerns. The differences in argumentative styles found in these essays foreshadow the differences students will encounter in the readings assigned in many of their other courses.

Parts One and Two, then, offer a preliminary (but we hope substantial) discussion of such topics as

identifying assumptions;

getting ideas by means of invention strategies;

finding, evaluating, and citing printed and electronic sources;

interpreting visual sources;

evaluating kinds of evidence; and

organizing material as well as an introduction to some ways of thinking.

Part Three: Further Views on Argument consists of Chapters 8 through 12.

Chapter 8, A Philosopher’s View: The Toulmin Model, is a summary of the philosopher Stephen Toulmin’s method for analyzing arguments, covering claims, grounds, warrants, backing, modal qualifiers, and rebuttals. This summary will assist those who wish to apply Toulmin’s methods to the readings in our book.

Chapter 9, A Logician’s View: Deduction, Induction, Fallacies, offers a more rigorous analysis of these topics than is usually found in composition courses and reexamines from a logician’s point of view material already treated briefly in Chapter 3.

Chapter 10, A Psychologist’s View: Rogerian Argument, with an essay by psychotherapist Carl R. Rogers and an essay by a student, complements the discussion of audience, organization, and tone in Chapter 6.

Chapter 11, A Literary Critic’s View: Arguing about Literature, should help students to see the things literary critics argue about and how they argue. Students can apply what they learn not only to the literary readings that appear in the chapter (poems by Robert Frost and Andrew Marvell and a story by Kate Chopin) but also to the readings that appear in Part Six, Enduring Questions: Essays, a Story, Poems, and a Play. Finally, Part Three concludes with

Chapter 12, A Debater’s View: Individual Oral Presentations and Debate, which introduces students to standard presentation strategies and debate format.

THE ANTHOLOGY

Part Four: Current Issues: Occasions for Debate (Chapters 13–18) begins with some comments on binary, or pro-con, thinking. It then gives a Checklist for Analyzing a Debate and reprints five pairs of arguments — on student loan debt (should it be forgiven?), using technology in the classroom (is it a boon or a distraction?), the local food movement (is it a better way to eat?), childhood and parenting (what’s best for kids?), genetic modification of human beings, and mandatory military service (should it be required?). Here, as elsewhere in the book, many of the selections (drawn from popular journals and newspapers) are short — scarcely longer than the 500-word essays that students are often asked to write. Thus, students can easily study the methods the writers use, as well as the issues themselves.

Part Five: Current Issues: Casebooks (Chapters 19–25) presents seven chapters on issues discussed by several writers. For example, the first casebook concerns the nature and purpose of a college education: Should students focus their studies in STEM fields in the hopes of securing a more stable future and contributing to the economy, or should college be a place where students learn empathy, citizenship, and critical thinking — attributes often instilled by the humanities?

Part Six: Enduring Questions: Essays, a Story, Poems, and a Play (Chapters 26–28) extends the arguments to three topics: Chapter 26, What Is the Ideal Society? (the voices here range from Thomas More, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther King Jr. to literary figures W. H. Auden, Walt Whitman, and Ursula K. Le Guin); Chapter 27, How Free Is the Will of the Individual within Society? (authors in this chapter include Plato, Susan Glaspell, and George Orwell); and Chapter 28, What Is Happiness? (among the nine selections in this chapter are writings by Epictetus, C. S. Lewis, and the Dalai Lama).

What’s New in the Eleventh Edition

This eleventh edition brings highly significant changes. The authors of the previous ten editions established a firm foundation for the book: Hugo Bedau, professor of philosophy, brought analytical rigor to the instruction in argumentation. and Sylvan Barnet, professor of English, contributed expertise in writing instruction. They have now turned the project over to John O’Hara, professor of critical thinking, to contribute a third dimension, augmenting and enriching the material on critical thinking throughout, especially in the early chapters. Other changes have been made to ensure practical instruction and current topics.

Fresh and timely new readings. Thirty-seven of the essays (about one- third of the total) are new, as are topics such as genetically engineered foods, protection of religious rights in prison, marijuana regulation, technology’s place in classrooms, social media’s effect on “real life,” over- and under- parenting, American exceptionalism, police violence against minorities, and the widespread jailing of U.S. citizens.

New debates and casebook topics. New debates include Technology in the Classroom: Useful or Distracting?, The Current State of Childhood: Is “Helicopter Parenting” or “Free-Range Childhood” Better for Kids?, and Mandatory Military Service: Should It Be Required? New casebooks —

which were developed based on feedback from users of the text — include Race and Police Violence: How Do We Solve the Problem?, Online Versus IRL: How Has Social Networking Changed How We Relate to One Another?, The Carceral State: Why Are So Many Americans in Jail?, and American Exceptionalism: How Should the United States Teach about Its Past?

A vibrant new design. A new full-color layout makes the book more engaging and easier for students to navigate, and an expanded trim size allows more space for students to annotate and take notes. Over fifty new visuals, including ads, cartoons, photographs, and Web pages, provide occasions for critical inquiry.

Expanded coverage of critical thinking in Part One. Part One has been heavily revised to help better show students how effective reading, analysis, and writing all begin with critical thinking. Enhancements include an expanded vocabulary for critical thinking, instruction on writing critical summaries, guidance on confronting unfamiliar issues in reading and writing, new strategies for generating essay topics, and extended critical reading approaches.

New “Thinking Critically” activities. Throughout the text, new interactive exercises test students’ ability to apply critical thinking, reading, and writing concepts. Students can also complete these exercises online in LaunchPad.

Expanded discussion of developing thesis statements in Chapter 6. This updated section helps better illustrate for students what the difference is between taking a truly critical position versus resting on their laurels in argumentative essays.

Updated coverage of visual rhetoric in Chapter 4. The “Visual Rhetoric” chapter has been expanded to include discussion of how to analyze images rhetorically, including how to recognize and resist the meanings of images, how to identify visual emotional appeals, and what the difference is exactly between seeing passively and truly looking critically.

LaunchPad for Current Issues and Enduring Questions. This edition of Current Issues includes access to LaunchPad — an interactive platform that brings together the resources students need to prepare for class, working with the textbook. Features include interactive questions and exercises and quizzes on all of the readings and instructional content, allowing instructors to quickly get a sense of what students understand and what they need help with. You and your students can access LaunchPad at

macmillanhighered.com/barnetbedauohara. Students receive access automatically with the purchase of a new book. Students can purchase standalone access at macmillanhighered.com/barnetbedauohara. To get instructor access, register as an instructor at this site.

Acknowledgments

Finally, the authors would like to thank those who have strengthened this book by their comments and advice on the eleventh edition: Heidi Ajrami, Victoria College; Rick Alley, Tidewater Community College; Kristen Bennett, Wentworth Institute of Technology; David Bordelon, Ocean County College; Linda Borla, Cypress College; Chris Brincefield, Forsyth Technical Community College; Erin Carroll, Ocean County College; Tamy Chapman, Saddleback College; Donald Carreira Ching, Leeward Community College; Jeanne Cosmos, Mass Bay Community College; Marlene Cousens, Yakima Community College; Christie Diep, Cypress College; Sarah Fedirka, University of Findlay; Mary Ellen Gleason, Paul D. Camp Community College; Michael Guista, Allan Hancock College; Anthony Halderman, Allan Hancock College; Tony Howard, Collin College; Tariq Jawhar, Tidewater Community College; Patrick Johnson, Northwest Iowa Community College; Amy Jurrens, Northwest Iowa Community College; Fay Lee, Lone Star College CyFair; James McFadden, Buena Vista University; Patricia Mensch, Bellevue College; Cornelia Moore, Victor Valley College; Sylvia Newman, Weber State University; Robert Piluso, Chaffey College; Jenni Runte, Metropolitan State University; Anne Spollen, Ocean County College; Rosanna Walker, College of the Desert; Ronald Tulley, University of Findlay; Steve Yarborough, Bellevue College; and our anonymous reviewers from San Joaquin Delta College, University of South Alabama, and Worcester State University. We would also like to thank Kalina Ingham, Elaine Kosta, Martha Friedman, Angela Boehler, and Jen Simmons, who adeptly managed art research and text permissions.

We are also deeply indebted to the people at Bedford/St. Martin’s, especially to our editor, Alicia Young, who is wise, patient, supportive, and unfailingly helpful. Steve Scipione, Maura Shea, John Sullivan, and Adam Whitehurst, our editors for all of the preceding editions, have left a lasting impression on us and on the book; without their work on the first ten editions, there probably would not be an eleventh. Others at Bedford/St. Martin’s to whom we are deeply indebted include Edwin Hill, Leasa Burton, Karen Henry, Joy Fisher Williams, Jennifer Prince, Elise Kaiser, and Jessica Gould,

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all of whom have offered countless valuable (and invaluable) suggestions. Intelligent, informed, firm yet courteous, persuasive — all of these folks know how to think and how to argue.

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LAUNCHPAD FOR CURRENT ISSUES AND ENDURING QUESTIONS : WHERE STUDENTS LEARN

LaunchPad provides engaging content and new ways to get the most out of your book. Get an interactive e-book combined with useful, highly relevant materials in a fully customizable course space; then assign and mix our resources with yours.

Auto-graded reading quizzes, comprehension quizzes on argument topics, and interactive writing templates help students to engage actively with the material you assign.

Pre-built units — including readings, videos, quizzes, discussion groups, and more — are easy to adapt and assign by adding your own materials and mixing them with our high-quality multimedia content and ready-made assessment options, such as LearningCurve adaptive quizzing. LearningCurve now includes argument modules focusing on topic, purpose, and audience, arguable claims, reasoning and logical fallacies, and persuasive appeals (logos, pathos, and ethos).

LaunchPad also provides access to a Gradebook that provides a clear window on the performance of your whole class, individual students, and even results of individual assignments.

A streamlined interface helps students focus on what’s due, and social commenting tools let them engage, make connections, and learn from each other. Use LaunchPad on its own or integrate it with your

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Brief Contents Preface

PART ONE CRITICAL THINKING AND READING

1  Critical Thinking

2  Critical Reading: Getting Started

3  Critical Reading: Getting Deeper into Arguments

4  Visual Rhetoric: Thinking about Images as Arguments

PART TWO CRITICAL WRITING 5  Writing an Analysis of an Argument

6  Developing an Argument of Your Own

7  Using Sources

PART THREE FURTHER VIEWS ON ARGUMENT

8  A Philosopher’s View: The Toulmin Model

9  A Logician’s View: Deduction, Induction, Fallacies

10 A Psychologist’s View: Rogerian Argument

11 A Literary Critic’s View: Arguing about Literature

12 A Debater’s View: Individual Oral Presentations and Debate

PART FOUR CURRENT ISSUES: OCCASIONS FOR DEBATE

13 Student Loans: Should Some Indebtedness Be Forgiven?

14 Technology in the Classroom: Useful or Distracting?

15 The Local Food Movement: Is It a Better Way to Eat?

16 The Current State of Childhood: Is “Helicopter Parenting” or “Free- Range Childhood” Better for Kids?

17 Genetic Modification of Human Beings: Is It Acceptable?

18 Mandatory Military Service: Should It Be Required?

PART FIVE CURRENT ISSUES: CASEBOOKS 19 A College Education: What Is Its Purpose?

20 Race and Police Violence: How Do We Solve the Problem?

21 Junk Food: Should the Government Regulate Our Intake?

22 Online Versus IRL: How Has Social Networking Changed How We Relate to One Another?

23 Immigration: What Is to Be Done?

24 The Carceral State: Why Are So Many Americans in Jail?

25 American Exceptionalism: How Should the United States Teach about Its Past?

PART SIX ENDURING QUESTIONS: ESSAYS, A STORY, POEMS, AND A PLAY

26 What Is the Ideal Society?

27 How Free Is the Will of the Individual within Society?

28 What Is Happiness?

Index of Authors and Titles

Index of Terms

Contents Preface

PART ONE CRITICAL THINKING AND READING

1 CRITICAL THINKING Thinking Through an Issue: Gay Marriage Licenses

On Flying Spaghetti Monsters: Analyzing and Evaluating from Multiple Perspectives

Critical Thinking at Work: From Jottings to a Short Essay

A Student’s Essay, Developed from a Cluster and a List

Stirred and Strained: Pastafarians Should Be Allowed to Practice in Prison (Student Essay)

The Essay Analyzed

Generating Ideas: Writing as a Way of Thinking

Confronting Unfamiliar Issues

Topics

NINA FEDOROFF, The Genetically Engineered Salmon Is a Boon for Consumers and Sustainability

The Evan Pugh professor emerita at Penn State University argues in favor of GMO foods, citing AquaBounty’s genetically modified salmon as “tak[ing] pressure off wild salmon and mak[ing] salmon farming more sustainable.”

THINKING CRITICALLY: GENERATING TOPICS

A CHECKLIST FOR CRITICAL THINKING

A Short Essay Calling for Critical Thinking

LYNN STUART PARRAMORE, Fitbits for Bosses

The author warns against the “brave new world of workplace biosurveillance.”

Overall View of the Essay

Examining Assumptions A CHECKLIST FOR EXAMINING ASSUMPTIONS

JENA McGREGOR, Military Women in Combat: Why Making It Official Matters

“Ending the restrictions [will give] the military the best pool of talent possible and the most diverse viewpoints for leading it.”

2 CRITICAL READING: GETTING STARTED Active Reading

Previewing

A Short Essay for Previewing Practice

SANJAY GUPTA, Why I Changed My Mind on Weed

“I had steadily reviewed the scientific literature on medical marijuana from the United States and thought it was fairly unimpressive… . Well, I am here to apologize.”

THINKING CRITICALLY: PREVIEWING

Reading with a Careful Eye: Underlining, Highlighting, Annotating

“This; Therefore, That”

Defining Terms and Concepts THINKING CRITICALLY: DEFINING TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Paraphrase, Patchwriting, and Plagiarism A CHECKLIST FOR A PARAPHRASE

Strategies for Summarizing

Critical Summary

SUSAN JACOBY, A First Amendment Junkie

A feminist argues against those feminists who seek to ban pornography.

Summarizing Jacoby A CHECKLIST FOR GETTING STARTED

Essays for Analysis

ZACHARY SHEMTOB AND DAVID LAT, Executions Should Be Televised

The authors argue that “a democracy demands a citizenry as informed as possible about the costs and benefits of society’s ultimate punishment.”

GWEN WILDE, Why the Pledge of Allegiance Should Be Revised (Student Essay)

A student concludes that “those who wish to exercise religion are indeed free to do so, but the place to do so is not in a pledge that is required of all schoolchildren and of all new citizens.”

A Casebook for Critical Reading: Should Some Kinds of Speech Be Censored?

SUSAN BROWNMILLER, Let’s Put Pornography Back in the Closet

The founder of Women against Pornography argues that “contemporary community standards” should be decisive.

CHARLES R. LAWRENCE III, On Racist Speech

“Whenever we decide that racist speech must be tolerated because of the importance of maintaining societal tolerance for all unpopular speech, we are asking blacks and other subordinated groups to bear the burden for the good of all.”

DEREK BOK, Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus

Prompted by the display of Confederate flags hung from the window of a Harvard dormitory, the president of Harvard says that students have the right to display the flags, but he expresses his “regret” and suggests that students who are offended by the flags should simply “ignore them.”

THINKING FURTHER: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND SOCIAL MEDIA

3 CRITICAL READING: GETTING DEEPER INTO ARGUMENTS Persuasion, Argument, Dispute THINKING CRITICALLY: ESTABLISHING TRUSTWORTHINESS AND CREDIBILITY

Reason versus Rationalization

Some Procedures in Argument

Definition THINKING CRITICALLY: GIVING DEFINITIONS

Assumptions

Premises and Syllogisms

Deduction

Sound Arguments

Induction

Evidence: Experimentation, Examples, Authoritative Testimony, Statistics A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING STATISTICAL EVIDENCE

Nonrational Appeals

Satire, Irony, Sarcasm, Humor

Emotional Appeals

Does All Writing Contain Arguments? A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING AN ARGUMENT

An Example: An Argument and a Look at the Writer’s Strategies

GEORGE F. WILL, Being Green at Ben and Jerry’s

Statistics and humor are among the tools this essayist uses in arguing on behalf of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

George F. Will’s Strategies

Arguments for Analysis

STANLEY FISH, When “Identity Politics” Is Rational

“Is it so irrational and retrograde to base one’s vote on the gender or race or religion or ethnicity of a candidate? Not necessarily.”

GLORIA JIMÉNEZ, Against the Odds, and against the Common Good (Student Essay)

A student analyzes the arguments for state-run lotteries and concludes that “state legislators who genuinely have the interests of their

constituents at heart will not pass bills that … cause the state to engage in an activity that is close to pickpocketing.”

ANNA LISA RAYA, It’s Hard Enough Being Me (Student Essay)

An undergraduate, who in college “discovered” that she was a Latina, objects to being stereotyped and explains how she decided to try to be true to herself, not to the image that others have constructed for her.

RONALD TAKAKI, The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority

The image of Asian Americans as a “model minority” is not only harmful but false, writes a professor of ethnic studies.

JAMES Q. WILSON, Just Take Away Their Guns

A professor explains why he favors “encouraging the police to make street frisks” to get guns out of the hands of those most likely to use them for criminal purposes.

KAYLA WEBLEY, Is Forgiving Student Loan Debt a Good Idea?

“Why should taxpayers — especially those who never attended college in the first place — foot the bill for the borrowers’ education?”

ALFRED EDMOND JR., Why Asking for a Job Applicant’s Facebook Password Is Fair Game

A businessman says that, at least for certain kinds of operations — he cites “the child care industry” — the employer can reasonably request the potential employee’s Facebook password.

SHERRY TURKLE, The Flight from Conversation

A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argues that, in an age of texting, “We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.”

4 VISUAL RHETORIC: THINKING ABOUT IMAGES AS ARGUMENTS

Uses of Visual Images

Types of Emotional Appeals

Seeing versus Looking: Reading Advertisements A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING IMAGES (ESPECIALLY ADVERTISEMENTS)

Other Aspects of Visual Appeals

Levels of Images

Accommodating, Resisting, and Negotiating the Meaning of Images

Are Some Images Not Fit to Be Shown?

Politics and Pictures

Writing about a Political Cartoon A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING AN ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL CARTOONS

THINKING CRITICALLY: ANALYSIS OF A POLITICAL CARTOON

JACKSON SMITH, Pledging Nothing? (Student Essay)

Visuals as Aids to Clarity: Maps, Graphs, and Pie Charts A CHECKLIST FOR CHARTS AND GRAPHS

Using Visuals in Your Own Paper

Additional Images for Analysis

NORA EPHRON, The Boston Photographs

Arguing against the widespread view that newspapers ought not to print pictures of dead bodies, Ephron suggests that, since “death happens to be one of life’s main events,” it is “irresponsible … for newspapers to fail to show it.”

PART TWO CRITICAL WRITING

5 WRITING AN ANALYSIS OF AN ARGUMENT Analyzing an Argument

Examining the Author’s Thesis

Examining the Author’s Purpose

Examining the Author’s Methods

Examining the Author’s Persona

Examining Persona and Intended Audience A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING AN AUTHOR’S INTENDED AUDIENCE

Summary A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING A TEXT

An Argument, Its Elements, and a Student’s Analysis of the Argument

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, For Environmental Balance, Pick Up a Rifle

“Let’s bring back hunting.” THINKING CRITICALLY: DRAWING CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLYING PROOF

The Essay Analyzed

BETSY SWINTON, Tracking Kristof (Student Essay)

An Analysis of the Student’s Analysis A CHECKLIST FOR WRITING AN ANALYSIS OF AN ARGUMENT

Arguments for Analysis

JEFF JACOBY, Bring Back Flogging

A journalist argues that, for many offenses, flogging would be an improvement over prison.

GERARD JONES, Violent Media Is Good for Kids

The author of numerous comic books argues that gangsta rap and other forms of “creative violence” do more good than harm.

JUSTIN CRONIN, Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner

A lifelong Democrat makes a case for the right to bear arms.

PETER SINGER, Animal Liberation

Should supporters of equality for women and minorities support equality for animals? Yes, says a philosopher, who explains why.

JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, Let Them Eat Dog: A Modest Proposal for Tossing Fido in the Oven

In the tradition of Jonathan Swift, a modern essayist argues that “dogs are practically begging to be eaten… . eating those strays, those runaways, those not-quite-cute-enough-to-take and not-quite-well- behaved-enough-to-keep dogs would be killing a flock of birds with one stone and eating it, too.”

6 DEVELOPING AN ARGUMENT OF YOUR OWN Planning, Drafting, and Revising an Argument

Getting Ideas: Argument as an Instrument of Inquiry

Three Brainstorming Strategies: Freewriting, Listing, and Diagramming

Further Invention Strategies: Asking Good Questions

The Thesis or Main Point A CHECKLIST FOR A THESIS STATEMENT

Imagining an Audience THINKING CRITICALLY: “WALKING THE TIGHTROPE”

The Audience as Collaborator A CHECKLIST FOR IMAGINING AN AUDIENCE

The Title

The Opening Paragraphs

Organizing and Revising the Body of the Essay

The Ending THINKING CRITICALLY: USING TRANSITIONS IN ARGUMENT

Two Uses of an Outline

A Last Word about Outlines A CHECKLIST FOR ORGANIZING AN ARGUMENT

Tone and the Writer’s Persona THINKING CRITICALLY: VARYING TONE

We, One, or I? THINKING CRITICALLY: ELIMINATING WE, ONE, AND I

A CHECKLIST FOR ATTENDING TO THE NEEDS OF THE AUDIENCE

Avoiding Sexist Language

Peer Review A CHECKLIST FOR PEER REVIEW OF A DRAFT OF AN ARGUMENT

A Student’s Essay, from Rough Notes to Final Version

EMILY ANDREWS, Why I Don’t Spare “Spare Change” (Student Essay)

The Essay Analyzed

7 USING SOURCES Why Use Sources?

Choosing a Topic

Finding Material

Finding Quality Information Online

Finding Articles Using Library Databases

Locating Books

Interviewing Peers and Local Authorities

Evaluating Your Sources

Taking Notes A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING PRINT SOURCES

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING ELECTRONIC SOURCES

A Note on Plagiarizing, Paraphrasing, and Using Common Knowledge A CHECKLIST FOR AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

Compiling an Annotated Bibliography

Writing the Paper

Organizing Your Notes

The First Draft

Later Drafts

A Few More Words about Organization

Choosing a Tentative Title

The Final Draft

Quoting from Sources

Incorporating Your Reading into Your Thinking: The Art and Science of Synthesis

The Use and Abuse of Quotations

How to Quote THINKING CRITICALLY: USING SIGNAL PHRASES

Documentation

A Note on Footnotes (and Endnotes)

MLA Format: Citations within the Text

MLA Format: The List of Works Cited

APA Format: Citations within the Text

APA Format: The List of References A CHECKLIST FOR CRITICAL PAPERS USING SOURCES

An Annotated Student Research Paper in MLA Format

LESLEY TIMMERMAN, An Argument for Corporate Responsibility (Student Essay)

An Annotated Student Research Paper in APA Format

LAURA DeVEAU, The Role of Spirituality and Religion in Mental Health (Student Essay)

PART THREE FURTHER VIEWS ON ARGUMENT

8 A PHILOSOPHER’S VIEW: THE TOULMIN MODEL The Claim

Grounds

Warrants

Backing

Modal Qualifiers

Rebuttals THINKING CRITICALLY: CONSTRUCTING A TOULMIN ARGUMENT

Putting the Toulmin Method to Work: Responding to an Argument

JAMES E. McWILLIAMS, The Locavore Myth: Why Buying from Nearby Farmers Won’t Save the Planet

“The average American eats 273 pounds of meat a year. Give up red meat once a week and you’ll save as much energy as if the only food miles in your diet were the distance to the nearest truck farmer.”

A CHECKLIST FOR USING THE TOULMIN METHOD

Thinking with Toulmin’s Method

9 A LOGICIAN’S VIEW: DEDUCTION, INDUCTION, FALLACIES

Deduction

Induction

Observation and Inference

Probability

Mill’s Methods

Confirmation, Mechanism, and Theory

Fallacies

Fallacies of Ambiguity

Fallacies of Presumption

Fallacies of Relevance A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING AN ARGUMENT FROM A LOGICAL POINT OF VIEW

MAX SHULMAN, Love Is a Fallacy

A short story about the limits of logic: “Can you give me one logical reason why you should go steady with Petey Bellows?”

10 A PSYCHOLOGIST’S VIEW: ROGERIAN ARGUMENT Rogerian Argument: An Introduction

CARL R. ROGERS, Communication: Its Blocking and Its Facilitation

A psychotherapist explains why we must see things from the other person’s point of view.

A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING ROGERIAN ARGUMENT

EDWARD O. WILSON, Letter to a Southern Baptist Minister

An internationally renowned evolutionary biologist appeals for help from a literalist interpreter of Christian Holy Scripture.

11 A LITERARY CRITIC’S VIEW: ARGUING ABOUT LITERATURE

Interpreting

Judging (or Evaluating)

Theorizing

A CHECKLIST FOR AN ARGUMENT ABOUT LITERATURE

Examples: Two Students Interpret Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”

ROBERT FROST, Mending Wall

JONATHAN DEUTSCH, The Deluded Speaker in Frost’s “Mending Wall” (Student Paper)

FELICIA ALONSO, The Debate in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” (Student Paper)

Exercises: Reading a Poem and a Story

ANDREW MARVELL, To His Coy Mistress

KATE CHOPIN, The Story of an Hour

Thinking about the Effects of Literature

PLATO, “The Greater Part of the Stories Current Today We Shall Have to Reject”

A great philosopher argues for censorship as necessary to shape the minds of tomorrow’s leaders.

Thinking about Government Funding for the Arts

12 A DEBATER’S VIEW: INDIVIDUAL ORAL PRESENTATIONS AND DEBATE

Individual Oral Presentations

Methods of Delivery A CHECKLIST FOR AN ORAL PRESENTATION

The Audience

Delivery

The Talk

Formal Debates

Standard Debate Format A CHECKLIST FOR PREPARING FOR A DEBATE

PART FOUR CURRENT ISSUES: OCCASIONS FOR DEBATE

Debates as an Aid to Thinking A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING A DEBATE

13 STUDENT LOANS: SHOULD SOME INDEBTEDNESS BE FORGIVEN?

ROBERT APPLEBAUM, Debate on Student Loan Debt Doesn’t Go Far Enough

“Education should be a right, not a commodity reserved only for the rich or those willing to hock their futures for the chance … to get a job.”

Analyzing a Visual: Student Loan Debt

JUSTIN WOLFERS, Forgive Student Loans? Worst Idea Ever

“If we are going to give money away, why on earth would we give it to college grads?”

14 TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM: USEFUL OR DISTRACTING?

SIG BEHRENS, The Education-Technology Revolution Is Coming

The general manager of Global Education at Stratasys contends that taking advantage of social media and mobile applications in classrooms will create positive changes in education.

Analyzing a Visual: Technology in Classrooms

RUTH STARKMAN, Cyberslacking in Shanghai: What My Students Taught Me

“You don’t really want to surf the Internet or text in class, do you? Unless you are prepared, or your family is, to pay $300 an hour to for you to zone out.”

15 THE LOCAL FOOD MOVEMENT: IS IT A BETTER WAY TO EAT?

STEPHEN BUDIANSKY, Math Lessons for Locavores

Local-food advocates need to learn, by considering statistics concerning calories of fossil fuel energy, that it is not sinful to eat a tomato that has been shipped across the country and it is not virtuous to eat a locally grown tomato that comes from a heated greenhouse.

Analyzing a Visual: Local Farming

KERRY TRUEMAN, The Myth of the Rabid Locavore

Trueman responds to Budiansky, claiming that he uses “a bunch of dubious and/or irrelevant statistics.”

16 THE CURRENT STATE OF CHILDHOOD: IS “HELICOPTER PARENTING” OR “FREE-RANGE CHILDHOOD” BETTER FOR KIDS?

NICK GILLESPIE, Millennials Are Selfish and Entitled, and Helicopter Parents Are to Blame

“We think on average that kids should be 10 years old before they ‘are allowed to play in the front yard unsupervised.’ Unless you live on a traffic island or a war zone, that’s just nuts.”

Analyzing a Visual: Overparenting

ALFIE KOHN, The One-Sided Culture War against Children

“There are, as far as I can tell, no good data to show that most parents do too much for their children. It’s all impressionistic, anecdotal and, like most announcements of trends, partly self- fulfilling.”

17 GENETIC MODIFICATION OF HUMAN BEINGS: IS IT ACCEPTABLE?

RONALD M. GREEN, Building Baby from the Genes Up

“Why should a child struggle with reading difficulties when we could alter the genes responsible for the problem?”

Analyzing a Visual: Genetic Modification of Human Beings

RICHARD HAYES, Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks

“We don’t want to run the huge risks to the human community and the human future that would come with altering the genetic basis of our common human nature.”

18 MANDATORY MILITARY SERVICE: SHOULD IT BE REQUIRED?

CHARLES RANGEL, The Draft Would Compel Us to Share the Sacrifice

A Korean War veteran and Democratic member of the House of Representatives argues for a national service requirement.

Analyzing a Visual: Military Recruiting

JAMES LACEY, We Need Trained Soldiers, Not a Horde of Draftees

Lacey responds directly to Rangel, arguing that no sound case exists for reinstating a national draft.

PART FIVE CURRENT ISSUES: CASEBOOKS

19 A COLLEGE EDUCATION: WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE? ANDREW DELBANCO, 3 Reasons College Still Matters

“The best chance we have to maintain a functioning democracy is a citizenry that can tell the difference between demagoguery and responsible arguments.”

CARLO ROTELLA, No, It Doesn’t Matter What You Majored In

“What matters is that you pursued training in the craft of mastering complexity, which you can apply in fields from advertising to zoo management.”

EDWARD CONARD, We Don’t Need More Humanities Majors

The author argues that people with degrees in technical fields are far better at growing the economy than those who get degrees in the humanities.

CHRISTIAN MADSBJERG AND MIKKEL B. RASMUSSEN, We Need More Humanities Majors

In response to Conard, Madsbjerg and Rasmussen argue that people with humanities degrees can be invaluable in solving business problems because of their ability to understand customers.

SCOTT SAMUELSON, Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers

A professor of philosophy asks, “what good, if any, is the study of the liberal arts, particularly subjects like philosophy? Why, in short, should plumbers study Plato?”

MARK SLOUKA, Mathandscience

“The sciences … produce people who study things, and who can therefore, presumably, make or fix or improve these things. The humanities don’t.”

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, Commencement Address, Kenyon College

The acclaimed essayist gives advice to college graduates on navitgating the “water” of everyday life.

20 RACE AND POLICE VIOLENCE: HOW DO WE SOLVE THE PROBLEM?

GENE DEMBY, The Birth of a New Civil Rights Movement

“The shattering events of 2014 … gave a new birth of passion and energy to a civil rights movement that had almost faded into history, and which had been in the throes of a slow comeback since the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012.”

HEATHER Mac DONALD, The New Nationwide Crime Wave

Mac Donald argues that America’s increase in violent crime is directly related to police reaction to criticisms about their actions in deadly encounters with young black men.

BALTIMORE SUN EDITORIAL BOARD, No “Ferguson Effect”

The editorial board of the Baltimore Sun responds to FBI Director James Comey’s public comments about a “YouTube effect” that began in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, and obstructed good police work across the country.

STEVE CHAPMAN, Are Blacks to Blame for Cops’ Actions?

Chapman argues that blaming the black community for violent crime by blacks overlooks the harsh realities of much of today’s crime.

DAVID H. BAYLEY, MICHAEL A. DAVIS, AND RONALD L. DAVIS, Race and Policing: An Agenda for Action

This call to action by members of the National Institute of Justice

“outlines what the police can do on their own initiative to deal with the operational dilemmas of race — in the communities they serve and in their own organizations.”

21 JUNK FOOD: SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT REGULATE OUR INTAKE?

ANONYMOUS EDITORIAL, NEW YORK TIMES, A Ban Too Far

“ … too much nannying with a ban might well cause people to tune out.”

LETTERS OF RESPONSE BY GARY TAUSTINE AND BRIAN ELBEL

Analyzing a Visual: The Nanny State

“New Yorkers need a Mayor, not a Nanny.”

DANIEL E. LIEBERMAN, Evolution’s Sweet Tooth

A biologist argues that because humans have evolved to crave sugar,“We have evolved to need coercion.”

DONALD MARRON, Should Governments Tax Unhealthy Foods and Drinks?

“Many nutrients and ingredients have been suggested as possible targets for taxes, including fat, saturated fat, salt, artificial sweeteners, and caffeine… . Sugar might be a plausible candidate.”

LETTERS OF RESPONSE BY FIZER ET AL.

22 ONLINE VERSUS IRL: HOW HAS SOCIAL NETWORKING CHANGED HOW WE RELATE TO ONE ANOTHER?

JULES EVANS, Are We Slaves to Our Online Selves?

“The more networked we are, the more our selves are ‘out there,’ online, made public and transparent to a million eyes.”

NAVNEET ALANG, Eat, Pray, Post

A journalist examines what types of videos go viral and explains how those videos point to the Westernization of the world at large.

TIM KREIDER, I Know What You Think of Me

“I’ve often thought that the single most devastating cyberattack a diabolical and anarchic mind could design would not be on the military or financial sector but simply to simultaneously make every e-mail and text ever sent universally public.”

CHARLES SEIFE, This Is Your Brain …

A professor of journalism at New York University argues that Internet games often encourage behavior that does not bring users enjoyment but provides game makers with valuable information.

STEPHEN MARCHE, Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?

The author argues that despite our new connectivity, we may be lonelier than ever before.

JOSH ROSE, How Social Media Is Having a Positive Impact on Our Culture

“The Internet doesn’t steal our humanity, it reflects it. The Internet doesn’t get inside us, it shows what’s inside us.”

23 IMMIGRATION: WHAT IS TO BE DONE? DAVID COLE, Five Myths about Immigration

A professor at Georgetown University argues that much of what we think we know about immigration is not true.

BARRY R. CHISWICK, The Worker Next Door

A specialist in the labor market dismisses the idea that immigrants fill a need for cheap labor: “The point is that with a decline in low- skilled foreign workers, life would go on.”

JOHN TIERNEY, Ángels in America

A journalist whose low-skilled grandfather came to America from Ireland asks why a comparable person cannot now come from Mexico.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, Our Brave New World of Immigration

“We ask too little of too many of our immigrants. We apparently don’t care whether they come legally or learn English.”

Analyzing Visuals: Immigration Then and Now

24 THE CARCERAL STATE: WHY ARE SO MANY AMERICANS IN JAIL?

ADAM GOPNIK, The Caging of America

“The basic reality of American prisons is not that of the lock and key but that of the lock and clock.”

HEATHER ANN THOMPSON, How Prisons Change the Balance of Power in America

“To an extent that few Americans have yet appreciated, record rates of incarceration have, in fact, undermined our American democracy, both by impacting who gets to vote and how votes are counted.”

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, The Cradle to Prison Pipeline

The founder of the Children’s Defense Fund argues that many children of color are susceptible to winding up in the prison system, likening this unsettling trend to an infectious disease overtaking children across America.

JED S. RAKOFF, Mass Incarceration: The Silence of the Judges

“For too long, too many judges have been too quiet about an evil of which we are a part: the mass incarceration of people in the United States today.”

PETER WAGNER AND BERNADETTE RABUY, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie

Members of the Prison Policy Initiative examine the complicated reasons why it is difficult to determine exactly how many people are incarcerated in the United States.

25 AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM: HOW SHOULD THE UNITED STATES TEACH ABOUT ITS PAST?

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF, Breaking Bad: America Has Used Walter White Logic since 9/11

An essayist uses Breaking Bad as an allegory for how America has compromised its principles since the events of September 11, 2001.

STEPHEN M. WALT, The Myth of American Exceptionalism

“What we need … is a more realistic and critical assessment of America’s true character and contributions.”

HERMAN CAIN, In Defense of American Exceptionalism

A Tea Party activist argues that American exceptionalism is justified.

CLIFFORD D. MAY, In Defense of American Exceptionalism

The president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies defends American exceptionalism in the face of criticism that such a concept is smug and narcissistic.

DAVID BROMWICH, It’s Time to Rethink American Exceptionalism

“To believe that our nation has always been exceptional … requires a suppression of ordinary skepticism. The belief itself calls for extraordinary arrogance or extraordinary hope in the believer.”

ELLEN BRESLER ROCKMORE, How Texas Teaches History

A professor at Dartmouth College argues that revisionist readings of history distort what actually occurred, often for the purpose of making the past abuses more palatable to contemporary audiences.

PART SIX ENDURING QUESTIONS: ESSAYS, A STORY, POEMS, AND A PLAY

26 WHAT IS THE IDEAL SOCIETY? THOMAS MORE, From Utopia

The writer who coined the word utopia in the sixteenth century presents his image of an ideal society.

NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI, From The Prince

What are the realities of politics? An observer of the Medici court in Renaissance Italy speaks his mind.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, The Declaration of Independence

American colonists state the reasons for their break with the king of England.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

The men and women at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention adopt a new declaration, accusing men of failures and crimes parallel to those that led Jefferson in 1776 to denounce George III.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., I Have a Dream

A civil rights leader shares his vision of the American dream.

W. H. AUDEN, The Unknown Citizen

“Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd.”

EMMA LAZARUS, The New Colossus

A poet welcomes immigrants making their way to America’s shores.

WALT WHITMAN, One Song, America, Before I Go

“I’d show, away ahead, thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish’d.”

URSULA K. LE GUIN, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

This short story tells of a happy society built on injustice. What should citizens do when they learn about the foundations of their happiness?

27 HOW FREE IS THE WILL OF THE INDIVIDUAL WITHIN SOCIETY?

Thoughts about Free Will

PLATO, Crito

Socrates, the founder of Western philosophy, argues that being wrongfully convicted gives you no right to escape your punishment, even if the punishment is death.

GEORGE ORWELL, Shooting an Elephant

“I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had [shot the elephant] solely to avoid looking a fool.”

WALTER T. STACE, Is Determinism Inconsistent with Free Will?

A philosopher explores the great question: Can we both act of our own free will and also be subject to the laws of nature?

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., A Call for Unity and Letter from Birmingham Jail

An imprisoned civil rights leader argues that victims of unjust laws have the right to break those laws as long as they use nonviolent tactics.

PETER CAVE, Man or Sheep?

“When asked whether man or mouse, some of us tend to squeak and take the cheese.”

THOMAS HARDY, The Man He Killed

In this poem, a man thinks about the time he killed another man in battle.

T. S. ELIOT, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

“In a minute there is time / For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

SUSAN GLASPELL, Trifles

Two women in this short play subvert the law because they believe it is fair to do so.

MITSUYE YAMADA, To the Lady

In this contemporary poem, a woman of Japanese birth asks what she should have done when ordered into an American internment camp in 1942.

28 WHAT IS HAPPINESS? Thoughts about Happiness, Ancient and Modern

DANIEL GILBERT, Does Fatherhood Make You Happy?

In an essay published on Father’s Day, a professor says, “When we pay a lot for something, we assume it makes us happy, which is why we swear to the wonders of bottled water and Armani socks… . Our children give us many things, but an increase in our average daily happiness is probably not among them.”

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Selections from Walden

“A man who has … found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in.”

DARRIN M. McMAHON, In Pursuit of Unhappiness

The idea that we should be happy, the author of this short history of happiness tells us, is only a few hundred years old.

EPICTETUS, From The Handbook

An ancient Stoic philosopher, born a slave, tells us that “everything has two handles, one by which it can be carried and one by which it cannot.” Happiness lies in taking things by the right handle.

BERTRAND RUSSELL, The Happy Life

One of the most famous philosophers of the twentieth century argues that “the happy life is to an extraordinary extent the same as the good life.”

THE DALAI LAMA AND HOWARD C. CUTLER, Inner Contentment

The spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, in conversation with an American physician, talks about the relationship between desire and contentment.

C. S. LEWIS, We Have No “Right to Happiness”

A noted writer says that more often than not the claim that we have a “right to happiness” really means a right to sexual happiness, but if we grant “every impulse … carte blanche … our civilization will have died at heart.” DANIELLE CRITTENDEN, About Love

A writer notes that some women find great happiness in marriage.

JUDY BRADY, I Want a Wife

A feminist sets forth her vision of marriage in America.

Index of Authors and Titles

Index of Terms

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PART ONE

Critical Thinking and Reading

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— RALPH WALDO EMERSON

— BERTRAND RUSSELL

A

1 Critical Thinking

What is the hardest task in the world? To think.

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

lthough Emerson said the hardest task in the world is simply “to think,” he was using the word think in the sense of critical thinking. By itself,

thinking can mean almost any sort of cognitive activity, from idle daydreaming (“I’d like to go camping”) to simple reasoning (“but if I go this week, I won’t be able to study for my chemistry exam”). Thinking by itself may include forms of deliberation and decision-making that occur so automatically they hardly register in our consciousness (“What if I do go camping? I won’t be likely to pass the exam. Then what? I better stay home and study”).

When we add the adjective critical to the noun thinking, we begin to examine this thinking process consciously. When we do this, we see that even our simplest decisions involve a fairly elaborate series of calculations. Just in choosing to study and not to go camping, for instance, we weighed the relative importance of each activity (both are important in different ways); considered our goals, obligations, and commitments (to ourselves, our parents, peers, and professors); posed questions and predicted outcomes (using experience and observation as evidence); and resolved to take the most prudent course of action.

Many people associate being critical with fault-finding and nit-picking. The word critic might conjure an image of a sneering art or food critic eager to gripe about everything that’s wrong with a particular work of art or menu item. People’s low estimation of the stereotypical critic comes to light humorously in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, when the two vagabond heroes, Vladimir and Estragon, engage in a name-calling contest to see who can hurl the worst insult at the other. Estragon wins hands-down when he fires the ultimate invective:

V: Moron!

E: Vermin!

V: Abortion!

E: Morpion!

V: Sewer-rat!

E: Curate!

V: Cretin!

E: (with finality) Crritic!

V: Oh! (He wilts, vanquished, and turns away)

However, being a good critical thinker isn’t the same as being a “critic” in the derogatory sense. Quite the reverse: Because critical thinkers approach difficult questions and seek intelligent answers, they must be open-minded and self-aware, and they must interrogate their own thinking as rigorously as they interrogate others’. They must be alert to their own limitations and biases, the quality of evidence and forms of logic they themselves tentatively offer. In college, we may not aspire to become critics, but we all should aspire to become better critical thinkers.

Becoming more aware of our thought processes is a first step in practicing critical thinking. The word critical comes from the Greek word krinein, meaning “to separate, to choose”; above all, it implies conscious inquiry. It suggests that by breaking apart, or examining, our reasoning we can understand better the basis of our judgments and decisions — ultimately, so that we can make better ones.

Thinking through an Issue: Gay Marriage Licenses By way of illustration, let’s examine a case from Kentucky that was reported widely in the news in 2015. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision making gay marriage legal in all fifty states, a Rowan County clerk, Kim Davis, refused to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Citing religious freedom as her reason, Davis contended that the First Amendment of the Constitution protects her from being forced to act against her religious convictions and conscience. As a follower of Apostolic Christianity, she believes gay marriage is not marriage at all. To act against her belief, she said, “I would be asked to violate a central teaching of

Scripture and of Jesus Himself regarding marriage… . It is not a light issue for me. It’s a Heaven or Hell decision.”

Let’s think critically about this — and let’s do it in a way that’s fair to all parties and not just a snap judgment. Critical thinking means questioning not only the beliefs and assumptions of others, but also one’s own beliefs and assumptions. We’ll discuss this point at some length later, but for now we’ll say only that when writing an argument you ought to be thinking — identifying important problems, exploring relevant issues, and evaluating available evidence — not merely collecting information to support a pre- established conclusion.

In 2015, Kim Davis was an elected county official. She couldn’t be fired from her job for not performing her duties because she had been placed in that position by the vote of her constituency. And as her lawyers pointed out, “You don’t lose your conscience rights, or your religious freedom rights, or your constitutional rights just because you accept public employment.” However, once the Supreme Court established the legality of same-sex marriage, Davis’s right to exercise her religious freedom impinged upon others’ abilities to exercise their equal right to marriage (now guaranteed to them by the federal government). And so there was a problem: Whose rights have precedence?

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We may begin to identify important problems and explore relevant issues by using a process called clustering. (We illustrate clustering again on p. 13.) Clustering is a method of brainstorming, a way of getting ideas on paper to see what develops, what conflicts and issues exist, and what tentative conclusions you can draw as you begin developing an argument. To start clustering, take a sheet of paper, and in the center jot down the most basic issue you can think of related to the problem at hand. In our example, we wrote a sentence that we think gets at the heart of the matter. It’s important to note that we conducted this demonstration in “real time” — just a few minutes — so if our thoughts seem incomplete or off-the-cuff, that’s fine. The point of clustering is to get ideas on paper. Don’t be afraid to write down whatever you think, because you can always go back, cross out, rethink. This process of working through an issue can be messy. In a sense, it involves conducting an argument with yourself.

At the top of our page we wrote, “The law overrides individual religious freedom.” (Alternatively, we could have written from the perspective of Davis and her supporters, saying “Individual religious freedom supersedes the law,” and seen where that might have taken us.) Once we have a central idea, we let

our minds work and allow one thought to lead to another. We’ve added numbers to our thoughts so you can follow the progression of our thinking.

Notice that from our first idea about the law being more important than individual religious freedom, we immediately challenged our initial thinking. The law, in fact, protects religious freedom (2), and in some cases allows individuals to “break the law” if their religious rituals require it. We learned this when we wrote down a number of illegal activities sometimes associated with religion, and quickly looked up whether or not there was a legal precedent protecting these activities. We found the Supreme Court has allowed for the use of illegal drugs in some ceremonies (Gonzalez v. O Centro Espirita), and for the ritual sacrifice of animals in another (Church of Lakumi

Bablu Aye v. Hialeah). Still, religions cannot do anything they want in the name of religious freedom. Religions cannot levy taxes, or incarcerate or kill people, for example. We then realized that what religions do as part of their ceremonies is not really the issue at all. The questions we are asking have to do with Kim Davis, her individual religious freedom, and what the law might force her to do (4).

Individuals cannot simply break the law and claim religious exemption. But the government cannot force people to act against their religious beliefs (5). Then (6) it occurred to us that Davis isn’t just any citizen but a government employee whose job is to issue marriage licenses under the law. She may be free to believe what she wants and exercise her rights accordingly, but she cannot use her authority legally as a government official to deny people the rights they’ve been afforded by law.

We then posed several questions to ourselves in trying to determine the right way to think. We considered whether Davis should resign or be fired (7), which we then realized isn’t possible (8, 9), and we wondered how else a person may be removed from office (10). We considered her as a figure of civil disobedience, defying the law in defense of religious liberties (11), trying to see the situation from her perspective. But we returned again to the idea that she isn’t just a regular citizen but an agent of the law whose oath compels her to uphold the law (6). She shouldn’t be able to use her authority to deprive others of exercising their rights. We also considered that the government doesn’t take particular interest in the religious basis of marriage (12), so why should Davis be permitted to impose her religious beliefs on a lawful act of marriage?