Chapter 1. 1 Critical Thinking

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Critical Thinking

What is the hardest task in the world? To think.

— RALPH WALDO EMERSON

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

— BERTRAND RUSSELL

Although Emerson said the hardest task in the world is simply “to think,” he was using the word think in the sense of critical thinking. By itself, thinking can mean almost any sort of cognitive activity, from idle daydreaming (“I’d like to go camping”) to simple reasoning (“but if I go this week, I won’t be able to study for my chemistry exam”). Thinking by itself may include forms of deliberation and decision-making that occur so automatically they hardly register in our consciousness (“What if I do go camping? I won’t be likely to pass the exam. Then what? I better stay home and study”).

When we add the adjective critical to the noun thinking, we begin to examine this thinking process consciously. When we do this, we see that even our simplest decisions involve a fairly elaborate series of calculations. Just in choosing to study and not to go camping, for instance, we weighed the relative importance of each activity (both are important in different ways); considered our goals, obligations, and commitments (to ourselves, our parents, peers, and professors); posed questions and predicted outcomes (using experience and observation as evidence); and resolved to take the most prudent course of action.

Many people associate being critical with fault-finding and nit-picking. The word critic might conjure an image of a sneering art or food critic eager to gripe about everything that’s wrong with a particular work of art or menu item. People’s low estimation of the stereotypical critic comes to light humorously in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, when the two vagabond heroes, Vladimir and Estragon, engage in a name-calling contest to see who can hurl the worst insult at the other. Estragon wins hands-down when he fires the ultimate invective:

V: Moron!

E: Vermin!

V: Abortion!

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E: Morpion!

V: Sewer-rat!

E: Curate!

V: Cretin!

E: (with finality) Crritic!

V: Oh! (He wilts, vanquished, and turns away)

However, being a good critical thinker isn’t the same as being a “critic” in the derogatory sense. Quite the reverse: Because critical thinkers approach difficult questions and seek intelligent answers, they must be open-minded and self-aware, and they must interrogate their own thinking as rigorously as they interrogate others’. They must be alert to their own limitations and biases, the quality of evidence and forms of logic they themselves tentatively offer. In college, we may not aspire to become critics, but we all should aspire to become better critical thinkers.

Becoming more aware of our thought processes is a first step in practicing critical thinking. The word critical comes from the Greek word krinein, meaning “to separate, to choose”; above all, it implies conscious inquiry. It suggests that by breaking apart, or examining, our reasoning we can understand better the basis of our judgments and decisions — ultimately, so that we can make better ones.

By way of illustration, let’s examine a case from Kentucky that was reported widely in the news in 2015. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision making gay marriage legal in all fifty states, a Rowan County clerk, Kim Davis, refused to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Citing religious freedom as her reason, Davis contended that the First Amendment of the Constitution protects her from being forced to act against her religious convictions and conscience. As a follower of Apostolic Christianity, she believes gay marriage is not marriage at all. To act against her belief, she said, “I would be asked to violate a central teaching of Scripture and of Jesus Himself regarding marriage…. It is not a light issue for me. It’s a Heaven or Hell decision.”

Let’s think critically about this — and let’s do it in a way that’s fair to all parties and not just a snap judgment. Critical thinking means questioning not only the beliefs and assumptions of others, but also one’s own beliefs and assumptions. We’ll discuss this point at some length later, but for now we’ll say only that when writing an argument you ought to be thinking — identifying important problems, exploring relevant issues, and evaluating available evidence — not merely collecting information to support a pre-established conclusion.

In 2015, Kim Davis was an elected county official. She couldn’t be fired from her job for not performing her duties because she had been placed in that position by the vote of her constituency. And as her lawyers pointed out, “You don’t lose your conscience rights, or your religious freedom rights, or your constitutional rights just because you accept public employment.” However, once the Supreme Court established the legality of same-sex marriage, Davis’s right to exercise her religious freedom impinged upon others’ abilities to exercise their equal right to marriage (now guaranteed to them by the federal government). And so there was a problem: Whose rights have precedence?

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We may begin to identify important problems and explore relevant issues by using a process called clustering. (We illustrate clustering again on p. 13.) Clustering is a method of brainstorming, a way of getting ideas on paper to see what develops, what conflicts and issues exist, and what tentative conclusions you can draw as you begin developing an argument. To start clustering, take a sheet of paper, and in the center jot down the most basic issue you can think of related to the problem at hand. In our example, we wrote a sentence that we think gets at the heart of the matter. It’s important to note that we conducted this demonstration in “real time” — just a few minutes — so if our thoughts seem incomplete or off-the-cuff, that’s fine. The point of clustering is to get ideas on paper. Don’t be afraid to write down whatever you think, because you can always go back, cross out, rethink. This process of working through an issue can be messy. In a sense, it involves conducting an argument with yourself.

At the top of our page we wrote, “The law overrides individual religious freedom.” (Alternatively, we could have written from the perspective of Davis and her supporters, saying “Individual religious freedom supersedes the law,” and seen where that might have taken us.) Once we have a central idea, we let our minds work and allow one thought to lead to another. We’ve added numbers to our thoughts so you can follow the progression of our thinking.

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Notice that from our first idea about the law being more important than individual religious freedom, we immediately challenged our initial thinking. The law, in fact, protects religious freedom (2), and in some cases allows individuals to “break the law” if their religious rituals require it. We learned this when we wrote down a number of illegal activities sometimes associated with religion, and quickly looked up whether or not there was a legal precedent protecting these activities. We found the Supreme Court has allowed for the use of illegal drugs in some ceremonies (Gonzalez v. O Centro Espirita), and for the ritual sacrifice of animals in another (Church of Lakumi Bablu Aye v. Hialeah). Still, religions cannot do anything they want in the name of religious freedom. Religions cannot levy taxes, or incarcerate or kill people, for example. We then realized that what religions do as part of their ceremonies is not really the issue at all. The questions we are asking have to do with Kim Davis, her individual religious freedom, and what the law might force her to do (4).

Individuals cannot simply break the law and claim religious exemption. But the government cannot force people to act against their religious beliefs (5). Then (6) it occurred to us that Davis isn’t just any citizen but a government employee whose job is to issue marriage licenses under the law. She may be free to believe what she wants and exercise her rights accordingly, but she cannot use her authority legally as a government official to deny people the rights they’ve been afforded by law.

We then posed several questions to ourselves in trying to determine the right way to think. We considered whether Davis should resign or be fired (7), which we then realized isn’t possible (8, 9), and we wondered how else a person may be removed from office (10). We considered her as a figure of civil disobedience, defying the law in defense of religious liberties (11), trying to see the situation from her perspective. But we returned again to the idea that she isn’t just a regular citizen but an agent of the law whose oath compels her to uphold the law (6). She shouldn’t be able to use her authority to deprive others of exercising their rights. We also considered that the government doesn’t take particular interest in the religious basis of marriage (12), so why should Davis be permitted to impose her religious beliefs on a lawful act of marriage?

By the time we got to (13), we thought, “Isn’t there some workaround? Can’t deputy clerks continue to sign the licenses as long as the state accepts them?” This way, Davis wouldn’t have to violate the deeply held beliefs that she is free to hold, and yet those seeking to exercise their rights to marriage would still be satisfied. Later, on page 374, we discuss a facet of compromise solutions to difficult problems when we explore Rogerian argument (named for Carl Rogers, a psychologist), a way of arguing that promotes finding common ground and solutions in which both sides win by conceding some elements to the opposition. We also thought in (13) that maybe same-sex couples could just get their licenses from a different place, one where Davis doesn’t work.

At this point, it may be useful to mention another facet of critical thinking and argument that we’ll also explore in more detail later: considering the implications of the decisions to which our thinking leads. What happens when our judgments on matters are settled and we draw a reasonable conclusion? If we were to settle on a compromise in the Davis case, it might work for the moment, but what would happen if other clerks in the state held the same beliefs as Davis (13)? In (13), we also considered the implications if same-sex couples were simply asked to go to a different office. How far should a same-sex couple have to go to find someone willing to issue the license if all clerks can decide based on their religious convictions what kinds of marriage they will authorize? Additionally, and maybe even more important, why should same-sex couples be hindered in any way in acquiring their license or be treated as a different class of citizens?

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Again, if you think with pencil and paper in hand and let your mind make associations by clustering, you’ll find (perhaps to your surprise) that you have plenty of interesting ideas and that some can lead to satisfying conclusions. Doubtless you’ll also have some ideas that represent gut reactions or poorly thought-out conclusions, but that’s okay. When clustering, allow your thoughts to take shape without restriction; you can look them over again and organize them later. Originally, we wrote in our cluster (7) that Davis could be fired for not performing her job according to its requirements. We then realized that this wouldn’t involve a simple process. Because she’s an elected official, there would have to be a state legislative action to impeach her (9). This made us think, “The state of Kentucky could impeach Davis” (10). But then we also considered the consequences and decided this would not be a long-term solution. What if the next election cycle brought someone else who shares Davis’s beliefs into the same position? In fact, what if citizens in Kentucky continued to elect county clerks in Rowan County — or any county — who refused to issue marriage licenses based on religious convictions? Would the state have to impeach clerks over and over again? We then thought, “Why is the county clerkship an elected position” (14)? Could it become an appointed position instead, such that governors could emplace county clerks, whose primary job is to administer legislative policy? Perhaps this is the argument we’ll want to make. (Of course, it might open up new questions and issues that we would have to explore: What else does the clerk do? Is the autonomy of an elected position necessary? Do all states elect county clerks? And so on.)

At the time of this writing, Kim Davis had continued to refuse signing marriage licenses for same-sex couples. When ordered by a judge to do so or face contempt of court, she held firm to her position and spent six days in jail as a result. Her supporters cheered her act of civil disobedience (defined as breaking a law based on moral or religious conscience) and even compared her to Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights leaders who fought against unjust laws on the basis of religious principles. Davis returned to her position as Rowan County clerk and authorized her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but without her signature. Time will tell how the case plays out.

Let’s think critically about another issue related to religious freedom, equality, and the law — one that we hope brings some humor to the activity but also inspires careful thinking and debate.

In 2005, in response to pressure from some religious groups, the Kansas Board of Education gave preliminary approval for teaching alternatives to evolution in public school science classes. New policies would require science teachers to present “intelligent design” — the idea that the universe was created by an intentional, conscious force such as God — as an equally plausible explanation for natural selection and human development.

In a quixotic challenge to the legislation, twenty-four-year-old physics graduate Bobby Henderson wrote an open letter that quickly became popular on the Internet and then was published in the New York Times. Henderson appealed for recognition of another theory that he said was equally valid: that an all-powerful deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world. While clearly writing satirically on behalf of science, Henderson nevertheless kept a straight face and argued that if creationism were to be taught as a theory in science classes, then “Pastafarianism” must also be taught as another legitimate possibility. “I think we can all look forward to the time,” he wrote, “when these three theories are given equal time in our science classes…. One third time for Intelligent Design; one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (Pastafarianism); and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.”

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Since that time, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has become a creative venue where secularists and atheists construct elaborate mythologies, religious texts, and rituals, most of which involve cartoonish pirates and various noodle-and-sauce images. (“R’amen,” they say at the end of their prayers.) However, although tongue-in-cheek, many followers have also used the organization seriously as a means to champion the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which prohibits government institutions from establishing, or preferring, any one religion over another. Pastafarians have challenged policies and laws in various states that appear to discriminate among religions or to provide exceptions or exemptions based on religion. In Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin, church members have successfully petitioned for permission to display statues or signs of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in places where other religious icons are permitted, such as on state government properties. One petition in Oklahoma argued that because the state allows a marble and granite Ten Commandments monument on the state courthouse lawn, then a statue of the Flying Spaghetti Monster must also be permitted; this effort ultimately forced the state to remove the Ten Commandments monument in 2015. In the past three years, individuals in California, Georgia, Florida, Texas, California, and Utah have asserted their right to wear religious head coverings in their driver’s license photos — a religious exemption afforded to Muslims in those states — and have had their pictures taken with colanders on their heads.

Let’s stop for a moment. Take stock of your initial reactions to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Some responses might be quite uncritical, quite unthinking: “That’s outrageous!” or “What a funny idea!” Others might be the type of snap judgment we discussed earlier: “These people are making fun of real religions!” or “They’re just causing trouble.” Think about it: If your hometown approved placing a Christmas tree on the town square during the holiday season, and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster argued that it too should be allowed to set up its holiday symbol as a matter of religious equality — perhaps a statue like the one pictured above — should it be afforded equal space? Why, or why not?

Be careful here, and exercise critical thinking. Can one simply say, “No, that belief is ridiculous,” in response to a religious claim? What if members of a different religious group were asking for equal space? Should a menorah (a Jewish holiday symbol) be allowed? A mural celebrating Kwanzaa? A Native American symbol? Can some religious expressions be included in public spaces and not others? If so, why? If not, why not?

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In thinking critically about a topic, we must try to see it from all sides before reaching a conclusion. We conduct an argument with ourselves, advancing and then questioning different opinions:

Critical thinking requires us to support our position and also see the other side. The heart of critical thinking is a willingness to face objections to one’s own beliefs, to adopt a skeptical attitude not only toward views opposed to our own but also toward our own common sense — that is, toward views that seem to us as obviously right. If we assume we have a monopoly on the truth and dismiss those who disagree with us as misguided fools, or if we say that our opponents are acting out of self-interest (or a desire to harass the community) and we don’t analyze their views, we’re being critical but we aren’t engaging in critical thinking.

When thinking critically, it’s important to ask key questions about any position, decision, or action we take and any regulation, policy, or law we support. We must ask:

What do you think? If you were on your hometown’s city council, how would you answer the above questions in relation to a petition from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to permit a Spaghetti Monster display alongside the traditional Christmas tree on the town square? How would you vote, and why? What other questions and issues might arise from your engagement with this issue? (Hint: Try clustering. Place the central question in the middle of a sheet of a paper, and brainstorm the issues that flower from it.)

CALL-OUT: OBSTACLES TO CRITICAL THINKING Because critical thinking requires engaging seriously with potentially difficult topics, topics about which you may already have strong opinions, and topics that elicit powerful emotional responses, it’s important to recognize the ways in which your thinking may be compromised or clouded. Write down or discuss how each of the following attitudes might impede or otherwise negatively affect your critical thinking in real life. How might each one be detrimental in making conclusions?

Think of some more obstacles to critical thinking, and provide examples of how they might lead to unsound conclusions or poor solutions.

In short, as we will say several times (because the point is key), argument is an instrument of learning as well as of persuasion. In order to formulate a reasoned position and make a vote, you’ll have to gather some information, find out what experts say, and examine the points on which they agree and disagree. You’ll likely want to gather opinions from religious leaders, community members, and legal experts (after all, you wouldn’t want the town to be sued for discrimination). You’ll want to think beyond a knee-jerk value judgment like, “No, a Spaghetti Monster statue would be ugly.”

Seeing the issue from multiple perspectives will require familiarizing yourself with current debates — perhaps about religious equality, free speech, or the separation of church and state — and considering the responsibility of public institutions to accommodate different viewpoints and various constituencies. Remember, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster didn’t gain so much traction by being easy to dismiss. Thus, you must do the following:

Survey, considering as many perspectives as possible.

Analyze, identifying and then separating out the parts of the problem, trying to see how its pieces fit together.

Evaluate, judging the merit of various ideas and claims and the weight of the evidence in their favor or against them.

If you survey, analyze, and evaluate comprehensively, you’ll have better and more informed ideas; you’ll generate a wide variety of ideas, each triggered by your own responses and the ideas your research brings to light. As you form an opinion and prepare to vote, you’ll be constructing an argument to yourself at first, but also one you may have to present to the community, so you should be as thorough as possible and sensitive to the ideas and rights of many different people.

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We have already seen an example of clustering on page 6, which illustrates the prewriting process of thinking through an issue and generating ideas by imagining responses — counterthoughts — to our initial thoughts. Here’s another example, this time showing an actual student’s thoughts about an issue related to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The student, Alexa Cabrera, was assigned to write approximately 500 words about a specific legal challenge made by a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. She selected the case of Stephen Cavanaugh, a prisoner who made a complaint against the Nebraska State Penitentiary after being denied the right to practice Pastafarianism while incarcerated there. Because the Department of Corrections denied him those privileges, Cavanaugh filed suit citing civil rights violations and asked for his rights to be accommodated. Notice that in the essay — the product of several revised drafts — the student introduced points she had not thought of while clustering. The cluster, in short, was a first step, not a road map of the final essay.

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The title, in its words stirred and strained, engages readers’ attention by playing with words related to pasta, prison, and the frustration likely to be encountered by an individual who is denied religious freedom. The subtitle states the thesis. This introductory material — a paper begins with its title, not with its first paragraph — makes readers curious and lets them know where the essay will take them.

Paragraph 1 sets the stage. The first sentence clarifies what the Church is and uses a nifty turn of phrase, “by god (or by pasta),” to encourage engagement and make the author’s voice, like the FSM, playful but dead serious. The second, third, and fourth sentences provide the basis for Cavanaugh’s claims. The last sentence presents a clear thesis.

Paragraph 2 draws on the student’s preliminary map. It sets forth objections to making religious accommodations for prisoners and disputes them, providing a citation of the law that guarantees religious freedom in prison, a definition of its limits, and a few examples of these limits. The last sentence sustains the thesis by arguing that accommodations must be equal among religions. However, it also anticipates that readers are likely to agree on this point but still not consider the FSM as a religion.

Paragraph 3 addresses the potential counterargument set up by paragraph 2 and highlights the most common criticism of the FSM: that it isn’t really a religion at all. The writer raises the problematic question that if prisons must accommodate Cavanaugh, then where would the protest end? What new accommodations might he ask for in the future? Paragraph 3 in effect suggests the implications of granting Cavanaugh his request, inviting the reader to imagine a potentially slippery argumentative slope.

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Paragraph 4 halts readers’ imaginings, reminding them that the writer is still in the realm of talking about reasonable and fair treatment among inmates, not an “anything goes” proposition. It reminds readers that the state cannot determine a “real” or “unreal” religion, just as it cannot judge the depth, rigor, or literalness of an inmate’s belief (Christian, Pastafarian, or otherwise). The fact is that our society has laws to ensure religious freedom and equality for all citizens. In this way, the writer makes a shrewd rhetorical move, presenting Cavanaugh’s complaint not just as antagonistic but also as something essential to protecting prisoners of all faiths. Such an appeal to democratic insistence on fairness is normally effective, although in this instance a reader may wonder if the writer has demonstrated convincingly that fairness requires prisons to accommodate Pastafarians. Are you convinced that it would be unfair to deny Cavanaugh and other Pastafarian inmates their demands? Why, or why not?

We have already seen, in the clusters that students have generated, concise examples of how the act of writing helps thinkers to think better. “To learn to write,” Robert Frost said, “is to learn to have ideas.” But how does one “learn to have ideas”? Often we discover ideas while talking with others. A friend says X about some issue, and we — who have never really thought much about the matter — say,

Or maybe we say,

Mere chance — a friend’s comment — has led us to an idea that we didn’t know we had. This sort of discovery may seem like the one we make when reaching under the couch to retrieve the dog’s ball and finding a ten-dollar bill instead: “How it got there, I’ll never know, but I’m sure glad I found it.”

In fact, learning to have ideas is not largely a matter of chance. Or if chance is involved, well, as Louis Pasteur put it, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” This means that lurking in the mind are bits of information or hints or hunches that in the unexpected circumstance — when talking, when listening to a lecture or a classroom discussion, or especially when reading — are triggered and lead to useful thoughts. This is a sort of seat-of-the-pants knowledge that, when brought to the surface in the right circumstances, produces good results.

Consider the famous example of Archimedes, the ancient Greek mathematician who discovered a method to determine the volume of an irregularly shaped object. The problem: A king gave a goldsmith a specific weight of gold with which to make a crown in the shape of laurel leaves. When the job was finished, the king weighed the crown and found that it matched the weight of the gold he had provided, but he nevertheless suspected that the goldsmith might have substituted some silver for some of the gold. How could the king find out (without melting or otherwise damaging the crown) if the crown was pure gold? For Archimedes, meditating on this problem produced no ideas, but when he entered a bathtub he noticed that the water level rose as he immersed his body. He suddenly realized that he could thus determine the volume of the crown — by measuring the amount of displaced water. Since silver is less dense than gold, it takes a greater volume of silver to equal a given weight of gold. That is, a given weight of gold will displace less water than the same weight of silver. Archimedes then immersed the given weight of gold, measured the water it displaced, and found that indeed the crown displaced more water than the gold did. In his excitement at confirming his idea, Archimedes is said to have leaped out of the tub and run naked through the street, shouting “Eureka!” (Greek for “I have found [it]!”).

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Why do we tell this story? Partly because we like it, but chiefly because the word eureka comes from the same Greek word that has given our language the word heuristic (pronounced hyoo-RIS-tik), which refers to a method or process of discovering ideas — in short, of thinking. In this method, one thought triggers another. (Note: In computer science, heuristic has a more specialized meaning.) Of course, one of the best ways of generating ideas is to hear what’s going on around you — and that is talk, both in and out of the classroom, as well as in the world of books. You’ll find, as we said early in this discussion, that your response may be, “Well, yes, I see what you’re saying, but come to think of it, I don’t see it quite that way. I see it differently — not as X but as Y.” As we’ve said, argument is an instrument of learning as well as of persuasion. For instance:

Yes, solar power is a way of conserving energy, but do we need to despoil the Mojave Desert and endanger desert life with — literally — fifty thousand solar mirrors so that folks in Los Angeles can heat their pools? Doesn’t it make sense to reduce our use of energy, rather than develop sources of renewable energy that violate the environment? Some sites should be off-limits.

Maybe your response to the proposal (now at least fifteen years old) that wind turbines be placed in the waters off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, would go like this:

Given our need for wind power, how can a reasonable person object to the proposal that we put 130 wind turbines in the waters off Cape Cod, Massachusetts? Yes, the view will be changed, but in fact the turbines are quite attractive. No one thinks that windmills in Holland spoil the landscape. So the view will be changed, but not spoiled; and furthermore, the verdict is still out on whether or not wind turbines pose a significant risk to birds or aquatic life.

When you’re asked to write about something you’ve read in this book, if your first response is that you have no ideas, remember the responses that we have mentioned — “No, I don’t see it that way” or “Yes, but” or “Yes, and moreover” — and see if one of them helps you respond to the work — helps you, in short, to develop ideas.

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Generating ideas can be a challenge when you, as a student, are asked to read about and respond to an unfamiliar issue. Sometimes, students wonder why they have to engage in particular topics and generate ideas about them. “I want to be a speech pathologist,” you might say, “so why do I need to read essays and formulate ideas about capital punishment?”

One answer is that a college curriculum should spur students to think about pressing issues facing our society, so learning about capital punishment is important to all students. But this isn’t the only answer. One could never study “all” the important social problems we face (anyway, many of them change very rapidly). Instead, colleges seek to equip students with tools, methods, and habits of mind that enable them to confront arguments about any potential issue or problem (including those within the field of speech pathology!). The primary goal of a college education (and of this book) is to help students develop an intellectual apparatus — a toolkit that can be applied to any subject matter, any issue.

The techniques presented in this book offer a practical framework for approaching issues, thinking about them carefully, asking good questions, identifying problems, and offering reasonable solutions — not necessarily because we want you to form opinions about the issues we have selected (though we hope you do), but because we want you to practice critical thinking, reading, and writing in ways that transfer to other aspects of your education as well as to your personal, professional, and civic life.

The playwright Edward Albee once said, “Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it.” Rather than thinking that you must “agree or disagree” with the authors whose works you’ll read in this book, imagine that you’ll be practicing how to discover your unique point of view by finding pathways into debates, negotiating different positions, and generating new ideas. So when you confront an unfamiliar issue in this book (or elsewhere), consider the strategies discussed below as practical methods for generating new ideas. That is what critical thinking (and writing) is all about.

One way of generating ideas, practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans and still regarded as among the best ways, is to consider what the ancients called topics — from the Greek topos, meaning “place,” as in our word topography (a description or representation of a place). For the ancients, certain topics, when formulated as questions, were places where they went to find ideas. Among the classical topics were definition, comparison, relationship, and testimony. By prompting oneself with questions about these topics, one moves toward answers.

If you’re at a loss for ideas when confronted with an issue (and an assignment to write about it), you might discover ideas by turning to the relevant classical topics and jotting down your responses. (In classical terminology, this means engaging in the process of invention, from the Latin invenire, “to come upon, to find.”) Seeing your ideas on paper — even in the briefest form — will help bring other ideas to mind and will also help you evaluate them. For instance, after jotting down ideas as they come and your responses to them, you might do the following:

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You probably won’t know where you stand until you’ve gone through such a process. It would be nice to be able to make a quick decision, immediately justify it with three excellent reasons, and then give three further reasons showing why the opposing view is inadequate. In fact, however, people almost never can reach a reasoned decision without a good deal of preliminary thinking.

Consider the following brief essay about the Food and Drug Administration’s approval, in 2015, of a genetically engineered salmon. Although GMO (genetically modified organisms) foods and medicines are common in the United States, this salmon will soon be the first genetically modified animal approved for food consumption in the United States. After you read the essay, refer to Thinking Critically: Generating Topics, which asks you to begin jotting down ideas on a sheet of paper along the lines of the classical topics. As an example of how to respond to the questions, we’ve included columns related to the Kim Davis and Stephen Cavanaugh cases. As you attempt to formulate ideas related to the essay about genetically engineered salmon, answer the questions related to the classical topics. There’s no need to limit yourself to one answer per item as we did.

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Here’s an inner dialogue that you might engage in as you think critically about the question of genetically engineered salmon:

The purpose of genetically engineered salmon is to protect against the ecological effects of overfishing — that seems to be a good thing.

Another purpose is to protect consumers by ensuring that the price of salmon, one of the most commonly eaten fish, will not become so high that few people could afford it.

But other issues are apparent. Should we turn to altering the genes of animals to protect the environment or consumer prices? Are there other solutions, like eating less salmon or regulating overfishing?

Who gains and who loses, and what do they stand to gain or lose, by this FDA approval of genetically modified salmon?

The author says no one should worry about “several bits of DNA added”; but come to think of it, is this modification unethical or dangerous in any way? Is it okay to create a new type of animal by altering genes?

The author attacks anti-GMO activists, saying they’re just after money (and fame — why fame?). Isn’t money (and fame?) also the goal of AquaBounty and other GMO food producers?

Notice how part of the job is analytic, recognizing the elements or complexities of the whole, and part is evaluative, judging the adequacy of all the ideas, one by one. Both tasks require critical thinking in the form of analyzing and evaluating, and those processes themselves require a disciplined imagination.

So far we have jotted down a few thoughts and then immediately given some second thoughts contrary to the first. Be aware that your own counterthoughts might not come to mind right away. For instance, they might not occur until you reread your notes or try to explain the issue to a friend, or until you begin drafting an essay aimed at supporting or undermining the new FDA rules. Most likely, in fact, some good ideas won’t occur until a second or third or fourth draft.

Here are some further thoughts on the genetically modified salmon. We list them more or less as they occurred to us and as we typed them into a computer — not sorted neatly into two groups, pro and con, or evaluated as you should do in further critical thinking of your own. Of course, a later step would be to organize the material into a useful pattern. As you read, try writing your responses in the margin.

According to one article, the FDA is not requiring companies to label the salmon as genetically engineered. Should this information at least be made available to consumers? Maybe their religious, ethical, or personal preferences would be not to eat modified fish species. If the fish were properly labeled and people knew of any risks associated with eating it, they could avoid it if they wished.

Are there any animal rights issues at stake here? Is it okay to breed “only sterile females”? Critics say that scientists shouldn’t create new kinds of animals. Is this even what AquaBounty is doing?

The author says we shouldn’t worry about these fish breeding with other salmon, but is she understating the risks? I hadn’t thought of the possibility, but clearly someone has. Is there an actual risk of threatening the natural species? If there was really zero risk, why are they bothering to breed only sterile females?

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Maybe the FDA shouldn’t have approved genetically modified salmon for food. If we start with the salmon, where will it end? What other foods are being reviewed for similar kinds of farming? Is this really the same as the development of corn and other vegetables, as the author suggests — or is animal life something different?

Doubtless there is much that we haven’t asked or thought about, but we hope you’ll agree that the issue deserves careful thought, given that the availability of genetically modified food animals has serious implications for the environment and the future of food production.

If you worked for the FDA and were part of this decision, you would have to think about these questions and issues. As a thought experiment, imagine you had to contribute to the decision about approving these fish. Try to put your tentative views into writing.

Note that you would want to get answers to questions such as the following:

Some of these questions require you to do research on the topic. Some raise issues of fact, and relevant evidence probably is available. In order to reach a conclusion in which you have confidence, you’ll have to do some research to find out what the facts — the objective data — are. Merely explaining your position without giving the evidence will not be convincing.

Even without doing any research, however, you might want to look over the pros and cons, perhaps adding some new thoughts or modifying or even rejecting (for reasons that you can specify) some of those already given. If you do think further about this issue (and we hope that you will), notice an interesting point about your own thinking: It probably isn’t linear (moving in a straight line from A to B to C) but recursive, moving from A to C and back to B or starting over at C and then back to A and B. By zigging and zagging almost despite yourself, you’ll reach a conclusion that may finally seem correct. In retrospect, it might seem obvious; now you can chart a nice line from A to B to C — but that probably wasn’t at all evident at the start.

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When reading an essay, we expect the writer to have thought carefully about the topic. We don’t want to read every false start, every fuzzy thought, every ill-organized paragraph that the writer knocked off. Yes, writers make false starts, put down fuzzy thoughts, write ill-organized paragraphs; but then they revise and revise yet again, ultimately producing a readable essay that seems effortlessly written. Still — and this is our main point — writers of argumentative essays need to show readers that they have made some effort; they need to show how they got to their final (for the moment) views. It isn’t enough for the writer to say, “I believe X”; rather, he or she must in effect say, “I believe X — and I hope you’ll believe it also — because Y and Z, though attractive, just don’t stand up to inquiry as well as X does. Y is superficially plausible, but … , and Z, which is an attractive alternative to Y, nevertheless fails because….”

Notice in the following short essay — on employers using biometric devices to monitor employees’ performance — that the author, Lynn Stuart Parramore, positions herself against these workplace technologies in a compelling way. As you read, think critically about how she presents her position, how she encourages readers to sympathize with her views. Ask questions about what she includes and excludes, whether she presents other perspectives amply or fairly, and what additional positions might be valid on these recent developments in the rapidly growing field of biometrics in business.

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Before we comment in detail on Parramore’s essay, we need to say that in terms of the length of some of its paragraphs, it isn’t necessarily a model for you to imitate. Material in print or online news sources is typically presented in very short paragraphs (notice Parramore’s one-sentence-long paragraph 4). This is partly because people read it while eating breakfast or commuting to work, and in the case of print newspapers partly because the columns are narrow (a paragraph of only two or three sentences may still be an inch or two deep).

The title, “Fitbits for Bosses,” is provocative, captures readers’ attention, and leaves them with a sense of where Parramore’s argument is heading.

Paragraph 1 compels readers by asking them to imagine an ordinary day at work, presenting the routine activities of getting work under way — turning on the computer, adjusting the chair — before throwing in the “behavior-monitoring device” almost as an afterthought, as if to shock us with the possibility that such devices could become routine.

Paragraph 2 presses the idea of invasion of privacy, almost aggressively, by using words like dystopian and a reference to a science fiction novel (“brave new world”) whose title has become a shorthand for technological intrusions into individuals’ lives.

Paragraph 3 presents as “obvious” the fact that self-monitoring technology has gone mainstream. (One of the authors of this book just purchased a new mobile device that came preinstalled with an application that records the number of steps and miles the user walks in a day. Going deeper into the menu, it includes functions for recording everything from nutrient intake to sexual activity.) The writer is clearly drawing on readers’ familiarity with these technologies. Then she presents the portent of these devices “creeping” into the workplace, first by showing how such technologies have already been used in military applications and in businesses like professional sports. “So what?” we might think, but Parramore is about tell us.

Paragraph 4 is a single-sentence paragraph, turning the essay’s focus from two specialized fields to the everyday jobs that millions of people hold. Notice how the language (“getting in on the game”) reveals Parramore’s position that this trend signals something new and troubling.

Paragraph 5 turns to the finance industry to show how some industries are beginning to monitor not just employee health but hormonal flows that have been correlated to emotional and psychological states. The dystopian theme is extended here as these technologies are presented as reaching into new realms where independent action and decision-making occur. Phrases like “human optimization” and references to an “early warning system” that would “alert supervisors” hint at potential limitations on human independence and deeper control of employees by managers.

Paragraph 6 focuses on Bank of America’s partnership with Humanyze and shows more ways in which biosurveillance technologies could be used to monitor employees. Parramore is enhancing her argument through careful language use. In fact, her position is arguably coming most strongly through tone. What language cues indicate her position on these technologies? What specific words and phrases does she use ironically or sardonically?

Paragraph 7 quotes Humanyze’s founder, Ben Waber, who rationally states that companies spend enormous amounts of money tracking consumers, so why not track employees too? But Parramore presents this statement as anything but appealing; instead, it comes across as a kind of dangerous rationality.

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Paragraph 8 starts out by noting that the government doesn’t permit law enforcement to do what employers regularly do in various industries. It cites a study showing how widespread the use of these devices is, and a case in which a woman lost her job by refusing to be monitored.

Paragraph 9 provides the defense offered by the industries that create these technologies, pointing out that some highly sensitive jobs such as power plant operator and airline pilot require the closest scrutiny of individuals’ physical conditions.

Paragraph 10 mentions “Young Americans,” raised in a digital world, who may just “shrug” at the latest developments in surveillance technology without realizing the implications to them personally. “What could go wrong?” Parramore asks.

Paragraph 11 answers that question, first with the word dehumanizing, then by claiming that surveillance dampens creativity and change, encourages suspicion, presumes dishonesty, and hurts productivity.

Paragraph 12 brings into the mix a philosopher, Michel Foucault — one of the twentieth century’s most recognized theorists of power. Foucault leads Parramore to wonder about what kinds of power may be exercised by using the information gained from surveillance technology.

Paragraph 13 considers hypothetical scenarios in which a manager might be able to discriminate or coerce an employee by using collected data. Parramore seems to be asking how employees are protected from such strict oversight.

Paragraph 14 reminds readers that measurements are just measurements, prone to error and to biases that could lead to unfair or discriminatory uses of data.

Paragraph 15 presents a summary of the potentially harmful outcomes of widespread implementation of biometric surveillance of employees, pointing especially to decreased job satisfaction and an “us-versus-them” mentality among employees and employers.

Paragraph 16 drives home the author’s point by offering a reversal of the expected order of surveillance arrangements. What if, Parramore suggests, the public demanded surveillance of those in power, especially since those in important managerial positions are presumably the ones whose behaviors and actions might impact the most people? The essay finishes with a suggestion that it is those in power who most need to be watched “in the name of safety and efficiency” — ostensibly the terms used to justify the practice as applied to workers.

In Chapter 3, we will discuss assumptions in some detail, but here we introduce the topic by emphasizing the importance of identifying and examining assumptions — those you’ll encounter in the writings of others and those you’ll rely on in your own essays.

With this in mind, let’s again consider some of the assumptions suggested in this chapter’s earlier readings. The student who wrote about Stephen Cavanaugh’s case pointed out that Nebraska prison officials simply did not see the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a real religion. Their assumption was that some religions can be more or less “real” than others or can make more sense than others. Assumptions may be explicit or implicit, stated or unstated. In this case, the prison officials were forthright about their assumptions in their stated claim about the Church, perhaps believing their point was obvious to anyone who thought seriously about the idea of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It didn’t occur to them to consider that even major and mainstream religions honor stories, claims, and rituals that seem absurd to others.

An implicit assumption is one that is not stated but, rather, is taken for granted. It works like an underlying belief that structures an argument. In Lynn Stuart Parramore’s essay on workplace biometric devices, the unstated assumption is that these sorts of technology in the workplace represent a kind of evil “big brother” intent on subduing and exploiting employees with newer and newer forms of invasion of privacy. Parramore’s assumption, while not stated directly, is evident in her choice of language, as we’ve pointed out above. Another way to discern her assumption is by looking at the scenarios and selections of examples she chooses. For example, in imagining a company that would seek to know how much time an employee spends in the lounge area or alone, Parramore sees only obsessive monitoring of employees for the purposes of regulating their time. But what if these technologies could enable a company to discover that productivity or worker satisfaction increases in proportion to the amount of time employees spend collaborating in the lounge? Maybe workplace conditions would improve instead of deteriorating (a bigger lounge, more comfortable chairs), and maybe more efforts would be made for team-building and improving interpersonal employee relations.

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Consider now two of the assumptions involved in the Kim Davis case. Thanks to the clustering exercise (p. 6), these and other assumptions are already on display. Perhaps the most important and fundamental assumption Davis and her supporters made is this:

Where private religious beliefs conflict with duly enacted laws, the former should prevail.

This assumption is widely held in our society; it is by no means unique to Davis and her supporters. Opponents, however, probably assumed a very different but equally fundamental proposition:

Private religious practices and beliefs must yield to the demands of laws guaranteeing citizens equal rights.

Obviously, these two assumptions are opposed to each other, and neither side can prevail so long as the key assumption of the other side is ignored.

Assumptions can be powerful sources of ideas and opinions, and understanding our own and others’ assumptions is a major part of critical thinking. Assumptions about race, class, disability, sex, and gender are among the most powerful sources of social inequality. The following essay arguing that women should be permitted to serve in combat roles in the military was published in 2012, well before the Department of Defense lifted the ban on women in combat roles in the armed forces in 2013. More recently, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter further lifted exclusions pertaining to women by granting them access to serve in all capacities in combat, including in elite special forces units. Following that development, General Lori J. Robinson made history as the first female combatant commander when she was appointed leader of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command in Colorado in May 2016. Still, we reprint McGregor’s essay because it compels readers to consider some of their assumptions about women (and men). Topics for discussion appear after the essay.

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