(PHI300) Critical Thinking – Final Review
Chapter 10:
• Biased consideration of evidence is a natural reaction.
What are the forms of biases?
• Double standard: Ignoring inconsistencies, contradictions, & outrageous overstatements in
arguments they agree with, yet engage in nitpicking when evaluating their opponents’
arguments.
common in issues of free speech
To avoid: decide in advance what judgment criteria you will use & apply that criteria
consistently, even if the data in question does not support your view.
• Hasty conclusion: premature judgment, or a judgment made without sufficient evidence.
It takes mental discipline to resist jumping to conclusions.
To avoid: identify all possible conclusions before you select any one. Then decide whether you
have sufficient evidence to support any of those conclusions, & if so, which conclusion that is.
**There is no shame in postponing judgment until you obtain additional evidence.
• Overgeneralization: to ascribe to all the members of a group what fits only some members.
For example: If you visit NYC & meet a few rude people, you would be correct in saying,
“Some New Yorkers are rude”, but not “Most New Yorkers are rude”, let alone “New
Yorkers are rude”.
• Stereotyping: an overgeneralization that is especially resistant to change.
The most common types of stereotypes are ethnic & religious.
• Both overgeneralizations & stereotypes hinder critical thinking because they prevent us from
seeing the differences among people within groups.
• To avoid these errors, resist the urge to force individual people, places, or things into rigid
categories.
• Oversimplification: twists & distorts ideas. Instead of informing people, oversimplification
misleads them.
For example: If the students haven’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught.
Often occurs in matters about which people have strong feelings.
• The Post Hoc Fallacy: expresses reasoning that when one thing occurs after another, it must be
the result of the other.
failure to realize that mere order & closeness in time does not prove a cause–and-affect
relationship.
basis of most superstitions
To avoid: withhold judgment until you have evaluated all possible explanations,
including coincidence.
How do you form a generalization?
• Mental activity by which we draw broad conclusions from particular experiences.
For example: A child hears a dog bark & concludes that barking is a characteristic of
dogs.
What constitutes sufficient evidence?
• Evidence is sufficient when it permits a judgment to be made with certainty.
Wishing, assuming, or pretending that a judgment is correct does NOT constitute certainty.
Certainty exists when there is no good reason for doubt, no basis for dispute.
• If certainty is unattainable, evidence is sufficient if one view of the issue has been shown to
have the force of probability.
This means that the view in question is demonstrably more reasonable than any competing
view.
• In all other cases, the evidence is considered insufficient.
