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Let’s Get Critical: Part II

In Part I, I offered a reasonable definition of critical thinking. If we accept this as a good starting place, we can proceed to the next question I asked: why should we want to develop the ability to think this way in the first place?

We can take a page out of Aristotle’s book (specifically this one), and assume the value will be intrinsic, instrumental, or both. If the value of critical thinking is intrinsic, then something about this skill is good all on its own, even if it gets us nothing beyond the ability to exercise it. If the value of this skill is instrumental, it is good because of something else that it allows us to do or get. If both, then it is a combination of these two.

I think there is a case to be made for the combination answer: that this skill is good because it helps lead us to other desirable ends, and also because, even if it did not, there is something worthy in being able to exercise this human skill (perhaps it is aesthetically valuable). However, I will primarily focus on explaining what I take to be some of the most compelling, instrumentally valuable elements of knowing how to analyze, conceptualize, and problematize using the power of one’s own mind.

Doing the Right Thing

As I have been investigating this skill, I have continually named it as critical thought, though we could also call it by another name: rationality. I will not pick apart the differences between these two here, as I am assuming there is enough overlap between them to make the point.

Immanuel Kant asked a similar question in his famous work, The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. He wanted to know what, if anything, rationality was for. He points out that it could be for ensuring our survival, though it is clear that plants and many animals survive just fine without it, so this is unlikely to be exclusively for this purpose. He also suggests that it could be used in service of providing us with a happy life, but this he also dismisses. He argues that many of us might actually be happier if we were slightly less rational; he may be onto something here, though I will try to offer some reasons why critical thinking may be useful for this as well. In the end, Kant decides the ultimate function of rationality is to discern right from wrong; i.e., rationality is for morality.

If Kant is right about this and the similarities between critical thinking and rational thinking hold, we have our first answer. Developing the skill is, for Kant at least, necessary for knowing right from wrong (indeed, Kant thought rationality and moral action were identical). Whether it actually makes us act rightly is another question, but if you have even the slightest inclination to do the right thing, then you should want to practice careful, critical thinking.

Living a Good Life

Many of us want things out of life. We want to live a good life, a happy life, a fulfilled life. We want to pursue a large variety of ends: we want careers, we want to secure a pleasant retirement, we want to have romantic partners, build families, have friends, pursue pleasant and interesting activities, help others, fight for what is right, and ultimately live out some version of the good life.

Unfortunately, none of this is given to us. We must exert effort in our lives to create this reality for ourselves. A good life doesn’t just happen; one must cultivate it. This is a long-standing realization within the philosophical community, and we have been trying to figure out just how to do so since we started writing our thoughts down. One thing that many of us hope is that the careful cultivation of our cognitive capacities may be helpful toward achieving a good life.

To see clearly where the skill of careful thought may be of use in living a good life, we can imagine the opposite case: someone who does not exercise this capacity. The quintessentially thoughtless person lets the world decide for them, perhaps their parents, their friends, or their society. So, they engage in recreation that others have decided is fun, they get a degree that others decided was right for them, they get a job in a field that others decided would be lucrative or fulfilling for them, they vote for politicians that others have praised, they support causes that others have set up as worth fighting for, and in general, they do not stop to ask what they think about all of these choices. This person may find themselves very quickly in the middle of a midlife crisis and they may ask themselves, “well, how did I get here?”

This is not to undermine the importance of social and communal life; there is great value in liking what others like and making choices that are prosocial. Rather, it is to point out that the risk of thoughtlessness is the risk of losing one’s sense of agency and the ability to engage meaningfully in the cultivation of one’s own life.

Being an Informed Citizen

Without getting into the why of it all, we can take as a given that all of us are born into and must navigate political society. Here is where the skill of analytical and critical thinking can be seen as worth developing for oneself.

As I have argued elsewhere, most political ideologies must confront the question of violence. While it is true that a great deal of our sociopolitical life is mundane — filling out forms, standing in line, paying taxes — it rests on a delicate and risky foundation because political power entails the power to control others with coercion. Even the most moderately informed person knows that the history of the world is filled with serious stakes, and it requires a massive collective effort to create conditions of peace and justice.

Enter the skill we have been analyzing. In order to know what kind of society you are in — is it a just or unjust society, and what should be done about it either way? — you need to be able to think for yourself. So, we can return now to our imaginary opponent from part I, the AI extremist, who asks us to let go of the hard work of critical analysis. Why should we hold on to this ancient human art form when the bots are now able to produce analytical and critical analysis for us? Why can we not just ask the bots, for instance, “Is my society just?”

In order to understand why we would never want to let go of this skill, we need to acknowledge that justice exists on a spectrum. No society is perfectly just and even if one could imagine maximizing justice in one’s social order, human fallibility all but ensures that justice will fluctuate. Justice is ultimately an ongoing, never ending project.

Acknowledging the imperfect nature of human societies implies something else, namely that the systems we create and deploy will also fluctuate on the spectrum of justice. AI systems are particularly susceptible to these fluctuations for a few reasons: (1) they are being integrated into information systems used by billions of people, (2) they are being integrated into various levels of society’s basic structure and government, and (3) we so far do not have a way to perfectly prevent AI from lying, making mistakes, being manipulated, or going rogue.

With these points in mind, we can ask whether it is prudent to give up our rational powers and defer to the answers and reasons offered by an AI system. If you ask the AI “Is our society just?” and it says yes, you can also ask it why it thinks so. It may offer a seemingly sophisticated set of justifications that might satisfy you and these justifications may even be good ones. But, given the fragility of justice, without a way for you to personally assess the answers and reasons given by an AI system you are vulnerable to a serious political threat. Alan Moore articulates this problem well in Watchmen with the graffitied protest slogan “Who watches the Watchmen?”

On the matter of being an informed citizen, it is only in the most utopic society where one might even consider abandoning the power of their mind. But in most of the realities we can imagine, this skill is of the utmost importance if one values things like truth, freedom, and justice.

While this list of reasons is also incomplete, we now have a partial answer to our second question and we can more confidently say why we must hold fast against any forces that threaten to take this most human of skills away from us, lest we fall into an inhuman slumber.

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Let’s Get Critical: Part I

Long before a gaggle of chatbots began to creep in on academia’s professional turf, humanities professors have been extolling the virtues of learning the humanities because it teaches, among other things, the skill of critical thinking.

Now that AI is being advertised to students as a study aid, private tutor, or (unabashedly) a way to cheat on everything, we are all frantically trying to figure out what it is we can offer students. The answer? Critical thinking. It’s always been a part of our sales pitch, but now with renewed vigor.

We can split the claim that AI is unhelpful for critical thinking into two parts. First, while AI can provide all kinds of output, it cannot think critically for us. If you want to turn in an assignment, or create a presentation for your new boss, AI can do that for you; if you want to create critical thoughts in your own mind, it cannot. Second, AI will always be biased, either because its training data is biased, or because its output must always be aligned with the business aims of the companies that create it.

Of course, we can challenge both of these claims. First, while AI cannot think critically for us, there are plenty of clever ways to engage with it to practice critical thinking. For instance, you can write an argument, feed the argument to AI, and then ask it to critique your argument. You can then edit your writing and repeat the process. For the truly curious, AI chatbots can be intellectual sparring companions. Second, while AI output must in some way be aligned with the values of the company that creates the system, maybe it can still produce some kind of critical output. Just ask Claude to critically analyze its last response and it will produce something that, at least on the surface, looks critical.

All this attention on critical thinking and AI’s potential impact on it has got me thinking. What precisely is critical thinking? And what’s it good for anyway? In this two-part series, I will offer an answer to both of these questions. Let’s start with the first question.

Critical thinking is a skill.

This claim is central to the rest of my analysis. By labeling critical thinking a skill, I do not mean to say it is only a skill; for instance, it may also be a natural ability, something that some people can engage in more naturally than others. All I mean here by claiming that it is a skill is that it can be improved with practice. Furthermore, it seems to be like other skills in that you can lose proficiency if you stop practicing. This is one of the great fears that the AI boom has ushered in; if the bots are thinking for us, our minds might atrophy and we might lose crucial skills like the ability to hold those in positions of power accountable.

Critical thinking is a kind of optimistic thinking.

I do not want to make the claim that all critical thinking is inherently optimistic. Some people who practice critical thinking are genuinely pessimistic. However, when I think about my own use of critical thinking, I spend most of my critical energy thinking about what is wrong with systems that are genuinely important for humanity, e.g., systems of government and informational technologies. I do this not because I enjoy noticing the horrors of our collective social life, but because I think it is possible to imagine a better way forward.

Being critical is, when done well, a hopeful practice. It takes some effort to remember this because being critical is often depressing; it requires spending a lot of time analyzing something and noticing all of the problems it has. This is both emotionally and intellectually draining and can leave you wondering: what is the point of doing anything? But if you keep an optimistic wind in your sails, the skill of critical thinking can be a positive force.

Critical thinking is a macro-skill.

Critical thinking is the culmination of several other skills working together. While likely incomplete, here is a short list of the sub-skills involved:

Sustained attention. In order to be critical about something — an idea, an argument, an action, a person, a company, a state, a religion — you need to be able to focus on it. You need to be able to witness it long enough to understand what, if anything, is criticizable about it. Without sustained attention, you cannot be critical.

Suspension of judgment. Neil Postman articulates this point nicely in Amusing Ourselves to Death when he talks about the skills required for reading. In order to read well, you need to be able to wait on drawing a final conclusion until you finish the written work. This is true of being critical as well (a point that Postman is perfectly well aware of). When I am being critical of something, I need to take in enough of whatever it is I am being critical of before issuing my judgment.

Clear articulation. Good critical thought needs to be clearly articulated, at the very least to yourself, but insofar as you want your criticism to reach an audience, then to others as well. Whether written or spoken or by some other means, one needs to think about the delivery of their criticism so that it is understood and appreciated by its audience.

Justification. Good criticism ought to be justified criticism. There should be a connection between the criticism, e.g., the choice to enter the war was unconstitutional, and the justification, e.g., the Constitution states that congressional approval is required for war. Understanding whether a criticism is justified requires a lot of thought and effort. You need to think about what kinds of reasons count as good reasons, not just for you but for your audience as well.

Imagination. One of the cornerstones of good criticism is imagination. You need to turn the object of potential criticism around, over and over again, to find the cracks. It often requires wandering down strange corridors of the mind to discover a critical point about something.

These sub-skills each require practice, which makes the art of critical thinking a challenging skill to master. As you practice, you may find some components easier to develop than others.

Critical thinking poses a question.

Finally, behind the act of thinking critically we will always find a question. For instance, when the state passes a law, the critical mind awakens. Who does this law benefit? Who does it harm? Who wrote this law and for what purpose? What lobbyists were involved? What are the intended consequences of this law? Are those intended consequences just? What are the unintended consequences of this law? Are those likely? Are they desirable? Was the process through which the law was written and passed fair? What standard of fairness are we using? Is that measure a good one? Will this law be easy to repeal if we learn the consequences are deleterious to social harmony? Did we need this law at all? Could we solve the problem without getting the government involved? And so the list of questions goes on.

Critical thinking involves answering critical questions. While the content of these questions is as diverse as the topics about which we can be critical, the basic questions that sit beneath them are simply: What is wrong with this thing? What could be improved?

It is easy for the critical mind to become weary and get lost in a sea of possible questions. It is also worth noting that while we can probably be critical of everything if we want, not everything needs to be criticized. If you find yourself outside, enjoying a sea breeze, it may not be the time or place for the critical mind. Asking the question what is wrong or what could be improved misses the point of enjoying a sea breeze. Sometimes the right thing to do is just to be.

This brings us to the fact that this is a skill that needs to be practiced and cultivated with care. Having good mentors helps, but in the end one often needs to work out for themselves how to get their own mind in the critical spirit at the right time and place and in the right way. This takes lots of practice and a lot of trial and error.

While this is an incomplete account of what the skill of critical thinking is, I think it is a reasonable starting place. But this only answers the first question. What about the second? What is the value of this skill anyway? What do we say to the skeptic, who thinks the critical spirit is a waste of time? Now that the AI revolution is upon us, they say, just relax and ask your personalized AI assistant what to think. Why should you want to know how to do this for yourself? I will offer an answer to this in Part II.

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Aaron Rodgers, “Critical Thinking,” and Intellectual Humility

photograph of Aaron Rogers in football uniform with helmet

NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers made headlines recently when he was sidelined for having contracted COVID-19 and it became public knowledge that he has not been vaccinated. While Rodgers is far from the only unvaccinated NFL player, controversy ensued when it came out that he had misled reporters and the public into thinking that he had, in fact, been vaccinated. Rodgers stated that he has been “immunized,” something which many took to mean that he had been vaccinated, but really meant that Rodgers sought alternative treatments, including the thoroughly-debunked ivermectin, and defied the advice of trusted experts in lieu of that of Joe Rogan.

While there is plenty to be worried about when it comes to Rodgers’ situation – he is actively spreading misinformation about the safety of vaccines and the efficacy of alternative treatments, he is a public figure and role model and thus has a greater responsibility that comes with having greater influence, etc. – something stood out when he was explaining why he had chosen to mislead reporters about his vaccination status. While Rodgers claimed that he was worried about the repercussions of the “woke mob” and “cancel culture,” he also justified his actions by stating that, “I’m not, you know, some sort of anti-vax flat-earther. I am somebody who is a critical thinker.”

In labeling himself a “critical thinker,” Rodgers and those like him are attempting to avoid being targets of criticism, while at the same time presenting themselves as rational inquirers who have happened to have reached conclusions that diverge from the scientific consensus. Given that rational inquiry and independent thinking seem like generally good things, self-proclaimed critical thinkers might then feel persecuted for having their views rejected and mocked.

You’re supposed to think critically! Shouldn’t we encourage critical thinking, and doesn’t the “woke mob’s” refusal to even engage with divergent views from those such as Rodgers represent some kind of failing as rational thinkers and inquirers?

In thinking about these questions, we need to get clearer on what it means to be a “critical thinker.” When we think about being a “critical thinker,” we might also think about being intellectually virtuous: possessing character traits or dispositions that lead someone to effectively pursue the truth, acquire knowledge, and gain understanding. In other words, just as there are traits that are typically representative of morally admirable people – for example, being generous, kind, empathetic, etc. – so, too, are there traits that are representative of being intellectually admirable. These might include traits like being open-minded, curious, and honest, among others. There’s no definitive list of all the virtues out there, but a good place to start when thinking about virtues is to think about smart people we really admire, and to see what kinds of traits they possess.

One such trait that we might associate with our intellectual idols is being a critical thinker. Indeed, some have come out in support of Rodgers, and have expressed admiration of the way he has inquired into issues surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. However, many of those using the term seem to be conflating two senses of “critical thinker,” one which is intellectually virtuous and worthy of guiding our inquiries, and one which is not.

The sense in which Rodgers, and many of those he has associated with, use the term seems to be one in which “critical thinking” means thinking independently: one pursues the truth on one’s own (or else in conjunction with a small group of other “critical thinkers”), often in such a way as to challenge a dominant view. When thinking about which intellectual traits are good ones, these kinds of critical thinkers might look to admirable intellectual figures throughout history, perhaps ones who have made significant scientific progress by rejecting the intellectual authorities of their day. In this sense, “critical thinking” is really a kind of critical thinking, insofar as one looks primarily to criticize consensus views.

The problem with being a critical thinker of this variety, however, is that it can come at the expense of other intellectual virtues. For instance, one important intellectual virtue is that of humility: one needs to be able to recognize what one knows and is capable of finding out, and not try to tackle problems one does not have the training or capacity to meaningfully contribute to. While it is, of course, worthwhile to learn new things, part of being intellectually humble means recognizing when one needs to listen to others.

For example, I have a passing interest in cosmology, but have no formal training in the physics of black holes. It would not, then, be intellectually humble of me to challenge trained scientists on their views just because they don’t align with my pet theories: it wouldn’t help make any progress, and I wouldn’t be any closer to gaining any new knowledge or understanding. What I should do in such a case is listen and learn.

There are certain kinds of critical thinking, then, which may very well be bad for one’s intellectual character. This is not to say that we always need to simply accept what we are told by people who apparently know better. Rather, it means that we need to be able to evaluate the areas in which we could help make a contribution and the ones in which we simply need to listen to what people who know better are saying. It is not always easy to do this. Regardless, while those like Rodgers might want to distance themselves from conspiracy theories and claim that his dissent from the recommendations of doctors, scientists, and the NFL is the result of some rational inquiry, the kind of critical thinking he is engaged in is not the kind of intellectual trait that one should admire.

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The Nonsense of Beating Sense into Kids: Corporal Punishment in Public Schools

This piece originally appeared on September 9, 2015.

The start of another academic year is cause to reflect on the aims of education and the fact that 19 states in the U.S. still use corporal punishment in public schools. Many have yet to learn the counterproductive and harmful effects of disciplining kids with violence. Nowhere is the mistake more troubling than in our public schools.

I have argued elsewhere against school corporal punishment on grounds of the right to security of person and given the Platonic warning that “nothing taught by force stays in the soul.” The aims of education offer a further, crucial reason why we ought to end the use of corporal punishment in public schools.

What is school for? Somewhere at the heart of the answer should be the idea of educating people to be critical thinkers. John Dewey once argued that such a goal is implicit in the “supreme intellectual obligation.” That obligation calls for empowering all citizens with the scientific attitudes and intellectual habits of mind necessary to appreciate wisdom and to put it to use. Expert scientists must push the envelope of knowledge, but if intellectuals are to benefit humanity, the masses of people need to be sufficiently critical thinkers to benefit from scientific innovations.

Critical thinking involves the development of a skeptical attitude, one which expects or hopes to uncover justification or evidence. It appreciates well-founded authorities, understanding authority as a relationship of trust based on good reasons for it. For schools to cultivate critical thinking in young people, kids need to be comfortable questioning their teachers, administrators, and parents. In public schools, we need safe environments in which intellects are allowed and enabled to experiment, to be creative, and to learn whether and why some authorities are warranted, when they are.

Corporal punishment in public schools inhibits the cultivation of critical thinking. It teaches one that a justifiable means to one’s ends is violence. It impedes the development of “scientific attitudes and intellectual habits of mind.” A kid is understandably less inclined to question an authority that beats him or her, especially with the sanction of public policy.

Consider the kind of environment created in 2009-2010 in the South Panola School District in Mississippi, where corporal punishment was recorded 2,572 times in a 180-day school year. That averages out to the use of physical violence every 20-30 minutes each day. Such environments impede the development of critical thinking, rather than encouraging it.

What do young people learn when they are struck? It is true that studies show an immediate though very short-lived change in young people’s behavior after corporal punishment. They also show, however, that students who are subjected to violence do not develop better long-term habits. In fact, school- and in-home corporal punishments are associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety, drug use, crime, and other unfortunate consequences, as well as mental disorders. In school settings, then, corporal punishment fails to teach kids what it purports and is doing them educational harm.

The common refrain heard in response is that if you spare the rod, you’ll spoil the child. A priest pointed out to me, however, that this is a reference to the shepherd’s rod. Shepherds steer and redirect sheep with a tap or nudge of the rod. A tap or a push gives redirection and disciplines a herd. A beating does not. It makes the animal flee when it can get away.

In poor southern states still using corporal punishment, when young people reach the age at which they can leave school, flocks of them do.

Rather than teaching young people not to question authorities, we should strive to cultivate understanding of scientific and moral authority. We can teach respect for truth, good reasoning, good faith, and good will. Teaching kids that if they go out of line they will be struck tells them that if they think differently, they will be met with pain and shown the extent to which they are unsuited for education.

We can do better. There are nonviolent and effective forms of discipline. We should be teaching kids to explore ideas, to test authorities for the sake of learning, and to feel welcome and safe in educational environments. Corporal punishment has the opposite effects. Our schools could and should inspire and empower kids, nurturing them as critical thinkers. Those are aims to which meaningful education is rightly directed. A vital step forward must be, therefore, to abolish corporal punishment in our public schools.