ethics & critical thinking journal

Ethics, Education, and Reasoning

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• Alessia Marabini 13  

Part of the book series: Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education ((COPT,volume 20))

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Methods based on ‘technical’ skills assessable on objective standards do not suffice to form critical abilities. Following contemporary virtue epistemologists , I will contend that what crucially matters is the acquisition of appropriate sensitivity , mental attitudes and character traits that inform and help students’ epistemic evaluations. I will suggest that this view, when applied to general education, corresponds to a generalisation of Matthew Lipman’s thesis that education in ethics can only take place as an activity that allows for the forming of a sensitivity . This is so because the problem is often not individuating the relevant values or principles, already generally shared, but understanding how these principles and values should be applied in judgements made in specific situations. I will defend, with others, the view that teaching how to think critically comes together with the formation of the character of the fair-minded sophisticated thinker, rather than the mere skillful sophisticated thinker. Nevertheless, my conception of critical thinking also presupposes a genuine transmission of contents , where these contents are thought of as patterns of material inferences shared by a cultural tradition.

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The positions of Megan Laverty ( 2004 , quoted in Marabini, 2006 , pp. 6–8) and Standish and Thoilliez ( 2018 ) are also placed on a similar line. According to Laverty, one of the contexts that favour ethics education by promoting understanding of the common art of living well— even more than social behaviours instilled from the outside—is philosophical dialogue. An education to ethics through philosophical dialogue means, for the scholar, an education in the art of living a good life that even goes beyond the very concept of ethics as a virtue . Laverty’s article takes its cue from a reflection on the relationship between ethics and philosophical dialogue in relation to three fundamental aspects: research, virtue and love. The sphere of ethics is in turn understood as articulated on other aspects. In the first place, it consists in the possibility of a reasonableness of the ethics obtained through a discourse of rational analysis or discourse; in the second place as the practice and formation of habits to ethical behaviours through the development of ethical virtue as an education in dispositions to action; thirdly, as a dimension of the ineffable, in the sense of a transcendence of the egoistic self and overcoming of the self. It is this third dimension that represents the most interesting aspect of the use of philosophical dialogue in education. It is a question of ethically transforming human subjectivity through what Laverty, in one word, calls love . More than through reasonableness or predisposition to virtue, philosophical dialogue is an activity that allows the encounter with otherness and that makes it similar to those activities that have the dual function of resisting individual self-absorption and revealing to the individual how reality appears when contemplation is not mediated by the ego. These activities include, for example, the pleasure of studying, the concentration that is achieved when reading literature or studying a foreign language, the aesthetic experience of art when observing a work of art or performing manual work. They allow the speaker to go beyond herself. The reference to philosophy in this third sense, as an activity endowed in itself with a value within an ethical approach, and not only as a means or tool for achieving goals external to it, makes it particularly endowed with a formative value (Laverty, 2004 ; Marabini, 2006 ). Even the aesthetic experience becomes, in this context, an ethical experience that predisposes to the formation of virtues. However, what appears particularly important in Laverty’s reflection is that the interesting aspect of the theories centred on virtues, ethical or aesthetic, lies not only in their capacity as reflections on ethics and human conduct, but also in being a foundation for the development of important epistemic theories. Compared to a widespread epistemological tradition, they present the novelty of focusing on aspects of the agent’s character and the social dimension within an explanation of what knowledge consists of. Not far from these positions are some reflections by Standish and Thoilliez, which start from a partially critical conception of the standardised and formal version of critical thinking. Standish and Thoilliez confer value to j udgement in the aesthetic field intended not as a tool, but as a constitutive value in the development of a good life, through the formation of a critical identity within a research community.

For example, in the well-known dialogue by Plato, Meno , knowledge is compared to the statues of Daedalus, which must be tied in order to remain firmly in their position. Likewise, in knowledge, opinions or beliefs that are true but potentially elusive because they are subject to objections, are made firm through the reasons which thus constitute a justification .

This paragraph takes up some arguments developed in presentations delivered respectively by Alessia Marabini and Annalisa Cattani ( 2010 ) at APA, Eastern Division Annual Conference, Boston, Alessia Marabini ( 2015 ) at Plato Annual Conference, Seattle, and in Sean Moran’s doctoral thesis (2011).

Modus tollens can be described as the rule according to which ‘If p , then q ’ is logically equivalent to ‘If not-q , then not-p ’. Thus, safety and sensitivity are not equivalent because according to safety ––but not to sensitivity––‘If p happened, then q would happen’ is not logically equivalent to ‘If q didn’t happen, then p wouldn’t happen’.

Imposing safety as a necessary condition for knowledge allows us to consider, correctly, the cases introduced by Gettier as situations of non-knowledge . If p in fact means ‘It is twelve o’clock” and the method used by S to believe p is to observe the stopped clock, this method does not satisfy Safety. In fact, if we consider circumstances very similar to the current ones in which S simply looks at the clock a few seconds before noon, we see that in that case, the antecedent of Safety is true, but the consequent is false.

“Critical thinking educational models are a diverse lot. Some combine a focus on critical thinking skills with a focus on ‘critical spirit’ or good intellectual ‘dispositions’ which are very much like (if not identical to) intellectual character virtues. For our purposes, it will be helpful to consider an approach that focuses strictly on the development of critical thinking skills or abilities . Let us stipulate that the approach in question is rigorous, demanding competence in complex forms of reasoning across a wide range of different content areas. While satisfying the desideratum of intellectual rigour, there is no guarantee that this approach will be sufficiently personal. The primary concern of a teacher on this model will be whether her students are developing the ability to reason in the relevant ways. She might be unconcerned with whether they are developing a motivation or inclination to think in these ways outside of class. And even if she does have this concern, it will not (as such) be situated within a broader commitment to nurturing the intellectual character of her students, that is, to their becoming more curious, open–minded, fair–minded, intellectually courageous, persevering, and so on. In trying to impart the relevant skills, she might even be oblivious to such considerations” (Baehr, 2013 , p. 252).

After that first approach to CBE in 1992, some new considerations have been taken into account, like the fact that criteria of economic utility might have c hanged , up to the point of requiring new kind of skills like ‘soft’ skills. A new set of key competencies was then introduced which should have fostered, in learners, first adaptability , like problem solving––which leads to pure cognitive questions––, second, a better understanding of emotions ––which are intended as non-cognitive questions––, third ethics and morality for a citizenship education and other aspects connected to individual good life . Nonetheless, according to some critics, rather than trying to solve the conflict among traditional indicators of competencies and the new demands previously excluded, this operation was done without putting into question our idea of society.

According to Rosa, social acceleration is a totalitarian form in and of modern society. For Rosa this kind of totalitarianism should not be intended as a political dictator, or political group, class or party; rather in late-modern property society, the totalitarian power rests in an abstract principle that nevertheless subjects all who live under its rule (Rosa, 2010 , p. 61).

Paul and Elder (2007a, pp. 6–8) report that the qualities that the National Society of Professional Engineers ( 2003 ) introduces into the Code of Ethics for Engineers , 2003, characterise the professionalism of the engineer who consciously restricts his professional judgements to those domains with respect to which he is professionally qualified.

In their Critical Thinking handbook (1997), Paul, Binker, Jensen and Kreklau introduce at least seven interdependent traits of the mind that teachers should cultivate if they want students to become critical thinkers in the strong sense ( 1997 , p. 381). Among these are Intellectual humility , Intellectual Courage, Intellectual Empathy Intellectual Good Faith (Integrity), Intellectual Perseverance, Faith in Reason and Intellectual Sense of Justice . According to the authors these intellectual traits are interdependent. If we consider, for example, Intellectual humility which is described as “Awareness of the limits of one’s knowledge, including sensitivity to circumstances in which one’s native egocentrism is likely to function self-deceptively; sensitivity to bias and prejudice and limitations of one’s viewpoint (Paul et al., 1997 , p. 381)”—i.e., the trait of mind necessary to become aware of the limits of our knowledge—we need then the courage to face our own prejudices and ignorance. But we will not make that effort unless we have faith in reason that we will not be deceived by whatever is false or misleading in the opposing viewpoint, and intellectual sense of justice . Moreover, we must recognise an intellectual responsibility to be fair to views we oppose. We must feel obliged to hear them in their strongest form to ensure that we are not condemning them out of ignorance or bias on our part. At the end, we come back to where we began: the need for Intellectual humility (Paul et al., 1997 , p. 382). I think that these traits, which are applicable in all domains of knowledge, perfectly fit what should represent, in my view, the unique way of giving substance to the aim of fostering a key competence like the capacity to learn or learning to learn . Unfortunately, making clear the difference between selfish and fair-minded thought still does not seem to be a priority in schooling nowadays like the authors by the time this work was published in 1997 had already observed. Though many students develop critical thinking competences those reasoning are used to advance selfish aims and prudential ethics.

To this purpose, Byrne shows a case of rational imagination through counterfactual reasoning in the speech made by Martin Luther King a decade after being attacked in 1958: “Martin Luther King Jr. almost died when he was stabbed in 1958. A decade later he made the following remarks during a speech: ‘The tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta… It came out in The New York Times the next morning that if I had merely sneezed I would have died… And I want to say tonight, I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn’t sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1960 when students all over the South started sitting in at lunch counters… If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been here in 1963 when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation and brought into being the Civil Rights bill… If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have had the chance later that year in August to try to tell America about a dream that I had had… I’m so happy that I didn’t sneeze’” (Byrne, 2005 ).

In a conference held in December 2010 at the APA Eastern Division Annual Conference (Marabini & Cattani, 2010 ) as part of the ICPIC panel, I argued that the topic of Lisa’s dilemma could be understood by taking the cue from some reflections by Williamson on counterfactual and the problem of knowledge extension––a problem at the time not taken into great consideration by the analytic current––and some research by the psychologist Byrne on rational imagination and counterfactual reasoning. On that occasion, I also emphasized the fact that the position I held was different from that of Lipman and Sharp on one point. The two authors warn that epistemic questions concern the application of universal and universally valid laws, while the same cannot be said for ethical questions for the reason that the latter require consideration of circumstances and situations and therefore ask for judgements on the premises of the argument. My position was that those ethical questions, for this very reason, are similar to epistemic questions, provided that an essential problem for the latter is that of explaining how the process of knowledge extension can take place. In a way similar to ethical problems, also in the epistemic case the capacity of judgement is required as research and investigation on the premises of the arguments in which some universal values or universally shared ethical principles appear. Judgement constitutes an act of freedom and typically human will to submit to the norm.

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Marabini, A. (2022). Ethics, Education, and Reasoning. In: Critical Thinking and Epistemic Injustice. Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95714-8_3

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The Ethics of Corporate Critical Thinking

Corporate Ethics for Turbulent Markets

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Publication date: 30 April 2019

Executive Summary

“The unexamined life is not worth living” (Socrates). That is, without critically inquiring into the knowledge of life which is well-being and valuable, life is not worth living. Critical thinking questions existing theories and their unexamined and obsessive assumptions and generalizations, constraints, and “best” practices of the prevailing system of management and tries to replace them with more valid assumptions and generalizations that uphold the dignity, uniqueness, and inalienable rights of the individual person and the community. Better outcomes result from asking the right questions than from having the right answers. In the diverse, pluralist cultural environment of today, the promise of a truly generative dialog among Occidental (Western) and Oriental (Eastern) cultures and civilizations holds great hope for the future. Critical thinking (CT) is an “inclusive” thinking system that can facilitate this dialog such that all of us have a meaningful space and place in this universe. After defining CT and arguing its importance for executives, this chapter introduces CT in two parts: Part 1: Various Approaches to Critical Thinking; Part 2: Major Theories of Critical Thinking. Several contemporary business cases will be invoked to illustrate the need, nature, and scope of corporate CT.

Oswald A. J. Mascarenhas, S.J. (2019), "The Ethics of Corporate Critical Thinking", Corporate Ethics for Turbulent Markets ( Corporate Ethics for Turbulent Markets ), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 151-182. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-191-520191006

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5.1. Introduction

The word critical (from the Greek word kritikos ) means to question, to make sense of, or able to analyze. It is by questioning, by making sense of things, events, and people, and by analyzing them that we examine and improve our thinking and the thinking of others (Chaffee, 1988, p. 29). The word critical is also related to the word criticize that implies questioning and evaluation in a constructive way. Thus, at an initial and etymological level, critical thinking is thinking that questions and challenges our past and present thinking on subjects and objects, their properties, and events . Critical thinking (CT) is constructive thinking about the world of ours that questions and evaluates its operations, history, and management.

The word “critical” is closely associated with the concept of a threshold or a critical point . For instance, in physics, the critical point is the point above or below which certain physical changes will not occur. In thermodynamics, the properties of the substance at this point are called its critical constants . There are numerous other instances of this application of the word critical as “limiting.” Applied to business knowledge, critical point would mean a critical threshold beyond which we want the students to emerge free from their “critical constants” of management orthodoxy, apathy and malaise, value-hibernation, self-centered rigidity and individuality to thinking for others, for the six billion that are poor in the world, and the masses that our business education or capitalist system does not directly benefit.

CT thinks beyond the short-term to the long-term goals and consequences of our thinking, decisions, choices, and actions. CT, therefore, thinks beyond revenues, market share, profits, and shareholder value to other bottom lines that include the intended and unintended long-term consequences of corporate decision-making, strategies, and implementations.

CT is a discipline that questions and challenges “our prevailing system of management” and its assumptions and generalizations. In the process, it is an attempt in transforming the prevailing system of management. Dr. William Edwards Deming (1900-1993), author of Total Quality Management (TQM) believed that a “common system of management” governed our modern institutions and, in particular, formed a deep connection between work and school. From early infancy, we have been socialized in ways of thinking and acting that are embedded in our most formative institutional experiences. The relationship between a boss and subordinate is the same as the relationship between a teacher and student. The teacher sets the goals; the students respond to them. The teacher has the answer; the students work to get the answer. Students know when they have succeeded because the teacher tells them so. By the time the children are 10, they all know what it takes to get ahead in school and please the teacher – a lesson they carry forward in their later academic and management careers. Hence, Deming would often say, “We will never transform the prevailing system of management without transforming our prevailing system of education. They are the same system.” In a broader role, CT questions and challenges our current system of education.

5.2. Why Do We Need Critical Thinking?

We need to own and respond to problems that we are or that we create before we pass the buck on to others. Stephen Covey said it eloquently: “If you think the problem is out there , that very thought is the problem.” Lack of CT makes us either incapable of recognizing problems and their severity in ourselves or the organizations we work for, or we flatly trace their origin to others.

We have never critiqued our education and learning systems: what are we teaching, how do we teach, what do students learn, how do they use this knowledge, and what are the long-term good outcomes of our education systems on society? This is CT and its application. David Orr (1991), an environmental educator, reminded us long back that our education system could unwittingly create monsters like Hitler and Stalin. These perpetrators of the Holocaust were heirs of Kant and Goethe. In most respects, the Germans were the most educated people on earth, but their education did not serve them as an adequate barrier to barbarity. This is lack of CT of our education system.

David Orr (1991) argues that education is no guarantee of decency, prudence, or wisdom. More of the same kind of education will only compound our problems. This is not an argument for ignorance, but rather a statement that the worth of education must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival – the issues now looming so large before us in the decade of the 1990s and beyond. It is not education that will save us, but education of a certain kind. It should be an education that can stand the scrutiny of CT.

The role of a teacher , a professional role, can be kept analytically separate from the role of a scholar . Scholarship implies realized expertise or developing expertise in one’s field, regular updating of one’s skills, intellectual honesty, and respecting intellectual property. The role of a teacher is to communicate one’s expertise and skills, and advances of knowledge to one’s students. Both roles assume and imply ethical responsibilities.

Critical filtering of one’s knowledge before it is communicated to others is important. CT makes us good and professional scholars that become the “conscience” of our discipline or field. A good scholar owes it to his/her profession to be its own objective critic. A scholar who loves his/her profession is not afraid to criticize it. A good person who loves his/her institution is not afraid to criticize it.

5.3. A Moral Canvas for Critical Thinking

The Prevailing System of Management with its Constraints and Regimentation.

GAIL Pipeline Blast Kills

An explosion in a Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) pipeline around 5:00 a.m. Friday, June 27, 2014, near Nagaram Village, East Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India, killed at least 20 people while injuring 18 others and damaging 50 houses. Massive fires gutted houses, vehicles, and coconut orchards, leaving a trail of destruction in the village. Coconut orchards were reduced to ashes and several other crops were damaged too. Over 300 birds which included several species like cormorant, pond heron, and common crane (Eurasian crane) were also killed. The injured were rushed to different hospitals nearby in the district. Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh (AP), N. Chandrababu Naidu, who was then in Delhi, and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan visited Nagaram and also the hospitals where the injured were being treated.

Once the blast was reported, there was almost no time to act as the damages were caused almost instantaneously. Though GAIL officials were successful in cutting off the gas supply to the suspect pipeline within 15 minutes, this duration was enough for the crisis to wreak enormous damage to the area affected, in terms of both losses to the local populace and also destruction of property and resources. GAIL dispatched multiple teams to undertake foot-patrol of every inch of its pipeline network in the KG basin to check on its deficiencies.

Allegedly, GAIL had not paid attention to the many complaints on gas leaks that were made by the Nagaram villagers. They said that the pipelines were laid 15–20 years ago and had become corroded and defective. The Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD), under the petroleum ministry, carries out periodical safety checks and audits of oil and gas installations across the country. Apparently, they did not detect the GAIL pipeline defects near Nagaram village. Moreover, OISD has only powers of recommendation. It is not a statutory body. Often, its recommendations have not been taken seriously. There have been talks now of giving it such an authority, but it has not materialized yet.

GAIL is a Government of India undertaking and is India’s largest state-owned natural gas processing and distribution company. It procures natural gas from ONGC, Reliance Industries, and Cairn Energy. It has 850 kilometers of gas pipelines in Andhra Pradesh and supplies natural gas to 37 industrial units. A winner of the prestigious award Maharatna, GAIL is known for high standards in terms of quality. As per industry rules, GAIL did follow all statutory and safety guidelines in their operations. They also had ensured that the pipeline had been certified safe by various national and international agencies. The probability of a leak being present in their pipeline for so long without any action being taken would therefore have been very small.There are over a dozen gas-gathering stations in the area. GAIL supplies gas to 37 industrial units in Andhra Pradesh, including the Lanco Kondapalli power project near Vijayawada. Operations at Lanco, however, were not affected as they resumed gas supply through an alternative pipeline. Supply to the 1,466 megawatt Lanco power station was restored within a few hours. GAIL supplies 0.7 million British thermal units (BTU) a day to the Lanco plant.

The sudden stoppage of supply of natural gas to industries in Kakinada from the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) Tatipaka terminal seems to have an adverse impact on the urea production. However, the absence of the supply of natural gas has forced the Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited (NFCL), the largest manufacturer of fertilizer, to stop production forcibly in its plants located in the city. The firm that produces 4,600 tons of urea a day was in idle mode for the next two weeks, which cost Rs 1.5 crore a day in terms of halted production.

GAIL faced a dilemma as to how to address this situation in the future. Even though there is a valve at every 40 km of the pipeline and it gets shut in case of a leak, layout of pipelines through the residential area is protested by people. Though they reestablished supply to the various industries in the neighboring regions through an alternate pipeline quite briskly, their goodwill and industry standing had taken a battering. Further, the blast also resulted in major capital losses through the destruction of the pipeline and loss of the gas that is transported.

The Petroleum Minister Pradhan has ordered an inquiry into this debacle by a committee headed by a joint secretary and with representatives from the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, the OISD, and the National Disaster Management Authority.

A public interest litigation was filed in the High Court seeking directions to the GAIL to shift the gas control station (GCS) located in the midst of a habitation to an isolated place with immediate effect. The Hyderabad High Court on Monday, June 30, 2014, directed the central government to file its reply within three weeks to a petition that sought the shifting of gas collecting station (GCS) and pipelines of GAIL from Nagaram area of East Godavari district.

In a late-evening press release on Friday, June 27, 2014, ONGC said there could be minor gas leaks in the trunk line, which due to zero wind in the vicinity get settled over the area. During the early hours, when someone lights a stove for daily chores, the settled gas could trigger fire amounting to a pipeline explosion. The GAIL terminal was closed instantly, but it took 15 minutes for the gas source to cease. In the intervening time, the remaining gas in the pipeline might have caught fire and caused the burst of the GAIL’s trunk line.

Ethical Questions

Define the GAIL pipeline disaster as an ethical organizational crisis. Describe its antecedents, determinants, symptoms, concomitants, and consequences in relation to GAIL.

Some crises can be recurrent and non-preventable, whether they are system breakdowns, human interventions, or natural disasters. To which type does GAIL pipeline blast belong and why? To what extent is ONGC’s explanation of this blast a crisis that is recurrent and non-preventable, and why?

Other crises are rare but their organizational impact is high. Effective management of such a crisis is difficult and often partial. Does the GAIL pipeline blast belong to this category?

In general, most organizational crises imply and/or accompany losses of capital, human resources, revenues, and reputation. Assess these losses for the Nagarjuna village and for GAIL. Assess GAIL’s moral responsibility to prevent such disasters.

Hence, argue, develop, and justify an ethics of organizational crisis by content, goals, and objectives. Compare it to the Bhopal Spill of December 2–3, 1984.

Apply CT principles: which did GAIL violate most and why?

Apply ethical theory principles of teleology, deontology, distributive justice, and corrective justice: which ethical theory and its principles did GAIL (together with OISD and ONGC) compromise most and why?

Hence, how would you detect, avert, and preempt such disasters in the future, especially in relation to the powerless poor villages of India?

Andy Fastow’s Critical Thinking After His Prison Sentence Experience

For six years in a row, Fortune magazine named Enron the “Most Innovative Company,” and Fastow himself was praised for his creative use of structured finance and off-balance sheet accounting.

Released from the Prison in 2011 after serving a sentence for six years, Andy Fastow, ex-CFO Enron, addressed University of New Mexico (UNM) B-students. The presentation, titled “Rules versus Principles,” was put on by the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative at UNM, which supports business ethics education. In a rare public lecture, Andy Fastow held up his “CFO of the Year” award in one hand, and his federal prison ID card in the other and said: “I got both of these for doing the exact same thing,” he said before a crowd of eager UNM business students.

Fastow went on to talk about his role in the biggest corporate scandal of the century and the lessons he learned about the ethics of business. In 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated Fastow’s role in hiding massive amounts of Enron’s debt using off-balance sheet accounting and special-purpose entities. Fastow was eventually convicted of fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy and was forced to forfeit nearly US$24 million in assets. He was sentenced to six years in federal prison and was released in December 2011.

The collapse of Enron was a dramatic example of the failure of business people to put principles before rules, Fastow explained – a mistake that corporations and governments still make to this day. “I didn’t set out to commit fraud,” Fastow said. “I cannot remember any time that I ever considered I was committing fraud.”

Fastow described the strange world that a CFO operates in, a gray area where the rules set by regulators are complex, vague, and sometimes nonexistent. This gray area can be seen as an opportunity, a chance for businesses to interpret the rules to suit their needs, he said. In these situations, it is incredibly important for individuals and organizations to recognize unethical behavior and determine the best ways to proceed, he said. “I thought I was so smart; I thought I was a hero for bending the rules,” Fastow said. “It comes down to individual people making a decision – we always asked ‘is it allowed?’ not ‘is it the right thing to do?’”

His message to the students was simple: rules and regulations are not enough. Only employees can make a difference by standing up and saying “no” when they encounter unethical practices in their business careers.

“You can always find an attorney to get you the answer you want. You can always find an accountant to get you the answer you want,” Fastow said. “There’s only one gatekeeper – you.”

Source : Baca, Jonathan (2014, November 25). Ex-Enron CFO gives ethics lecture. DailyLobo.Com . Retrieved from http://www.dailylobo.com/article/2014/11/11-25-enron-cfo-speech . Jonathan Baca is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at [email protected] , or on Twitter@JonGabrielB .

5.4. Part 1: Various Approaches to Critical Thinking

The concept of “critical thinking” is variedly defined in the relevant literature. We select a few thematic views of CT, especially as they relate to business and ethics of business education.

5.4.1. Critical Thinking as Making Better Sense of the World Around Us

Chaffee (1988, p. 26) views CT as an active and organized effort to make a better sense of the world around us. Thinking represents “our active, purposeful, organized efforts to make sense of the world.” Thinking critically is “our active, purposeful, organized efforts to make sense of the world by carefully examining our thinking and the thinking of others in order to clarify and improve our understanding” (Chaffee, 1988, p. 27). Thinking is the way we make sense of the world; thinking critically is thinking about our thinking so that we can clarify and improve it.

CT is not simply one way of thinking. It is a total holistic approach to understanding how we make sense of the world and the universe. When we think critically, we are actively using our intelligence, knowledge, and skills to effectively deal with our life’s situations and ourselves (Chaffee, 1988, p. 30). CT involves taking an active attitude toward the situations encountered in life. Thinking critically does not mean simply having thoughts and waiting for things to happen. This would be passive thinking – we would be letting events, others, and their thinking to control us and define us. Watching too much television or indulging in social media, for instance, is passive thinking; we allow ourselves to be influenced by the thinking and acting of others. CT is active, proactive, and interactive dialog with our world of people, properties, and events.

5.4.2. Critical Thinking as Reflective Thinking

According to Paul and Elder (2002), CT is reflective thinking or thinking critically. Thinking critically is reflection – to think back on what we are thinking or feeling. It is thinking back on thinking. To think critically is to think carefully about our thinking and the thinking of others. It is a serious study of thinking. It is serious thinking about thinking. You become the “critic” of your own thinking.

CT is to improve your thinking. “Critical thinking is the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances” (Paul & Elder, 2002, p. 7). Our thinking influences everything we do, want, or feel. CT refuses biases, prejudices or stereotypes, false beliefs, myths, or illusions to influence our thinking.

There is what we might call a first-order thinking that is our everyday thinking, spontaneous and non-reflective thinking. It contains insights, prejudices, truth and errors, good and bad reasoning, misconceptions, and ideological rigidities. CT is second-order thinking : it reflects on, reconstructs, analyzes, and assesses the first-order thinking (Paul & Elder, 2002, p. 14). CT is “self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and is a careful command of their use. CT implies and empowers effective communication and problem-solving abilities” (Paul & Elder, 2002, p. 15).

5.4.3. Critical Thinking as Questioning and Challenging

According to Collins (2001), CT is questioning and challenging what you learn . CT is letting students question and challenge what you teach. The best students are those who never quite believe their professors (Collins, 2001, p. 16).

CT does not reject the data merely because one does not like what the data imply. CT confronts the implications. CT does not reject the data merely because it rejects the theory one espouses. CT questions one’s espoused theory. CT does not reject the data merely because it rejects one’s assumptions and presuppositions. CT questions and challenges one’s assumptions and presuppositions about oneself, the society, and the world.

CT does not reject the theory merely because the data do not confirm it. CT sifts the data and questions its reliability, validity, and objectivity or veracity. CT is prepared to revise the theory if the data justify it. CT does not generalize when there is no evidence to back the generalization.

5.4.4. Critical Thinking as Spiritual Intelligence

According to Stephen Covey (2004), the four magnificent parts of our nature consist of body, mind, heart, and spirit that have corresponding four capacities or intelligences: physical or body intelligence (PQ), mental intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), and spiritual intelligence (SQ).

PQ is something that happens within our body controlling the respiratory, circulatory, metabolic, nervous, and other vital systems. PQ constantly scans our environment, adjusts to it, destroys diseased cells, and fights for survival. PQ controls and coordinates the function of roughly seven trillion cells of our body with a mind-boggling level of biochemical and biophysical coordination that controls our reflexes, instincts, drives, passions, habits, manual skills, and body routines. PQ manages the entire system, much of it unconscious. IQ or mental intelligence is our ability to reason, analyze our reasons and reasoning, think abstractly, use language, visualize, conceptualize, theorize, and comprehend. EQ is one’s self-knowledge, self-awareness, social sensitivity, empathy, and ability to communicate successfully with others. It is a sense of timing and social appropriateness, having the courage to acknowledge weaknesses, and express and respect differences. Abilities such as leadership, successful communications, and relationships are primarily a function of EQ than IQ (Covey, 2004, pp. 50–51).

SQ is today becoming mainstream in scientific inquiry, philosophical, and psychological discussion. SQ is the central and the most fundamental of all four intelligences because it becomes the source of guidance of the other three. SQ represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite. SQ is “thinking with your soul” (Wolman, 2001, p. 26) and represents the ancient and abiding human quest for connectedness with something larger and trust-worthier than our world and us. Unlike IQ that computers and robots have, and EQ that higher mammals possess, SQ is uniquely human and most fundamental. It stands for our quest for our longing for meaning, vision, and value; it allows us to dream and to strive; it underlies the things we believe in and hope for; it makes us human.

SQ relates to the whole reality and dimension that is bigger, more creative, more loving, more powerful, more visionary, wiser, and more mysterious – than the materialistic daily human existence. While IQ relates to becoming more knowledgeable, PQ to becoming healthier and strong, EQ relates to becoming more relational and sensitive, and SQ relates to becoming a person (see Rogers, 1961).

High IQ is not enough: brilliance is not necessarily humanizing. High PQ is not enough: athletes, boxers, and heavyweight fighters have it and it did not necessarily humanize them. High EQ is good but not sufficient: it provides passion but not humanity. High IQ may provide vision, high PQ may imply discipline, and high EQ may mean passion. Adolph Hitler had all three but produced shockingly different result (Collins, 2001, p. 69). High IQ, EQ, and SQ are a great combination: Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., and a few others had them. High IQ, PQ, EQ, and SQ are a perfect combination. The prophets and patriarchs of the Old and New Testaments are good examples. A contemporary example is Mohandas Gandhi or Mother Teresa.

5.4.5. Critical Thinking as Valuing Resources Hierarchically

A fact is defined as “a statement of the way the world is” (p. 348), the way of the world being independent of our knowledge.

Knowledge can be of facts, known, or at times unknown but speculated.

Understanding consists of knowledge that is integrated in some unified way and evaluated.

Information is sometimes used to include data, facts, and knowledge, as when we speak of information systems.

Data : Information that is entered or fed into the (computer) information system by way of codes as numbers, words, letters, or symbols.

Any individual may appropriate facts without depriving anyone else from them. In this sense, facts, information, and knowledge are infinitely shareable. However, the discovery of some facts, collecting and sorting them, often involves time and expense, and this provides a basis for claims of “intellectual property” in relation to some “facts” as proprietary, at least for a short time period. That is, while facts are common property and cannot be owned, data representing facts may be owned to the extent that one painstakingly collected and verified facts and entered such facts into the computer as classified and organized data. Data are not owned as tangible objects are owned, but printout of data can be owned to the extent one has collected, organized, and classified them and made available in a package form usable for a given target market.

Facts cannot be falsified, but data can be. Data may represent falsehood as well as facts. Such distinctions have legal implications. For instance, to what extent are mailing lists (collection of names, addresses, social security numbers, credit card numbers, and the like) stored and sorted in computers by an information broker are data that can be owned, and hence sold as a commodity? (These problems deal with the Ethics of Consumer Privacy; see, for example, Mascarenhas, Kesavan, & Bernacchi, 2003).

Data/events : Facts, figures, events, anecdotes, vignettes, information, narratives, descriptions, history, and statistics.

Information/meaning : Analysis and interpretation of “data” in terms of finding trends, patterns and connections between “data,” deriving inferences or conclusions from “data,” and thus, seeking meaning and significance of “data.”

Experience/knowledge : Based on “analysis” and interpretation of data from various fields, disciplines, and domains, one derives intelligent (or empirically verifiable) propositions, hypotheses, connections, and conclusions and accordingly, builds theories, axioms, and paradigms. Knowledge can grow from theory that is verified by data ( deductive : theory to data) or from data that ground theory ( inductive : data to theory), and based on both theory and data to forecasting the future ( predictive : from the past to the future).

Values/principles : What are the lasting, enhancing, and humanizing values or principles in the data, and our analysis of and knowledge from it, which will make life better for all? What are also the temporal, degrading, and dehumanizing values that could make life worse for all?

Wisdom/freedom : Based on data, experience, analysis, knowledge, and values, one finally derives or absorbs and cumulatively stores wisdom that discerns what is truth from error and falsehood, what is right from wrong, good from evil, just from unjust, ethical from the unethical, moral from the immoral, virtue from vice, grace from sin, life from death, lasting values from the ephemeral, and from earth to heaven, and from time to eternity.

Ethical and moral strategy : Based on right discernment derived from wisdom of the previous stage, we should have the moral courage and pertinacity to speak and affirm the truth while denouncing falsehood, of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong, of doing what is good, just, and fair and rejecting what is wrong, unjust, and unfair, of doing what is ethical and moral and desist from what is unethical and immoral, of pursuing virtue and resisting vice, of seeking grace and life as opposed to sin and death, and persistently seek perennial and universal values while downplaying the ephemeral and temporal, and thus, peacefully and collectively journey from earth to heaven, from time to eternity.

CT-based education should lead us from data/events to analysis that generates information and meaning, from information and meaning to experience and knowledge, from experience/knowledge to lasting values and universal principles, from values and principles to wisdom and freedom to pursue wisdom, and from wisdom to ethical and moral actions and outcomes.

Mere increase in knowledge does not imply a proportionate increase in human goodness, argues Orr (1991). The current information explosion in terms of increased data, numbers, words, paper, and the like do not imply an increase in knowledge, wisdom, and virtue. Such learning does not make us better people, ethical people, especially if the knowledge of the good, of ecology, of land health, etc., is excluded from our curricula by default, if not by design. Our education may make us ignorant of things we must know to live well and sustainably on the earth.

Good CT is many sequential intellectual activities such as analyzing, conceptualizing, defining, examining, inferring, listening, questioning, reasoning and synthesizing, doing and reflecting, and growing and becoming. All these activities combined will help us to evaluate information and evaluate and refine our thought processes in a disciplined way. Thus, CT helps us to think more comprehensively and more able to identify and reject false ideas and ideologies, our flaws of thinking, our biases and prejudices of our culture and upbringing, our assumptions, presumptions, and presuppositions of cherished doctrines and beliefs, and thus to seek to be guided by true knowledge and evidence that fits with reality, and even refutes our cherished beliefs and dogmas.

CT is curiosity that widens our perspective and knowledge; it empowers us to do all the work required and to keep ourselves properly informed. CT is healthy skepticism that does not discriminate against people but doubts and suspends judgment in order to understand people better, to explain things better by testing, evidence, factual claims, and sound reasoning.

CT does not seek 100% clarity and certainty; it can handle uncertainty of knowledge, ambiguity of not-knowing, ambivalence of goals and objectives, and tolerate current levels of ignorance. CT waits for valid evidence, for evidence-based answers, and awaits further research from scientists and scholars. CT does not rely on only one solution to a problem, but investigates multiple problem formulations and multiple solutions, and finally, converges to one solution based on solid irrefutable evidence. Thus, CT avoids errors (types I, II, III, and IV) and flawed thinking. CT is prepared to make unavoidable mistakes and absorb risk so that we can learn from our mistakes. CT takes the risk of being wrong, is prepared to be wrong. If we are not prepared to be wrong, we are not prepared to be creative.

In general, type I error refers to rejecting a hypothesis, candidate, product, or a service when it is good or true; type II error relates to accepting a hypothesis, candidate, product, or a service when it is bad or false; type III error is to define a problem wrongly in terms of what is good or false in judging a hypothesis, candidate, or statement as good or false; and type IV error is finding a wrong solution to a right problem.

Type I is producer risk (e.g., a good but rejected product or market is a producer’s loss); type II error is consumer risk; e.g., a wrong product or service accepted and sold can harm consumers. Type III and type IV errors are social risks or scientific flaws, as they affect consumers and producers, markets, and industries. Good CT seeks to reduce all four types of errors and their associated producer and consumer risks.

5.4.6. Critical Thinking as Building on Your Strengths

Guided by the belief that good is the opposite of bad, or right the opposite of wrong, we have unduly focused on our faults and failures in building our strengths. For instance, doctors study diseases and its symptoms in order to learn about health; psychologists investigate sadness in exploring joy; marriage therapists study causes of divorce in identifying characteristics of a happy marriage; in schools and workplaces, we are advised to look into our faults and weaknesses assuming that we can build strengths by eliminating weaknesses. Buckingham and Clifton (2001) disagree with this approach. According to these authors, faults and failing deserve investigation, but they reveal little about strengths. Strengths have their own patterns. To excel in your chosen field and to find lasting satisfaction in doing so, you will need to understand your strengths and their unique patterns.

HR managers must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, they must capitalize on these differences. They must watch for clues to each employee’s natural talents and then position and develop each employee so that his or her talents transform into bona fide strengths. By changing the way you select, measure, develop, and channel the careers of your people, your organization can be revolutionary and could build your entire enterprise around the strengths of each person. To spur high-margin growth and thereby increase their value, great organizations need only focus inward to find the wealth of unrealized capacity that resides in every single employee (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001, p. 6).

Most organizations are built on two flawed assumptions about people: (1) each person can learn to be competent in almost anything, and (2) each person’s greatest room for growth is in his or her areas of greatest weakness. Thus, if everyone can learn to be competent in almost anything, those who have learned the most must be most valuable, and hence, by design, the organization gives the most prestige, respect, and promotions based on the skills or experiences they have acquired in the company. Hence, organizations spend more money in training people once they hire them than on selecting them properly in the first place. They spend most of their training time and money on trying to plug the gaps in employee’s skills or competencies, calling the latter weaknesses as “areas of opportunity.” In training the incompetent, organizations prescribe work styles by emphasizing on work rules, policies, procedures, and behavioral competencies. Most organizations take their employees’ strengths for granted and focus on minimizing their weaknesses. Most HRD learning experiments focus on fixing each employee’s weaknesses than building on their strengths. Most often, however, this is not human development, but just damage control . Damage control is a poor strategy for elevating either the employee or the organization to world-class performance.

Buckingham and Clifton (2001, p. 8) offer alternative counter-assumptions: (1) each person’s talents are enduring and unique, and (2) each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength. These two assumptions should guide HR managers to select, develop, measure, and channel the strengths and careers of their people. These assumptions should explain why great managers are careful to look for talent in every role, why they focus performance on outcomes than on work styles, why they treat each person differently, and finally, why they spend most time with their best people.

Hence, in this context, a CT exercise should start with yourself: What are my strengths? How can I capitalize on them? How can I combine them? What are my most powerful combinations? Where do they take me? The real tragedy of life is not that each of us does not have enough strengths but that we fail to use the ones we have. Benjamin Franklin called wasted strengths “sundials in the shade.” Hence, identify your sundials in the shade. Look inside yourself and identify your strongest strengths, reinforce them by practice, learning and training, and then carve out a role that draws on these strengths everyday. When you do, you will be more productive, more fulfilled, and more successful (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001, p. 21).

Tiger Woods had a different strength – his length with his woods and his irons and tremendous accuracy in his putting. His ability to chip out of a bunker was no good; he did not need it either; and much less did he cultivate it. Instead, he deliberately played to his strengths. He loved what he did because he deliberately worked on his strengths.

Bill Gates’s strength was at taking information technology (IT) inventions to the market and transforming them into user-friendly applications and marketing them effectively. His ability to maintain and build an enterprise in the face of legal and commercial assault was his weakness – he let Steve Ballmer handle that.

Talents, knowledge, and skills are raw materials to building strengths, but most important among these are talents. Talents are innate, while knowledge and skills can be learned and cultivated. You can never possess strengths (e.g., salesmanship, closing a sale) without requisite talents (e.g., gift of persuasion, talent for negotiation). The key to building your strengths is to identify your dominant talents and then refine them with knowledge and skills. Skills determine if you can do something, whereas talents reveal how well and how often you do it.

5.5. Part 2: Some Theories of Critical Thinking

CT is a nascent science and tradition. Part 1 has suggested various approaches to CT. We now present some doctrines that could be used as emerging theories of CT.

5.5.1. Critical Thinking and Defensive Routines

(See Peter Senge, 2006, The Fifth Discipline , pp. 232–240)

For more than 40 years, Chris Argyris and his colleagues have studied the dilemma why bright capable managers often fail to learn effectively in management teams. Their work suggests that success of team learning and productivity is dependent upon how a manager faces conflict and deals with the defensiveness that invariably surrounds conflict. Argyris (1985) coined the concept in this regard and proposed the theory of “Defensive Routines” that can help us further hone our CT skills. Writes Argyris, “We are programmed to create defensive routines, and cover them up with further defensive routines. […] This programming occurs early in life.”

Defensive routines are mental models that express our entrenched habits of thinking, deciding, and acting that we use to protect ourselves from the embarrassment and threat that come with exposing our thinking. Defensive routines are our deepest assumptions that not only defend us against pain but also keep us from learning about the causes of pain. The source of our defensive routines is the fear of exposing the thinking that lies behind our views. “Defensive reasoning” protects us from learning about the validity of our reasoning. We often feel that exposing our thinking is very threatening because we are afraid that people will find flaws and errors in it. This perceived threat from exposing our thinking starts early in life at home and is steadily reinforced in schools, colleges, and the workplace. Other things being equal, most of our defensive routines surround our thinking about religion, caste, color, creed, races, ethnicity, gender and age discrimination, cultural enclaves, and national exclusivity.

Top executives or senior managers, who pride themselves as skilled communicators and risk takers, may be, in fact, so brilliant at articulating their vision that they intimidate everyone around them. Consequently, their subordinates rarely challenge their views publicly. Further, people feel afraid to express their own views and opinions around them. Such CEOs may not see their own entrenchment and forcefulness as a defensive strategy, but they function in exactly that way. This strategy has become the CEOs’ most effective defensive routine. Presumably, the CEOs hoped to provoke others into expressing their thoughts, but their overbearing behavior prevented them from doing so, thereby further protecting their views from challenge.

Defensive routines are a response to a problem. In general, a problem is a need to learn, arising from the “learning gap” between what a company knows and what the company should know. The “fundamental solution” is objective inquiry that eventually generates new understanding about the problem and new behavior – that is, organizational learning. However, the need for learning also creates a threat, which, in turn, leads to “symptomatic solutions” or “quick-fix band-aid solutions” prompted by defensive routines that apparently reduce the learning gap by reducing perceived need for learning.

Problems caused by defensive routines compound in organizations where to have incomplete or faulty understanding is a sign of weakness or incompetence. Deep within the mental models of managers in many organizations is the belief that managers must know what is going on. All managers are expected to know the causes of problems within their organization. Some managers respond to this expectation by internalizing an air of confidence that makes their subordinates believe they know the right answers to the most important problems in their division or company. Often, to protect their air of confidence, they will close themselves to alternative views, become rigid, and make themselves un-influenceable, even though deep down they may be fully conscious of the uncertainty in their understanding of the problems and the solutions. Alternatively, to maintain a façade of confidence they may even obscure their ignorance. In short, managers who must take on the burden of having to know the answers become highly skilled in their defensive routines. They play political games in their organizations. Defensive routines are like diseases – the top executives carry them, and the organizations are the hosts. Soon the organizations are infected, and they too become carriers.

To illustrate how defensive routines function within an organization, consider the case of ATP Products , a young division of an innovative and highly decentralized company. Tim Tabor, 33, was the divisional president, deeply committed to the corporate values of freedom and local autonomy. He believed strongly in the state-of-the-art technology products (e.g., new printed circuit boards) of ATP, rallied tremendous support from his subordinates, who in turn shared Tim’s enthusiasm for their prospects. Divisional bookings grew rapidly – 30% to 50% each year until sales reached US$50 million in 1994. Accordingly, ATP doubled its capacity. In 1995, with the disastrous downturn in the minicomputer industry, ATP experienced a 50% shortfall on projected bookings. The industry did not bounce back in 1996. Tim Tabor was fired from division president to an ordinary engineering manager.

What happened? Tim’s locked-in strategy was flawed owing to several defensive routines. His team had set aggressive growth targets, in part, to please the top management; he strongly believed in the product without letting his beliefs challenged; meeting these targets, he put too much pressure on his subordinates that they had no time to question what they were doing, and they relied on a few major customers upon whom they became very dependent. When the business of these customers failed, ATP was doomed.

Why did not the top management at ATP sanction a strategy that was so vulnerable, and force Tim to diversify its customer base? The top management had its own defensive routines. Although the CEO had recognized the problem of the narrow customer base, he did not want to violate the corporation’s decentralized policy or interfere with the forceful strategy of the young ATP division president. Moreover, Tim had questions that he was reluctant to discuss with his superiors, as he did not want to let them down, nor was he prepared to face criticism from them. Hence, there were defensive routines throughout the organization that did not enable free inquiry and reflection.

The more effective defensive routines are: the more effectively do they cover up underlying problems, the less effectively do you face the problems, and the worse the problems tend to become. The paradox, writes Argyris, is that when defensive routines succeed in preventing immediate pain they also prevent us from learning how to reduce what causes pain in the first place. Defensive routines are “self-sealing” – they obscure their own existence. If you cannot easily identify or state your defensive routines, you do not have leverage for reducing them either.

One of the most useful skills of a learning team is the ability to recognize when we are not reflecting on our own assumptions, when we are not objectively inquiring into each other’s thinking, and when we are not exposing our thinking in a way that encourages others to inquire into it. This is CT. It is to dismantle our defensive routines and defensive reasoning and have everything exposed for checks and balances.

CT enables us to acknowledge our own defensiveness without provoking more defensiveness. Often, the stronger the defensiveness, the more important is the issue or the problem around which we defend or protect our views. If these views are made transparent, they will provide windows onto each other’s thinking. It is not the absence of defensiveness that characterizes learning teams, but the way defensiveness is faced. A team committed to learning must be committed to tell the truth about our thinking and about the assumptions underlying the forceful strategies we propose. To see reality of the markets more clearly, we must also assess and see our strengths for obscuring reality.

5.5.2. Critical Thinking Applied to Human Resource Management

The most important asset in a company is the right people – the ones who provide the team and customer service behavior the organization needs. Employees represent a company’s first market. If companies are not investing in and listening to their employees, as well as their customers, they are probably missing opportunities to create competitive advantage (Jones, 2000).

High turnover is a major problem that can be addressed through trust. If employees do not trust their organization to provide equitable pay, training, and advancement, they will not stay long enough to become effective and affective team members. When a company focuses on creating quality for employees and competence in employees, they can be empowered to create happy customers. And, happy customers buy more (Jones, 2000).

Human resource planning is an essential part of successful customer service, because to a customer anyone working for an organization represents the organization. Each employee is a potential customer service representative (Jones, 2000), and salespersons, particularly, are frontline company ambassadors (Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002). Customers truly enjoy having a well-trained, knowledgeable person to deal with their concerns and orders. An organization needs to know how it impresses on its customers who contact it. Much of the impression would depend upon how the organization’s employees interact with the customers. Value-chain involvement enables this knowledge.

Organizational theory : This theory believes that human needs are either so irrational or so varied and adjustable to specific situations that the major function of personnel management is to be pragmatic as occasion demands. Hence, if jobs are organized and structured in terms of clarity of job goals and objectives, favorable worker attitudes will follow.

Industrial engineering : Humankind is mechanistically inclined and economically motivated and human needs are best met by attuning the individual to the most efficient work process. Personnel managers should therefore concoct the most appropriate incentive systems and design specific working conditions that maximally utilize the human machine, and worker attitudes will follow.

Behavioral science : Mankind is basically social, group-oriented. Hence, personnel managers should work on group sentiments, organizational, psychological, and social culture and climate. Personnel managers should focus on human values and human relations, and these in turn will generate healthy employee attitudes.

All three theories duly applied should motivate employees as evidenced by a significant reduction in absenteeism, errors, and violation of safety rules, strikes, restriction of output, higher wages, greater fringe benefits, and labor turnover.

Herzberg (1968) motivation-hygiene theory works on the same principle of industrial engineering but for opposite goals. Rather than rationalizing work to increase efficiency, his theory suggests that work be enriched to bring about effective utilization of employees. The theory advocates a systematic manipulation of the motivation factors for motivating the employees.

Head : Where are we? What brought us here? Where are we going? What change of behavior can get us there?

Heart : Why are we here? Why do we want to go there? Why must we change? What is in it for me? Am I capable of change? Do I have the heart and the will to change?

Hands : What do I need to do? What skills should I train myself in? What behavior changes do I require? Do I have the energy and the team support to acquire those behavior changes and skills?

Critical Questions for Managing Required Change in Organizations.

Coming to grips with the problem : Do the people involved perceive and acknowledge the problem? Do they still resist or deny it? Have people’s mindsets changed? Do they intellectually recognize the need for change? Do they have a sense of how their organization must respond to the problem, and the change the problem demands?

Working it through : Are people intensely and honestly working to accept and internalize the required change and its implications? Have the things that must change been well communicated? How do people feel about the changes? Are they adequately ready in mind, heart, and hands for the change?

Maintaining momentum : Is the organization committed to bring about this change and support it with all its resources? Is the organization keeping the required pace of change? Is the organization ready to incorporate the change into its management practice, climate, and culture?

How do I know that my team, the organization, and I are really changing? Is there an appreciable difference between the “before” and the “after”? What is this difference? Is this the real change we want? Measuring change is a powerful change management technique. Implementing strategic change requires that people learn new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. We know that people learn and change much more efficiently when they receive fair and objective feedback on how they are doing.

Table 5.2 lists the critical questions when the three body-part arenas are crosschecked against the three stages of implementing change. One can develop a scorecard that measures progressive change in response to the relevant questions raised in each of the nine cells of Table 5.2 . This is a change process tracking scorecard and not an outcome realization scorecard. The change implementation scorecard can diagnose problems that arise while the people learn (head), internalize learning (heart) and live, witness, and communicate (hands) learning.

5.6. Critical Thinking as Identifying and Combating Biases, Prejudices, and Presumptions in Business Thinking

A quick analysis of all these definitions and approaches to CT reveals that CT identifies biases, prejudices, and presumptions in our thinking and rectifies them by replacing them with strong normative imperatives. Hence, our approach to CT is to identify typical biases, prejudices, presumptions, and presuppositions inherent in the Capitalist Free Enterprise System (CFES) that grounds our business enterprise, business schools, the MBA, and the PGDBM programs and to help executives and students to identify them, analyze them, and correct them. In the following sections, we analyze CFES from this perspective.

A bias is a mental leaning or inclination, partially bent. From a statistical viewpoint, a bias is any systematic error that contributes to the difference between statistical values in a population and a sample drawn from it. Hence, we define bias as the systematic leaning of one’s thinking that deviates from the norm.

A prejudice implies a judgment or opinion formed before the facts are known. It is a preconceived idea, mostly unfavorable, marked by a suspicion, intolerance, or irrational hatred for other races, creeds, and occupations.

An assumption is a more basic act of assuming a fact, property, or event for granted without critically assessing its accuracy and veracity, reliability, and validity.

A presumption is a subset of assumption and implies taking something for granted or unjustifiably accepting it as true, usually on the basis of improper evidence.

A supposition is the act of assuming something to be true for the sake of an argument or to illustrate a proof. It is regarding something as true without actual knowledge, hence, often tantamount to conjecture, guessing or mere imagination. In this sense, it is a subset of assumption.

A presupposition is an act or statement of supposing or assuming beforehand. It also means to require or imply as a preceding condition for something.

All of the above, biases, prejudices, assumptions and presumptions, and suppositions and presuppositions can be wrong inclinations or systematic errors in our thinking. CT intends to unearth them, confront them, and rectify them or eliminate them.

A Set of Biases, Prejudices, Presumptions, and Human Imperatives.

According to Godel’s theorem (Hofstadler, 1979), as a formal system, no theory can be both complete and consistent. Consistency is the condition under which symbols acquire meanings; consistency seeks to derive true statements. Completeness, on the other hand, is the confirmation of these meanings; completeness seeks all true statements. Formal theory systems have to balance inconsistency and incompleteness. No theory is intended to answer all questions. Theories that seek too much comprehensiveness can become so overextended as to become ambiguous and complicated. As a social science, marketing theory can best develop through layered assertions into an integral theory. Just as a collection of sentences does not necessarily make a story, nor can a collection of assertions, even when verified, necessarily becomes a theory (Sutton & Staw, 1995). CT accepts Godel’s theorem and its practical realism in formulating a comprehensive business turnaround management theory.

5.6.1. Legal, Ethical, and Moral Issues of GAIL (Case 5.1)

Legal : Agreed that the Laws of the Land were not technically and strictly violated, there are other ethical and moral obligations such as the duty and right of regular and quality maintenance of the pipeline and its environment, especially when GAIL was alerted by several complaints of the locals.

Ethical issues : No transfer of benefits to the locals except for employment of a few when the pipeline was routed through their village properties. Also no proactive responsibility was designed and executed even when it was known that explosive gas-bearing pipelines would jeopardize surrounding villages and their livelihoods.

Moral : The intention of ignoring the complaints of the poor smacks of power and might of big corporations. Not taking responsibility for the well-being of the local villages is a serious omission. Narrowing duty to mere law compliance regarding protecting pipes, and not considering it as a true safety issue, is lack of CT. Mere cost-containment and growth-expansion strategies at the expense of locals are exclusive and not inclusive growth strategies.

Giving statutory powers to OISD.

Merging Petroleum and Explosive Safety Organisation (PESO) to OISD.

Increasing the accountability of industries to the communities they impact.

Setting up quick action response teams for natural and man-made disasters.

Strong investigating and complaints body to address local concerns.

Awareness on safety and hazards to the locals living close to oil and petroleum set-ups.

Triple bottom should be implemented: ecology, safety, and profitability. Workplace and operational safety should be top priorities coupled with taking care of the community interests.

Consequences for all internal and external stakeholders should be foreseen and avoided.

The case of GAIL pipeline blast is clearly a question of moral lapse. Every organization has certain values that it needs to prioritize because its presence in the ecology itself is an intervention. Value is something which characterizes the way we behave. The very fact that the GAIL, OSID, PESO, and ONGC authorities treated the matter as a mere compliance issue and not a village safety issue made them overlook the very nature of the problem that jeopardized the lives of the powerless locals.

Lack of statutory obligations and regulations by government may partially explain lack luster behavior of GAIL, ONGC, PESO, and OSID regarding the GAIL pipeline consequences.

Mostly focused on short-term cost-containment and marginal maintenance strategies in relation to the pipelines, the officials did not plan nor try to check the safety or replace the pipelines wherever required.

Possibly, they did not foresee the impact any possible mishap could cause to the people living in the vicinity and how it would negatively impact the reputation of their public institutions.

Precautionary steps and proper maintenance could have averted the whole situation. Poor maintenance often leads to future breakdowns. Hazardous systems if not managed with due care can be very detrimental to human lives.

It is a collective responsibility of GAIL, ONGC, PESO, and OSID to detect and preempt disasters, failing which to own and compensate for the fatal consequences of the pipeline tragedy.

5.6.2. Ethical Analysis of Consequences

Teleological analysis : The GAIL pipeline service strategy is a moral action if it produced decidedly more benefits than costs to the largest number of stakeholders. Judged by the manifold harmful consequences to the villagers in terms of deaths, injuries, and environmental degradation, the unsupervised and unchecked GAIL pipeline project fails to be ethical and moral on teleological grounds. The final outcome was a huge systems breakdown or man-made disaster for the villagers, while pipeline project continues to be beneficial to the industrial units it was serving.

Deontological analysis : The GAIL pipeline service strategy is a moral action if it upholds the rights of the powerless much more than it upholds the rights of the powerful across the largest number of stakeholders. Judged by the violated rights of life, community life, safety, village property, village ecology, and the like in terms of harmful consequences of deaths, injuries, and environmental degradation, and disproportionate number of rights of GAIL and its industrial clients in Andhra Pradesh upheld, the GAIL pipeline strategy, unsupervised and unchecked, fails to be ethical and moral on deontological grounds. It is the right of the industrial clients to get essential supplies of Compressed Natural Gas(CNG) but that does not mean that they can sacrifice the safety and security of others. It is gross negligence of duties by the authority. Lack of responsibility of GAIL Authorities and the government led to deaths and loss of many who were not directly related to the whole business. The gainers did not do much to alleviate the lot of those who suffered untold damages.

Distributive justice-based analysis : Regardless of the nature and magnitude of the benefits and costs, rights and duties of the GAIL pipeline tragedy, the GAIL service strategy is a moral action if it distributes benefits and costs, rights and duties equitably across the largest number of internal and external stakeholders. Judged by the disproportionately high costs (including deaths, injuries, and environmental degradation) and duties (of safeguarding life, safety, property, ecology and livelihood of Nagarjuna) violated of a very great number in Nagarjuna village, and the disproportionately high benefits realized and many rights upheld of GAIL and its 37 industrial clients in Andhra Pradesh, the GAIL pipeline enterprise grossly violated distributive justice principles. Though the pipeline supplied essential CNG used for transportation in the surrounding cities including Hyderabad, and helped thereby GAIL earn profits and growth, it does not justify the miseries of families of several people who died and others who suffered injuries.

Corrective justice-based analysis : Regardless of the nature, magnitude, and distribution of the benefits and costs, and rights and duties of the GAIL pipeline tragedy, the GAIL service strategy is a moral action if it set up just processes and procedures to correct the existing violations of rights and duties, and unjust distribution of costs and benefits in relation to the largest numbers of internal and external stakeholders. Judged by the lack of any corrective processes and procedures, disproportionately high costs (including deaths, injuries, and environmental degradation) and duties (of safeguarding life, safety, property, ecology, and livelihood of Nagarjuna) violated of a very great number in Nagarjuna village, and the disproportionately high benefits realized and many rights upheld of GAIL and its 37 industrial clients in Andhra Pradesh, the GAIL pipeline enterprise grossly violated corrective justice principles.

First corrective step to take in this case is to stop using the pipeline any further until it has passed all health integrity checks and maintenance work. Lives can never be returned, but at least the government and GAIL authorities should take responsibility of the family members of the deceased by compensating them and providing them with livelihood. Precautionary steps and proper maintenance could have averted the whole situation. Poor maintenance always leads to final breakdown one day or the other. Hazardous things if not handled with enough care can be very detrimental to human lives. Second, for the disabled and injured, they should provide best medical and health care so that they can recover quickly and help them to get employment, either through jobs or through skill trainings. Third, all victims should be more than adequately compensated. However, instead of distributing huge compensation to the victims, if government and GAIL authorities had used the same money for maintenance and pipeline health integrity checks, we would not have to sacrifice 21 lives and accept sufferings of so many. Fourth, for all losses to crops and houses and other public utilities, they should rebuild all the facilities and houses of the people, help them rehabilitate, and also compensate at market rate all their losses.

As part of corrective justice procedures, government should form a high-priority committee to check all pipelines laid across the country immediately within next couple of months and the ones which are not fit should be replaced and repaired as necessary. Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board of India should come up with stringent guidelines for safety and security and penalize any corporation or firm whether public or private for any negligence in this regard. Officials handling such sensitive operations which can cause havoc if neglected should be periodically sensitized about all safety measures. More invigilation of pipelines and general awareness among people staying in areas where the pipeline is laid is also very important. Proper safety message boards should be installed at the major junctions all along the pipeline so as to make people aware of the risks in those areas and what are the preventive measures.

Virtue ethics-based analysis : Virtue ethics is a framework that focuses on the character of the moral agent rather than on the rightness of an action. In considering human relationships, emotional sensitivities, and motivations that are unique to human society, virtue ethics provides a fuller ethical analysis and encourages more flexible and creative solutions than deontological or consequentialist teleological analysis. In order to do something, we must first perceive that an action is necessary, and often, mere cost-benefits analysis (teleology), or rights-duty analysis (deontology) may not trigger quick action. We must observe what is going on and study a crisis situation like the GAIL pipeline disaster from a person-based ethical and moral perspective such as virtue ethics. Emotional reactions make us sensitive to particular circumstances, and virtue-based sensitivities illuminate our perceptions. It is possible to perceive a situation dispassionately but we would then have an incomplete appreciation of the circumstances. Thus, perception and affect are closely intertwined in informing our choices. Virtues of honesty, integrity, due care, and compassion would have precipitated proactive actions that were remedial, preemptive, and reactive.

Trust ethics-based analysis : Among virtues, one of paramount importance is the executive virtue of trust and the practice of building trusting relations among critical stakeholders. Trust has both intrinsic and instrumental value. Trust is intrinsically important because it is a core characteristic that affects the emotional and interpersonal aspects of owner/stakeholder relationship. As an instrumental value, trust is widely believed to be essential for effective emotional encounters. Sadly, in this situation, the executives did not pay heed to or trust the complaints of the local residents which led to the tragedy. The village of Nagarjuna might have gradually lost its trust in GAIL, OISD, PESO, and ONGC owing to their inactions, insensitivities to their concerns, and their general malaise in dealing with their GAIL pipeline-related problems and concerns. Lack of mutual trust and trusting relations can precipitate tragedy; the converse is also true.

5.7. Concluding Remarks

Does this thinking and your “best solution” make a better sense of the world? (Chaffee, 1988).

Does the best solution help me to be unbiased and unprejudiced in my thinking? (Paul & Elder, 2002).

Does it help me to understand the assumptions and presuppositions behind this thinking? (Collins, 2001; Collins & Porras, 1989).

Does it help me to appreciate the positive and normative content in this thinking? (Hunt, 1991, 2002).

Does it inspire me with spiritual meaning, vision, value, and motivation to reach out to others? (Covey, 1989).

Does it help me to rise beyond data, information, and knowledge to lasting values and wisdom? Does it empower me to be a servant leader for others? (Kahl & Donelan, 2004).

A hundred years from now, the economic system may be very different. Technology may be unrecognizable; education and consumption levels will be far greater. New information and media technologies will continuously modify human behavior. Will this be still a capitalist system? The present imbalance between a scarce supply of capital and employment opportunity and an abundant supply of labor is producing a substantial shift of income growth from wages to profits. The modern corporation has shown considerable ability to shift incremental taxes forward to customers through higher prices, shift them backward to workers through lower wages, or shift them to Washington by finding new loopholes to avoid taxes.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Fostering Critical Thinking, Reasoning, and Argumentation Skills through Bioethics Education

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Northwest Association for Biomedical Research, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Affiliation Center for Research and Learning, Snohomish, Washington, United States of America

• Jeanne Ting Chowning, 
• Joan Carlton Griswold, 
• Dina N. Kovarik, 
• Laura J. Collins

• Published: May 11, 2012
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791
• Reader Comments

Developing a position on a socio-scientific issue and defending it using a well-reasoned justification involves complex cognitive skills that are challenging to both teach and assess. Our work centers on instructional strategies for fostering critical thinking skills in high school students using bioethical case studies, decision-making frameworks, and structured analysis tools to scaffold student argumentation. In this study, we examined the effects of our teacher professional development and curricular materials on the ability of high school students to analyze a bioethical case study and develop a strong position. We focused on student ability to identify an ethical question, consider stakeholders and their values, incorporate relevant scientific facts and content, address ethical principles, and consider the strengths and weaknesses of alternate solutions. 431 students and 12 teachers participated in a research study using teacher cohorts for comparison purposes. The first cohort received professional development and used the curriculum with their students; the second did not receive professional development until after their participation in the study and did not use the curriculum. In order to assess the acquisition of higher-order justification skills, students were asked to analyze a case study and develop a well-reasoned written position. We evaluated statements using a scoring rubric and found highly significant differences (p<0.001) between students exposed to the curriculum strategies and those who were not. Students also showed highly significant gains (p<0.001) in self-reported interest in science content, ability to analyze socio-scientific issues, awareness of ethical issues, ability to listen to and discuss viewpoints different from their own, and understanding of the relationship between science and society. Our results demonstrate that incorporating ethical dilemmas into the classroom is one strategy for increasing student motivation and engagement with science content, while promoting reasoning and justification skills that help prepare an informed citizenry.

Citation: Chowning JT, Griswold JC, Kovarik DN, Collins LJ (2012) Fostering Critical Thinking, Reasoning, and Argumentation Skills through Bioethics Education. PLoS ONE 7(5): e36791. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791

Editor: Julio Francisco Turrens, University of South Alabama, United States of America

Received: February 7, 2012; Accepted: April 13, 2012; Published: May 11, 2012

Copyright: © 2012 Chowning et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The “Collaborations to Understand Research and Ethics” (CURE) program was supported by a Science Education Partnership Award grant ( http://ncrrsepa.org ) from the National Center for Research Resources and the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives of the National Institutes of Health through Grant Number R25OD011138. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

While the practice of argumentation is a cornerstone of the scientific process, students at the secondary level have few opportunities to engage in it [1] . Recent research suggests that collaborative discourse and critical dialogue focused on student claims and justifications can increase student reasoning abilities and conceptual understanding, and that strategies are needed to promote such practices in secondary science classrooms [2] . In particular, students need structured opportunities to develop arguments and discuss them with their peers. In scientific argument, the data, claims and warrants (that relate claims to data) are strictly concerned with scientific data; in a socio-scientific argument, students must consider stakeholder perspectives and ethical principles and ideas, in addition to relevant scientific background. Regardless of whether the arguments that students employ point towards scientific or socio-scientific issues, the overall processes students use in order to develop justifications rely on a model that conceptualizes arguments as claims to knowledge [3] .

Prior research in informal student reasoning and socio-scientific issues also indicates that most learners are not able to formulate high-quality arguments (as defined by the ability to articulate justifications for claims and to rebut contrary positions), and highlights the challenges related to promoting argumentation skills. Research suggests that students need experience and practice justifying their claims, recognizing and addressing counter-arguments, and learning about elements that contribute to a strong justification [4] , [5] .

Proponents of Socio-scientific Issues (SSI) education stress that the intellectual development of students in ethical reasoning is necessary to promote understanding of the relationship between science and society [4] , [6] . The SSI approach emphasizes three important principles: (a) because science literacy should be a goal for all students, science education should be broad-based and geared beyond imparting relevant content knowledge to future scientists; (b) science learning should involve students in thinking about the kinds of real-world experiences that they might encounter in their lives; and (c) when teaching about real-world issues, science teachers should aim to include contextual elements that are beyond traditional science content. Sadler and Zeidler, who advocate a SSI perspective, note that “people do not live their lives according to disciplinary boundaries, and students approach socio-scientific issues with diverse perspectives that integrate science and other considerations” [7] .

Standards for science literacy emphasize not only the importance of scientific content and processes, but also the need for students to learn about science that is contextualized in real-world situations that involve personal and community decision-making [7] – [10] . The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards stresses that students need “regular exposure to the human contexts of science [and] examples of ethical dilemmas, both current and past, that surround particular scientific activities, discoveries, and technologies” [11] . Teachers are mandated by national science standards and professional teaching standards to address the social dimensions of science, and are encouraged to provide students with the tools necessary to engage in analyzing bioethical issues; yet they rarely receive training in methods to foster such discussions with students.

The Northwest Association for Biomedical Research (NWABR), a non-profit organization that advances the understanding and support of biomedical research, has been engaging students and teachers in bringing the discussion of ethical issues in science into the classroom since 2000 [12] . The mission of NWABR is to promote an understanding of biomedical research and its ethical conduct through dialogue and education. The sixty research institutions that constitute our members include academia, industry, non-profit research organizations, research hospitals, professional societies, and volunteer health organizations. NWABR connects the scientific and education communities across the Northwestern United States and helps the public understand the vital role of research in promoting better health outcomes. We have focused on providing teachers with both resources to foster student reasoning skills (such as activities in which students practice evaluating arguments using criteria for strong justifications), as well as pedagogical strategies for fostering collaborative discussion [13] – [15] . Our work draws upon socio-scientific elements of functional scientific literacy identified by Zeidler et al. [6] . We include support for teachers in discourse issues, nature of science issues, case-based issues, and cultural issues – which all contribute to cognitive and moral development and promote functional scientific literacy. Our Collaborations to Understand Research and Ethics (CURE) program, funded by a Science Education Partnership Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), promotes understanding of translational biomedical research as well as the ethical considerations such research raises.

Many teachers find a principles-based approach most manageable for introducing ethical considerations. The principles include respect for persons (respecting the inherent worth of an individual and his or her autonomy), beneficence/nonmaleficence (maximizing benefits/minimizing harms), and justice (distributing benefits/burdens equitably across a group of individuals). These principles, which are articulated in the Belmont Report [16] in relation to research with human participants (and which are clarified and defended by Beauchamp and Childress [17] ), represent familiar concepts and are widely used. In our professional development workshops and in our support resources, we also introduce teachers to care, feminist, virtue, deontological and consequentialist ethics. Once teachers become familiar with principles, they often augment their teaching by incorporating these additional ethical approaches.

The Bioethics 101 materials that were the focus of our study were developed in conjunction with teachers, ethicists, and scientists. The curriculum contains a series of five classroom lessons and a culminating assessment [18] and is described in more detail in the Program Description below. For many years, teachers have shared with us the dramatic impacts that the teaching of bioethics can have on their students; this research study was designed to investigate the relationship between explicit instruction in bioethical reasoning and resulting student outcomes. In this study, teacher cohorts and student pre/post tests were used to investigate whether CURE professional development and the Bioethics 101 curriculum materials made a significant difference in high school students’ abilities to analyze a case study and justify their positions. Our research strongly indicates that such reasoning approaches can be taught to high school students and can significantly improve their ability to develop well-reasoned justifications to bioethical dilemmas. In addition, student self-reports provide additional evidence of the extent to which bioethics instruction impacted their attitudes and perceptions and increased student motivation and engagement with science content.

Program Description

Our professional development program, Ethics in the Science Classroom, spanned two weeks. The first week, a residential program at the University of Washington (UW) Pack Forest Conference Center, focused on our Bioethics 101 curriculum, which is summarized in Table S1 and is freely available at http://www.nwabr.org . The curriculum, a series of five classroom lessons and a culminating assessment, was implemented by all teachers who were part of our CURE treatment group. The lessons explore the following topics: (a) characteristics of an ethical question; (b) bioethical principles; (c) the relationship between science and ethics and the roles of objectivity/subjectivity and evidence in each; (d) analysis of a case study (including identifying an ethical question, determining relevant facts, identifying stakeholders and their concerns and values, and evaluating options); and (e) development of a well-reasoned justification for a position.

Additionally, the first week focused on effective teaching methods for incorporating ethical issues into science classrooms. We shared specific pedagogical strategies for helping teachers manage classroom discussion, such as asking students to consider the concerns and values of individuals involved in the case while in small single and mixed stakeholder groups. We also provided participants with background knowledge in biomedical research and ethics. Presentations from colleagues affiliated with the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award program, from the Department of Bioethics and Humanities at the UW, and from NWABR member institutions helped participants develop a broad appreciation for the process of biomedical research and the ethical issues that arise as a consequence of that research. Topics included clinical trials, animal models of disease, regulation of research, and ethical foundations of research. Participants also developed materials directly relevant and applicable to their own classrooms, and shared them with other educators. Teachers wrote case studies and then used ethical frameworks to analyze the main arguments surrounding the case, thereby gaining experience in bioethical analysis. Teachers also developed Action Plans to outline their plans for implementation.

The second week provided teachers with first-hand experiences in NWABR research institutions. Teachers visited research centers such as the Tumor Vaccine Group and Clinical Research Center at the UW. They also had the opportunity to visit several of the following institutions: Amgen, Benaroya Research Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Infectious Disease Research Institute, Institute for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at the UW, Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute, Puget Sound Blood Center, HIV Vaccine Trials Network, and Washington National Primate Research Center. Teachers found these experiences in research facilities extremely valuable in helping make concrete the concepts and processes detailed in the first week of the program.

We held two follow-up sessions during the school year to deepen our relationship with the teachers, promote a vibrant ethics in science education community, provide additional resources and support, and reflect on challenges in implementation of our materials. We also provided the opportunity for teachers to share their experiences with one another and to report on the most meaningful longer-term impacts from the program. Another feature of our CURE program was the school-year Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) follow-up sessions. Teachers chose to attend one of NWABR’s IRB or IACUC conferences, attend a meeting of a review board, or complete NIH online ethics training. Some teachers also visited the UW Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee. CURE funding provided substitutes in order for teachers to be released during the workday. These opportunities further engaged teachers in understanding and appreciating the actual process of oversight for federally funded research.

Participants

Most of the educators who have been through our intensive summer workshops teach secondary level science, but we have welcomed teachers at the college, community college, and even elementary levels. Our participants are primarily biology teachers; however, chemistry and physical science educators, health and career specialists, and social studies teachers have also used our strategies and materials with success.

The research design used teacher cohorts for comparison purposes and recruited teachers who expressed interest in participating in a CURE workshop in either the summer of 2009 or the summer of 2010. We assumed that all teachers who applied to the CURE workshop for either year would be similarly interested in ethics topics. Thus, Cohort 1 included teachers participating in CURE during the summer of 2009 (the treatment group). Their students received CURE instruction during the following 2009–2010 academic year. Cohort 2 (the comparison group) included teachers who were selected to participate in CURE during the summer of 2010. Their students received a semester of traditional classroom instruction in science during the 2009–2010 academic year. In order to track participation of different demographic groups, questions pertaining to race, ethnicity, and gender were also included in the post-tests.

Using an online sample size calculator http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm , a 95% Confidence Level, and a Confidence Interval of 5, it was calculated that a sample size of 278 students would be needed for the research study. For that reason, six Cohort 1 teachers were impartially chosen to be in the study. For the comparison group, the study design also required six teachers from Cohort 2. The external evaluator contacted all Cohort 2 teachers to explain the research study and obtain their consent, and successfully recruited six to participate.

Ethics Statement

This study was conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Prior to the study, research processes and materials were reviewed and approved by the Western Institutional Review Board (WIRB Study #1103180). CURE staff and evaluators received written permission from parents to have their minor children participate in the Bioethics 101 curriculum, for the collection and subsequent analysis of students’ written responses to the assessment, and for permission to collect and analyze student interview responses. Teachers also provided written informed consent prior to study participation. All study participants and/or their legal guardians provided written informed consent for the collection and subsequent analysis of verbal and written responses.

Research Study

Analyzing a case study: cure and comparison students..

Teacher cohorts and pre/post tests were used to investigate whether CURE professional development and curriculum materials made a significant difference in high school students’ abilities to analyze a case study and justify their positions. Cohort 1 teachers (N = 6) received CURE professional development and used the Bioethics 101 curriculum with their students (N = 323); Cohort 2 teachers (N = 6) did not receive professional development until after their participation in the study and did not use the curriculum with their students (N = 108). Cohort 2 students were given the test case study and questions, but with only traditional science instruction during the semester. Each Cohort was further divided into two groups (A and B). Students in Group A were asked to complete a pre-test prior to the case study, while students in Group B did not. All four student groups completed a post-test after analysis of the case study. This four-group model ( Table 1 ) allowed us to assess: 1) the effect of CURE treatment relative to conventional education practices, 2) the effect of the pre-test relative to no pre-test, and 3) the interaction between the pre-test and CURE treatment condition. Random assignment of students to treatment and comparison groups was not possible; consequently we used existing intact classes. In all, 431 students and 12 teachers participated in the research study ( Table 2 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.t001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.t002

In order to assess the acquisition of higher-order justification skills, students used the summative assessment provided in our curriculum as the pre- and post-test. We designed the curriculum to scaffold students’ ability to write a persuasive bioethical position; by the time they participated in the assessment, Cohort 1 students had opportunities to discuss the elements of a strong justification as well as practice in analyzing case studies. For our research, both Cohort 1 and 2 students were asked to analyze the case study of “Ashley X” ( Table S2 ), a young girl with a severe neurological impairment whose parents wished to limit her growth through a combination of interventions so that they could better care for her. Students were asked to respond to the ethical question: “Should one or more medical interventions be used to limit Ashley’s growth and physical maturation? If so, which interventions should be used and why?” In their answer, students were encouraged to develop a well-reasoned written position by responding to five questions that reflected elements of a strong justification. One difficulty in evaluating a multifaceted science-related learning task (analyzing a bioethical case study and justifying a position) is that a traditional multiple-choice assessment may not adequately reflect the subtlety and depth of student understanding. We used a rubric to assess student responses to each of the following questions (Q) on a scale of 1 to 4; these questions represent key elements of a strong justification for a bioethical argument:

• Q1: Student Position: What is your decision?
• Q2: Factual Support: What facts support your decision? Is there missing information that could be used to make a better decision?
• Q3: Interests and Views of Others: Who will be impacted by the decision and how will they be impacted?
• Q4: Ethical Considerations: What are the main ethical considerations?
• Q5: Evaluating Alternative Options: What are some strengths and weaknesses of alternate solutions?

In keeping with our focus on the process of reasoning rather than on having students draw any particular conclusion, we did not assess students on which position they took, but on how well they stated and justified the position they chose.

We used a rubric scoring guide to assess student learning, which aligned with the complex cognitive challenges posed by the task ( Table S3 ). Assessing complex aspects of student learning is often difficult, especially evaluating how students represent their knowledge and competence in the domain of bioethical reasoning. Using a scoring rubric helped us more authentically score dimensions of students’ learning and their depth of thinking. An outside scorer who had previously participated in CURE workshops, has secondary science teaching experience, and who has a Masters degree in Bioethics blindly scored all student pre- and post-tests. Development of the rubric was an iterative process, refined after analyzing a subset of surveys. Once finalized, we confirmed the consistency and reliability of the rubric and grading process by re-testing a subset of student surveys randomly selected from all participating classes. The Cronbach alpha reliability result was 0.80 [19] .

The rubric closely followed the framework introduced through the curricular materials and reinforced through other case study analyses. For example, under Q2, Factual Support , a student rated 4 out of 4 if their response demonstrated the following:

• The justification uses the relevant scientific reasons to support student’s answer to the ethical question.
• The student demonstrates a solid understanding of the context in which the case occurs, including a thoughtful description of important missing information.
• The student shows logical, organized thinking. Both facts supporting the decision and missing information are presented at levels exceeding standard (as described above).

An example of a student response that received the highest rating for Q2 asking for factual support is: “Her family has a history of breast cancer and fibrocystic breast disease. She is bed-bound and completely dependent on her parents. Since she is bed-bound, she has a higher risk of blood clots. She has the mentality of an infant. Her parents’ requests offer minimal side effects. With this disease, how long is she expected to live? If not very long then her parents don’t have to worry about growth. Are there alternative measures?”

In contrast, a student rated a 1 for responses that had the following characteristics:

• Factual information relevant to the case is incompletely described or is missing.
• Irrelevant information may be included and the student demonstrates some confusion.

An example of a student response that rated a 1 for Q2 is: “She is unconscious and doesn’t care what happens.”

All data were entered into SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) and analyzed for means, standard deviations, and statistically significant differences. An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test for significant overall differences between the two cohort groups. Pre-test and post-test composite scores were calculated for each student by adding individual scores for each item on the pre- and post-tests. The composite score on the post-test was identical in form and scoring to the composite score on the pre-test. The effect of the CURE treatment on post-test composite scores is referred to as the Main Effect, and was determined by comparing the post-test composite scores of the Cohort 1 (CURE) and Cohort 2 (Comparison) groups. In addition, Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 means scores for each test question (Questions 1–5) were compared within and between cohorts using t-tests.

CURE student perceptions of curriculum effect.

During prior program evaluations, we asked teachers to identify what they believed to be the main impacts of bioethics instruction on students. From this earlier work, we identified several themes. These themes, listed below, were further tested in our current study by asking students in the treatment group to assess themselves in these five areas after participation in the lesson, using a retrospective pre-test design to measure self-reported changes in perceptions and abilities [20] .

• Interest in the science content of class (before/after) participating in the Ethics unit.
• Ability to analyze issues related to science and society and make well-justified decisions (before/after) participating in the Ethics unit.
• Awareness of ethics and ethical issues (before/after) participating in the Ethics unit.
• Understanding of the connection between science and society (before/after) participating in the Ethics unit.
• Ability to listen to and discuss different viewpoints (before/after) participating in the Ethics unit.

After Cohort 1 (CURE) students participated in the Bioethics 101 curriculum, we asked them to indicate the extent to which they had changed in each of the theme areas we had identified using Likert-scale items on a retrospective pre-test design [21] , with 1 =  None and 5 =  A lot!. We used paired t-tests to examine self-reported changes in their perceptions and abilities. The retrospective design avoids response-shift bias that results from overestimation or underestimation of change since both before and after information is collected at the same time [20] .

Student Demographics

Demographic information is provided in Table 3 . Of those students who reported their gender, a larger number were female (N = 258) than male (N = 169), 60% and 40%, respectively, though female students represented a larger proportion of Cohort 1 than Cohort 2. Students ranged in age from 14 to 18 years old; the average age of the students in both cohorts was 15. Students were enrolled in a variety of science classes (mostly Biology or Honors Biology). Because NIH recognizes a difference between race and ethnicity, students were asked to respond to both demographic questions. Students in both cohorts were from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.t003

Pre- and Post-Test Results for CURE and Comparison Students

Post-test composite means for each cohort (1 and 2) and group (A and B) are shown in Table 4 . Students receiving CURE instruction earned significantly higher (p<0.001) composite mean scores than students in comparison classrooms. Cohort 1 (CURE) students (N = 323) post-test composite means were 10.73, while Cohort 2 (Comparison) students (N = 108) had post-test composite means of 9.16. The ANOVA results ( Table 5 ) showed significant differences in the ability to craft strong justifications between Cohort 1 (CURE) and Cohort 2 (Comparison) students F (1, 429) = 26.64, p<0.001.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.t004

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.t005

We also examined if the pre-test had a priming effect on the students’ scores because it provides an opportunity to practice or think about the content. The pre-test would not have this effect on the comparison group because they were not exposed to CURE teaching or materials. If the pre-test provides a practice or priming effect, this would result in higher post-test performance by CURE students receiving the pre-test than by CURE students not receiving the pre-test. For this comparison, the F (1, 321) = 0.10, p = 0.92. This result suggests that the differences between the CURE and comparison groups are attributable to the treatment condition and not a priming effect of the pre-test.

After differences in main effects were investigated, we analyzed differences between and within cohorts on individual items (Questions 1–5) using t-tests. The Mean scores of individual questions for each cohort are shown in Figure 1 . There were no significant differences between Cohort 1 (CURE) and Cohort 2 (Comparison) on pre-test scores. In fact, for Q5, the mean pre-test scores for the Cohort 2 (Comparison) group were slightly higher (1.8) than the Cohort 1 (CURE) group (1.6). On the post-test, the Cohort 1 (CURE) students significantly outscored the Cohort 2 (Comparison) students on all questions; Q1, Q3, and Q4 were significant at p<0.001, Q2 was significant at p<0.01, and Q5 was significant at p<0.05. The largest post-test difference between Cohort 1 (CURE) students and Cohort 2 (Comparison) students was for Q3, with an increase of 0.6; all the other questions showed changes of 0.3 or less. Comparing Cohort 1 (CURE) post-test performance on individual questions yields the following results: scores were highest for Q1 (mean = 2.8), followed by Q3 (mean = 2.2), Q2 (mean = 2.1), and Q5 (mean = 1.9). Lowest Cohort 1 (CURE) post-test scores were associated with Q4 (mean = 1.8).

Mean scores for individual items of the pre-test for each cohort revealed no differences between groups for any of the items (Cohort 1, CURE, N = 323; Cohort 2, Comparison, N = 108). Post-test gains of Cohort 1 (CURE) relative to Cohort 2 (Comparison) were statistically significant for all questions. (Question (Q) 1) What is your decision? (Q2) What facts support your decision? Is there missing information that could be used to make a better decision? (Q3) Who will be impacted by the decision and how will they be impacted? (Q4) What are the main ethical considerations? and (Q5)What are some strengths and weaknesses of alternate solutions? Specifically: (Q1), (Q3), (Q4) were significant at p<0.001 (***); (Q2) was significant at p<0.01 (**); and (Q5) was significant at p<0.05 (*). Lines represent standard deviations.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.g001

Overall, across all four groups, mean scores for Q1 were highest (2.6), while scores for Q4 were lowest (1.6). When comparing within-Cohort scores on the pre-test versus post-test, Cohort 2 (Comparison Group) showed little to no change, while CURE students improved on all test questions.

CURE Student Perceptions of Curriculum Effect

After using our resources, Cohort 1 (CURE) students showed highly significant gains (p<0.001) in all areas examined: interest in science content, ability to analyze socio-scientific issues and make well-justified decisions, awareness of ethical issues, understanding of the connection between science and society, and the ability to listen to and discuss viewpoints different from their own ( Figure 2 ). Overall, students gave the highest score to their ability to listen to and discuss viewpoints different than their own after participating in the CURE unit (mean = 4.2). Also highly rated were the changes in understanding of the connection between science and society (mean = 4.1) and the awareness of ethical issues (mean = 4.1); these two perceptions also showed the largest change pre-post (from 2.8 to 4.1 and 2.7 to 4.1, respectively).

Mean scores for individual items of the retrospective items on the post-test for Cohort 1 students revealed significant gains (p<0.001) in all self-reported items: Interest in science (N = 308), ability to Analyze issues related to science and society and make well-justified decisions (N = 306), Awareness of ethics and ethical issues (N = 309), Understanding of the connection between science and society (N = 308), and the ability to Listen and discuss different viewpoints (N = 308). Lines represent standard deviations.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.g002

NWABR’s teaching materials provide support both for general ethics and bioethics education, as well as for specific topics such as embryonic stem cell research. These resources were developed to provide teachers with classroom strategies, ethics background, and decision-making frameworks. Teachers are then prepared to share their understanding with their students, and to support their students in using analysis tools and participating in effective classroom discussions. Our current research grew out of a desire to measure the effectiveness of our professional development and teaching resources in fostering student ability to analyze a complex bioethical case study and to justify their positions.

Consistent with the findings of SSI researchers and our own prior anecdotal observations of teacher classrooms and student work, we found that students improve in their analytical skill when provided with reasoning frameworks and background in concepts such as beneficence, respect, and justice. Our research demonstrates that structured reasoning approaches can be effectively taught at the secondary level and that they can improve student thinking skills. After teachers participated in a two-week professional development workshop and utilized our Bioethics 101 curriculum, within a relatively short time period (five lessons spanning approximately one to two weeks), students grew significantly in their ability to analyze a complex case and justify their position compared to students not exposed to the program. Often, biology texts present a controversial issue and ask students to “justify their position,” but teachers have shared with us that students frequently do not understand what makes a position or argument well-justified. By providing students with opportunities to evaluate sample justifications, and by explicitly introducing a set of elements that students should include in their justifications, we have facilitated the development of this important cognitive skill.

The first part of our research examined the impact of CURE instruction on students’ ability to analyze a case study. Although students grew significantly in all areas, the highest scores for the Cohort 1 (CURE) students were found in response to Q1 of the case analysis, which asked them to clearly state their own position, and represented a relatively easy cognitive task. This question also received the highest score in the comparison group. Not surprisingly, students struggled most with Q4 and Q5, which asked for the ethical considerations and the strengths and weaknesses of different solutions, respectively, and which tested specialized knowledge and sophisticated analytical skills. The area in which we saw the most growth in Cohort 1 (CURE) (both in comparison to the pre-test and in relation to the comparison group) was in students’ ability to identify stakeholders in a case and state how they might be impacted by a decision (Q3). Teachers have shared with us that secondary students are often focused on their own needs and perspectives; stepping into the perspectives of others helps enlarge their understanding of the many views that can be brought to bear upon a socio-scientific issue.

Many of our teachers go far beyond these introductory lessons, revisiting key concepts throughout the year as new topics are presented in the media or as new curricular connections arise. Although we have observed this phenomenon for many years, it has been difficult to evaluate these types of interventions, as so many teachers implement the concepts and ideas differently in response to their unique needs. Some teachers have used the Bioethics 101 curriculum as a means for setting the tone and norms for the entire year in their classes and fostering an atmosphere of respectful discussion. These teachers note that the “opportunity cost” of investing time in teaching basic bioethical concepts, decision-making strategies, and justification frameworks pays off over the long run. Students’ understanding of many different science topics is enhanced by their ability to analyze issues related to science and society and make well-justified decisions. Throughout their courses, teachers are able to refer back to the core ideas introduced in Bioethics 101, reinforcing the wide utility of the curriculum.

The second part of our research focused on changes in students’ self-reported attitudes and perceptions as a result of CURE instruction. Obtaining accurate and meaningful data to assess student self-reported perceptions can be difficult, especially when a program is distributed across multiple schools. The traditional use of the pretest-posttest design assumes that students are using the same internal standard to judge attitudes or perceptions. Considerable empirical evidence suggests that program effects based on pre-posttest self-reports are masked because people either overestimate or underestimate their pre-program perceptions [20] , [22] – [26] . Moore and Tananis [27] report that response shift can occur in educational programs, especially when they are designed to increase students’ awareness of a specific construct that is being measured. The retrospective pre-test design (RPT), which was used in this study, has gained increasing prominence as a convenient and valid method for measuring self-reported change. RPT has been shown to reduce response shift bias, providing more accurate assessment of actual effect. The retrospective design avoids response-shift bias that results from overestimation or underestimation of change since both before and after information is collected at the same time [20] . It is also convenient to implement, provides comparison data, and may be more appropriate in some situations [26] . Using student self-reported measures concerning perceptions and attitudes is also a meta-cognitive strategy that allows students to think about their learning and justify where they believe they are at the end of a project or curriculum compared to where they were at the beginning.

Our approach resulted in a significant increase in students’ own perceived growth in several areas related to awareness, understanding, and interest in science. Our finding that student interest in science can be significantly increased through a case-study based bioethics curriculum has implications for instruction. Incorporating ethical dilemmas into the classroom is one strategy for increasing student motivation and engagement with science content. Students noted the greatest changes in their own awareness of ethical issues and in understanding the connection between science and society. Students gave the highest overall rating to their ability to listen to and discuss viewpoints different from their own after participation in the bioethics unit. This finding also has implications for our future citizenry; in an increasingly diverse and globalized society, students need to be able to engage in civil and rational dialogue with others who may not share their views.

Conducting research studies about ethical learning in secondary schools is challenging; recruiting teachers for Cohort 2 and obtaining consent from students, parents, and teachers for participation was particularly difficult, and many teachers faced restraints from district regulations about curriculum content. Additional studies are needed to clarify the extent to which our curricular materials alone, without accompanying teacher professional development, can improve student reasoning skills.

Teacher pre-service training programs rarely incorporate discussion of how to address ethical issues in science with prospective educators. Likewise, with some noticeable exceptions, such as the work of the University of Pennsylvania High School Bioethics Project, the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah, and the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, relatively few resources exist for high school curricular materials in this area. Teachers have shared with us that they know that such issues are important and engaging for students, but they do not have the experience in either ethical theory or in managing classroom discussion to feel comfortable teaching bioethics topics. After participating in our workshops or using our teaching materials, teachers shared that they are better prepared to address such issues with their students, and that students are more engaged in science topics and are better able to see the real-world context of what they are learning.

Preparing students for a future in which they have access to personalized genetic information, or need to vote on proposals for stem cell research funding, necessitates providing them with the tools required to reason through a complex decision containing both scientific and ethical components. Students begin to realize that, although there may not be an absolute “right” or “wrong” decision to be made on an ethical issue, neither is ethics purely relative (“my opinion versus yours”). They come to realize that all arguments are not equal; there are stronger and weaker justifications for positions. Strong justifications are built upon accurate scientific information and solid analysis of ethical and contextual considerations. An informed citizenry that can engage in reasoned dialogue about the role science should play in society is critical to ensure the continued vitality of the scientific enterprise.

“I now bring up ethical issues regularly with my students, and use them to help students see how the concepts they are learning apply to their lives…I am seeing positive results from my students, who are more clearly able to see how abstract science concepts apply to them.” – CURE Teacher “In ethics, I’ve learned to start thinking about the bigger picture. Before, I based my decisions on how they would affect me. Also, I made decisions depending on my personal opinions, sometimes ignoring the facts and just going with what I thought was best. Now, I know that to make an important choice, you have to consider the other people involved, not just yourself, and take all information and facts into account.” – CURE Student

Supporting Information

Bioethics 101 Lesson Overview.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.s001

Case Study for Assessment.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.s002

Grading Rubric for Pre- and Post-Test: Ashley’s Case.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036791.s003

Acknowledgments

We thank Susan Adler, Jennifer M. Pang, Ph.D., Leena Pranikay, and Reitha Weeks, Ph.D., for their review of the manuscript, and Nichole Beddes for her assistance scoring student work. We also thank Carolyn Cohen of Cohen Research and Evaluation, former CURE Evaluation Consultant, who laid some of the groundwork for this study through her prior work with us. We also wish to thank the reviewers of our manuscript for their thoughtful feedback and suggestions.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JTC LJC. Performed the experiments: LJC. Analyzed the data: LJC JTC DNK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JCG. Wrote the paper: JTC LJC DNK JCG. Served as Principal Investigator on the CURE project: JTC. Provided overall program leadership: JTC. Led the curriculum and professional development efforts: JTC JCG. Raised funds for the CURE program: JTC.

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WHAT IS CRITICAL ETHICS AND WHY IT MATTERS

2021, Academia Letters

Critical Ethics (as a unified account of normative and meta-ethics) uses critical thinking to get around the limitations of personal belief and indoctrination to get to what ought to be done and why to improve the human condition. For, if we teach only moral beliefs (whether as a set of absolutistic or relativistic normative codes)—no matter how useful and even inspiring they may be to a particular culture or community—the adherent will have a hard time distinguishing, or simply may not be able to distinguish, good from bad as an act of personal responsibility and free choice. Moreover, without critical thinking the adherent could possibly end-up believing all kinds of false or inconsistent things and moral beliefs may well end-up in conflict with better established background information. This would very likely lead to cognitive dissonance and inconsistency in a person’s actions; and, when generalized, would have devastating consequences for the survival of the human species because a person’s beliefs would not align or match with (at times dangerous) reality. Accordingly, it is crucial that we learn how to evaluate and to select among alternatives to do the thing that must be done, when it ought to be done, using critical thinking.

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This book aims at six important conceptual tools developed by philosophers. The author develops each particular view in a chapter, hoping to constitute at the end a concise, interesting and easily readable whole. These concepts are: 1. Ethics and realism: elucidation of the distinction between understanding and explanation – the lighthouse type of normativity. 2. Leadership, antirealism and moral psychology – the lightning rod type of normativity. 3. Bright light on self-identity and positive reciprocity – the reciprocity type of normativity. 4. The virtue of generosity and its importance for inclusive education – the divine will type of normativity. 5. Ethical education as normative philosophical perspective. The normativity of self-transformation in education. 6. Aesthetics as expression of human freedom and concern for the whole world in which we live.

Tiou Clarke

One skill that many people today are lacking is the ability to assess situations and objectively develop solutions that can fix the issue at the same time, not to the detriment of another. Not many people can ask the right questions to get quality answers that can create new knowledge. The average man might not even understand what it means to think critically as he is used to his own way of thinking. This way may not be the best way, but it is the way he knows how. Critical thinking no doubt has become an integral part of education, the world of work, and even our regular life. The aim of this article is to dissect what is critical thinking by providing an in-depth view of what this means over the years and providing a little background on the idea of critical thinking and the foundation that gave rise to this. This article will also talk about the critical aspects of this form of thinking as well as some critical questions that can be asked to further develop thinking. This assignment will also assess the application of critical thinking to different situations as well as assessment instruments that can be used to measure critical thinking. The article will conclude with a new definition of critical thinking as well as a five-step process for critical thinking.

The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory

Titus Stahl

Alessandra Imperio

Il pensiero critico (CT) è considerato un'abilità chiave per il successo nel 21° secolo. Le politiche educative mondiali sostengono la promozione del CT e ricercatori di diverse aree disciplinari sono stati coinvolti in un ampio dibattito sulla sua definizione, senza raggiungere un accordo. Al giorno d'oggi, la ricerca non ha affron-tato compiutamente la valutazione del CT, né il modo in cui dovrebbe essere insegnato. Nel presente lavoro, viene fornita una panoramica sull'argomento, nonché una valutazione delle pratiche, al fine di fornire a ricercatori o professionisti (in particolare quelli della scuola primaria) un riferimento per lo sviluppo di ulteriori teorie e metodi sull'educazione al CT. Il CT è considerato dal punto di vista della filosofia, della psicologia co-gnitiva e delle scienze dell'educazione. Inoltre proponiamo l'inclusione di una quarta prospettiva, che potrebbe essere definita della pedagogia socio-culturale, per le sue importanti implicazioni sull'insegnamento e nelle pratiche valutative. Critical thinking (CT) is considered a key skill for success in the 21st century. Worldwide educational policies advocate the promotion of CT, and scholars across different fields have been involved in a wide debate on its definition, without reaching an agreement. Currently, research has not adequately addressed CT assessment, nor the way in which it should be taught. In the present work, an overview of the topic is provided, as well as an evaluation of the practices, in order to provide researchers or practitioners (particularly those involved in primary school education) a reference for the development of further theories and methods about CT in education. CT is considered from the perspective of philosophy, cognitive psychology, and education sciences. In addition, we propose the inclusion of a fourth perspective, which could be referred as socio-cultural pedagogic perspective, due to its important implications in teaching and assessment practices.

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The relevancy of religious literacy in social studies curricula: quebec’s ccq as a case study.

1. Introduction

2. religious literacy in secular societies and curricula, religious literacy.

• Understanding the internal diversity within religious, spiritual, and non-religious worldview groups.
• Understanding that similarities exist across worldview groups but that they are each distinct.
• Recognizing the influence that socio-cultural, political, and economic aspects of society have on worldview groups, and vice versa, in the past and present, which change, inform, and shape these worldviews over time;
• Recognizing the need to include religious, spiritual, and non-religious worldviews in the full conversation.
• Recognizing that worldviews hold a significant personal meaning to the religious, spiritual, and non-religiously affiliated individuals. This leads us to discuss worldviews from an individual or community’s distinct lens and not from the worldview of another person/group, and know that individuals who share the same worldview may have diverse beliefs, expressions, interpretations, and terminology to describe it based on a number of factors, such as personal circumstance, place, political context, etc.

3. CCQ: A Case Study

• The essence of Quebec culture, highlighting its history, foundations, and significant symbols.
• Current societal topics, and emphasis on the role of students as well-informed citizens, touching on issues like freedom of speech, gender equality, and media literacy.
• The importance of constructive dialogue—an emphasis akin to the ERC, but also adds a significant place to critical thinking.

4. Opportunities for Educators

4.1. addressing polarization, 4.2. discussing the climate crisis.

• ARocha Canada, a Christian organization ( https://arocha.ca/who-we-are-a-rocha-canada/ accessed on 25 July 2024)
• EcoSikh ( https://ecosikh.org/ accessed on 25 July 2024)
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• One Earth Sangha ( https://oneearthsangha.org/ accessed on 25 July 2024)

4.3. Engaging Reconciliation

5. application, 6. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Chan, W.Y.A.; Hirsch, S.; Tiflati, H. The Relevancy of Religious Literacy in Social Studies Curricula: Quebec’s CCQ as a Case Study. Religions 2024 , 15 , 1046. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091046

Chan WYA, Hirsch S, Tiflati H. The Relevancy of Religious Literacy in Social Studies Curricula: Quebec’s CCQ as a Case Study. Religions . 2024; 15(9):1046. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091046

Chan, W. Y. Alice, Sivane Hirsch, and Hicham Tiflati. 2024. "The Relevancy of Religious Literacy in Social Studies Curricula: Quebec’s CCQ as a Case Study" Religions 15, no. 9: 1046. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091046

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