Opinions
TFY C6. Opinions: What's Believed?
TPCT Ch. 11: Critical Thinking in Morality and Law
ePortfolio 1 / PPt Review
Chapter Six Opinions
This chapter explores that familiar word opinion and examines the way it affects our ability to think critically. Again we have a familiar but confusing word that can be used in many different ways. Exercises are offered to help you assess your understanding of the different varieties of opinion. Writing applications ask you to test and expand what you know into essays that articulate, support, describe, or analyze opinions. Readings show you how professional writers can present support for an opinion; in one case through direct statement, and in a second case through a satirical sub-statement.
Chapter 6
advice
Advice is to recommend an opinion to someone else.
argument
There are the two parts of an argument. The conclusion, or main summary idea and the reasons given to support that idea.
infer
To use imagination and reasoning to fill in missing facts. To connect the dots.
judgment
Judgment is a final opinion, decision, conclusion or evaluation about something.
opinion
Opinion is a word used to include an unsupported belief, a supported argument, an expert’s judgment, prevailing public sentiment, and a formal statement by a court.
personal taste or preference
Personal taste or preferences are forms of opinions that express likes or dislikes. They can be irrational and need not be supported with reasons.
thinking
Purposeful mental activity such as reasoning, deciding, judging, believing, supposing, expecting, intending, recalling, remembering, visualizing, imagining, devising, inventing, concentrating, conceiving, considering.
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Opinion Videos
PCT Ch. 11: Judging Moral Arguments and Theories
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Moral Arguments
- A
moral argument is an argument in which the conclusion is a moral
statement. A moral statement is a statement asserting that an action is
right or wrong (moral or immoral) or that a person or motive is good or
bad.
- In a
moral argument, we cannot establish the conclusion without a moral
premise. A standard moral argument has at least one premise that asserts a
general moral principle, at least one premise that is a nonmoral claim,
and a conclusion that is a moral statement.
- Often
a moral premise in a moral argument is implicit. The best approach to
identifying the implicit premises is to treat moral arguments as
deductive. Your job then is to supply plausible premises that will make
the argument valid.
Moral Premises
- Gauging
the truth of moral premises (moral principles) mostly involves examining
the support they get from three sources: (1) other moral principles, (2)
moral theories, and (3) considered moral judgments.
- We can
assess the truth of a moral premise the same way we might assess any other
kind of universal generalization—by trying to think of counterexamples to
it.
Moral Theories
- Theories
of morality are attempts to explain what makes an action right or what
makes a person good. Web test moral theories the same way we test any
other theory—by applying criteria of adequacy to a theory and its
competitors.
- The
criteria of adequacy for moral theories are (1) consistency with
considered moral judgments, (2) consistency with our experience of the
moral life, and (3) workability in real-life situations.
Legal Reasoning
- Arguments
and inference are widely used in the law. Inductive reasoning
predominates. Courts must determine what the facts are in cases, and that
task must involve inductive reasoning. When the question before a court is
about causality, inductive arguments must provide answers.
- Reasoning
by analogy is central to judicial decision-making. It is usually applied
when judges must decide cases in light of previous settled cases—in
accordance with precedent, especially precedent established by higher
courts.
A Coherent Worldview
- Worldviews
are composites of theories, including theories of morality. A good
worldview must consist of good theories. But it also must have internal
consistency—the theories composing our worldview must not conflict.
- Our
worldviews are far too important not to subject them to intelligent,
reasoned reflection.