Thinking Skills: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

7.4 Reasoning with statistics 275 New York’s prison rate decreased by 20% from 1999 to 2009. Its crime rate fell by 29% in the s ...

276 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level other states. Indiana and New York may be no more than dramatic exceptions to the ...

7.4 Reasoning with statistics 277 example. Statistics are powerful reasoning tools. But what we infer from them needs to be kept ...

278 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level CHART 6 Graph showing incidences of bank robbery before and after the mass pardon ...

7.5 Decision making 279 7.5 Decision making In some ways a decision is like a conclusion: a judgement that can be supported by g ...

280 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level (You will sometimes see the word ‘utility’ used instead of ‘value’. Note also that ...

7.5 Decision making 281 considering they are quantifiable, which makes the task more objective than it would be otherwise. All w ...

282 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level Depending on other relevant factors – the weather, the terrain, how tired you feel ...

7.5 Decision making 283 have a value of $2 million. They call this a ‘Level C’ result. This, of course, would mean a net loss fo ...

284 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level Step 2 Now all that we have to do is insert the likelihood of each of these outcom ...

7.5 Decision making 285 Summary • Decision making, on a practical level, can be assisted by assessing consequences. • Conse ...

286 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level A rival company called Ygen has bid $10 million for the extraction rights. Calcula ...

7.6 Principles 287 One particular type of claim on which arguments and decisions are often based is an expression of principle. ...

288 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level Carla’s argument invokes no such principle. She clearly believes that there is a s ...

7.6 Principles 289 the reason. That is what it means to say: ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right.’ If you accept the principle that t ...

290 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level shop and fill your pockets with anything that takes your fancy – as long as no one ...

7.6 Principles 291 Principles vs pragmatics A more general way of criticising Dieter’s reasoning would be to say that he pushes ...

292 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level The first of these is self-explanatory. If the consequences of some act are benefi ...

7.6 Principles 293 profit-oriented. Is it right to plunder yet another of the Earth’s fossil fuel reserves? Is it safe to drill ...

294 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level Not all principles are ethical principles, although typically they are. There are ...