Let’s recap Logical and Critical Thinking
We’ve finally come to the end of our journey. We hope that the skills you learnt in this course will be useful to you, and will help you become a …
Course: Logical and Critical Thinking
Going Vegan
Earlier in the course, we saw Justin’s argument for becoming vegan. Here we re-present that argument, with a response, which we’ll use to see how the skills you’ve learned during …
Every Argument is Equal
It’s time to get your hands dirty and apply the logical and critical thinking skills you’ve acquired to a case-study on veganism.
Obstacles to Good Moral Reasoning
Our aim in the course has been to give you the skills to identify true beliefs, and distinguish them from false beliefs. Many of the most important beliefs we try …
How to be a good ethical reasoner
Plato was Wrong (about this at least): Being a Good Ethical Reasoner. Reasoning about ethical matters All of us reason about ethical matters all of the time. We do so …
The Challenge of Moral Relativism
The Challenge of Relativism One influential variety of moral scepticism begins from the observation that different cultures seem to have different ethical views. Some cultures think polygamy is immoral, others …
What are Moral Theories?
Scientific theories are not ‘mere’ theories – untested, tentative, vague generalisations. They are, instead, comprehensive, supported by large bodies of converging evidence, based on repeated observations, usually integrating and generalising …
The Is-Ought Problem
David Hume claimed that you can’t derive an ‘ought’ conclusion from entirely factual or ‘is’ premises. Why not? Well, here’s an example: humans die if you electrocute them (Descriptive). Tim …
Descriptive, Moral, and Normative Statements
We’ve been talking about domains that call upon our critical thinking skills in distinctive ways. In the previous two weeks, we talked about science and law. This week, we turn …
Summary of Week 7
In the last three weeks we’ve been considering domains that call upon our critical thinking skills in distinctive ways. In the previous two weeks we talked about science and law. …
That’s not fair! History or substance?
Imagine a young friend telephones to say he’s coming around to show you a car he’s just bought for $5,000. He tells you in an excited tone that it’s a …
Authority
It is often illegitimate to simply appeal to an authority to settle an argument. It leads us to accept claims in the absence of adequate evidence. And it seems to …
What is the Burden of Proof?
To have the burden of proof is to be rationally required to produce evidence for your assertion claims. Burdens of proof come in degrees. To have a heavier burden of …
Summary of Week 6
This week we’ve looked at legal reasoning, focussing on three important aspects of such reasoning which connect to broader themes in logical and critical thinking. We’ve described reasoning by analogy, …
Logical and Critical Thinking and Legal Reasoning
We’ve been looking at some broad areas in which effective logical and critical thinking are important and which generate distinct approaches to the questions they address. Last week we looked …