Beyond Feelings

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Issue Pornography’s influence Effects of being punched The age of responsibility Questions CHAPTER 17 Conducting Inquiry What attitudes does pornography cultivate toward love, marriage, and commitment? Does it, as some claim, celebrate the brutalization of women and glamorize rape? Does it make men see women as persons or as objects? Does it elevate or degrade those who read/view it? Exactly what effect does a punch have on the human body, particularly the brain? What is the cumulative effect of the punches received during ten or fifteen rounds of boxing? During a career? Is it reasonable or fair to hold people responsible for their actions before they are old enough to understand the moral and legal quality of those actions? At what age does a person reach such understanding? Fields with Direct Bearing Sociology Psychology Literary criticism Ethics Religion Anatomy and physiology Medicine (especially neurology) Psychology Education Psychology Medicine Ethics Law 189 One of the greatest challenges to critical thinking is the temptation to stop inquiring when you find a knowledgeable person who supports your bias. The temptation will be especially strong when that person is the first one you encounter. You will want to say, “This is the definitive answer. Case closed!” If you follow this inclination, you will trivialize the issue and cheat yourself of genuine understanding. An issue is, by definition, a matter about which informed, careful thinkers may disagree. A caution is in order here: To say that it is important to examine both sides of an issue does not mean that both sides are equal in merit. Often there will be enough merit on each side to make judgment difficult, but that never justifies the avoidance of judgment.
190 PART THREE A Strategy Managing Lengthy Material Often your inquiry will take you beyond editorials and brief essays to full-length articles and books. These longer works are more difficult to evaluate because the core arguments are seldom presented neatly and compactly. The authors of these arguments do not intend to make analysis difficult—it is simply the nature of the writing process. Responsible authors of journal articles and books do not merely present lists of bald assertions; they support their views with evidence. They also add sufficient explanation to satisfy the demands of clarity and define the path their reasoning has taken. Sometimes the path has numerous turns, so secondary assertions must be added to complement and refine primary ones. As anecdotes multiply, as experimental and statistical data are reported and annotated, and as testimony is detailed, the essential argument can become almost as concealed as the hidden premises it sometimes contains. One premise may be stated on page 2, another on page 5, and the conclusion on page 12. Before you can evaluate the argument in these cases, you need to consolidate it. Here is a strategy for doing so: 1. After reading the article or book, go back and identify the key assertions. Most paragraphs contain one or more assertions (topic sentences). Scan these and determine which are central to the argument. Subheadings usually signal important assertions, as do capital letters, boldface, and italics. Look, too, for intensifying words such as moreover, indeed, more (most) important, and more (most) significant. 2. Identify the author’s conclusion. The conclusion may appear anywhere, but commonly it appears as follows: in an article—right after the introduction, in the conclusion, or in both places; in a book—in the first or second chapter, in the last chapter, or in both places. Expressions like for these reasons, thus, consequently, so, and therefore signal conclusions. 3. Notice any qualifying words used in the key assertions or the conclusion. Is the writer speaking of all people, places, or things? Or is she speaking of most, many, some, several, a few, or certain specified ones? Is she saying always, usually, sometimes, occasionally, seldom, never, or at certain specified times? Often writers will make an assertion and then balance it in the next sentence. They often lead into the second sentence with words like but, however, nevertheless, on the other hand, still, or yet. 4. Note the amount, kinds, and sources of evidence used to support the assertions. Chapter 6 discussed numerous kinds of evidence. Review that chapter, if necessary. 5. Notice the conditions the author includes. Saying, for example, “Drug pushers should be given long jail terms if they are not themselves drug users and have been previously convicted of drug pushing” is very different from saying, “Drug pushers should be given long jail terms.” The “if” clause adds a special set of conditions. Similarly, saying, “The United States should never fire a nuclear missile at another
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Beyond Feelings A Guide to Critical
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To the memory of Howard Trumble, wh
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vi CONTENTS Imperfect Memory 35 Def
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viii CONTENTS Using Your Inventory
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xii PRFACE Aimee Ross-Kilroy, Loyol
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CHAPTER 1 Who Are You? Suppose some
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CHAPTER 8 The Basic Problem: ”Min
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