• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 636 0

pro-choice arguments are based on the negative consequences of making the procedure legally unavailable while the pro-life positions are generally justified on the basis of “do not kill” type rules or arguments about a fetus’s right to life. But just as often, liberals take a rights or duty based approach, say to endangered species, where we have a duty to protect nature and the conservative line is sometimes a utilitarian approach considering the cost to industry and other times a land owners’ right line. In the case of flag burning, liberals stress the right to free speech while conservatives make care-based arguments around those who sacrificed for the flag in battle. But when it comes to foreign aid, it’s liberals who make the care-based appeals while conservatives make the rights based “it’s my money, not the government’s” argument.

The small-minded cynic would say that both sides are just picking and choosing which system fits their pre-existing biases. Hint: don’t listen to small-minded cynics. Liberals and conservatives here are doing exactly what they should be doing. We do use all of these tools in evaluating right and wrong and in some cases one overrides the others and in other cases not. How do we decide which trumps which others when?

That’s where open-minded conversation comes in. That’s where we need to turn to Stephen Colbert as our model. This is where we need individually and as a culture to see ourselves as Formidable Opponents. It’s only through passionate discourse, allowing ourselves to develop our conflicting intuitions and supporting both sides with the strongest arguments that we begin to honestly open our minds to the possibility of progress.

Most of the time our five components to moral rightness all point in the same direction, but in the hard questions, they do not. They oppose each other and we have to decide which system is the one to obey. Our intuitions will simultaneously be pulled in different directions and it’s only through good faith and open-minded conversation that we can hope to come to a rational decision. This means we have to wrestle with ourselves. Take both sides. Argue authentically with yourself. Don’t worry about changing your mind. It doesn’t show a lack of character to be swayed by a reasonable argument you didn’t buy at first. It’s a sign of intellectual maturity.

Fear not the flip-flop. We need the moral doubt.

3

Things that Make You Go “What?”

ROBEN TOROSYAN

One thing that’s so cool about The Colbert Report is that you can learn to think critically simply by watching it. As Colbert said of his audience in his first episode,

You’re not the elites. You’re not the country club crowd. I know for a fact that my country club would never let you in. But you get it. And you come from a long line of ‘it-getters’. You’re the folks who say, ‘something’s got to be done’. Well, you’re doing something right now. You’re watching TV.22

Yet watching Colbert really can amount to doing something constructive. The show is so fascinating partly because Colbert’s character regularly exudes the very opposite of seven critical thinking attitudes:

• inquisitive

• open-minded

• truthseeking

• systematic

• analytical

• judicious

• confident in reasoning23

According to the American Philosophical Association (APA), these seven action-dispositions define critical thinking. By contrast, Colbert’s cocky character shows repeatedly how to fail at living, as Socrates recommended, “an examined life.” In fact, Colbert shows it so well that an astute viewer can deduce how to think critically precisely by not using the Colbert character’s manipulations of language and logic—and by catching such abuses whether committed by others, or by ourselves.

To Avoid Begging the Question, Don’t Ask Questions!

Inquisitive:

• curious with regard to a wide range of issues

• concern to become and remain well-informed

Colbert often chafes at being asked to imagine beyond what his experience and intuition present at face value. He