Beyond Feelings

204 PART THREE A Strategy
and dismiss their reports as unreliable. Others, of course, will regard us
no differently. If you want your judgments to stand the test of scrutiny
by others, avoid all exaggeration. When you cannot be certain your
judgment is accurate, you should tend to err on the side of understatement
rather than overstatement. In other words, you should argue the
more modest interpretation, the less extreme conclusion. That way, if
you are wrong—as every human will sometimes be—you will at least
have the saving grace of having demonstrated a sense of control and
restraint.
The critical thinking strategy presented in this chapter and the four
preceding chapters may be summarized as follows:
1. Know yourself and remain mindful of the ways in which your habits
of mind undermine your treatment of issues.
2. Be observant and reflect on what you see and hear.
3. When you identify an issue, clarify it by listing its aspects and raising
probing questions about each.
4. Conduct a thorough inquiry, obtaining all relevant facts and
informed opinions.
5. Evaluate your findings, and then form and express your judgment.
This summary is a convenient checklist. Refer to it whenever you examine
issues.
Applications
1. Analyze two of the following summaries in the manner demonstrated in
the chapter. Be sure to get beyond your first impressions, and avoid the errors in
thinking summarized in Chapter 13. Answer all the questions you raise, deciding
exactly in what ways you agree with the idea and in what ways you disagree.
a. Feeling and intuition are better guides to behavior than is reasoning. We
need immediate answers to many of our problems today, and feeling and
intuition are almost instantaneous, while reasoning is painfully slow.
Moreover, feeling and intuition are natural, uncorrupted by artificial
values and codes imposed on us by society. Reasoning is a set of programmed
responses—tight, mechanical, and unnatural. Thus, if we wish
to achieve individuality, to express our real inner self, the part of us that
is unconditioned by others, we should follow our feelings and intuitions
instead of our thoughts.
b. It is commonly accepted that the best way to improve the world and relations
among its people is for everyone to curb his or her own self-interest
and think of others. This concern with others is the basic idea in the Golden
Rule and in most religions. It is, of course, questionable whether that goal
is realizable. But, more important, it is mistaken. It is not selfishness but
the pretense of altruism that sets person against person. If everyone looked
out for himself or herself, and pursued his or her own interests, there
would be not only less hypocrisy in the world but more understanding.