PHI-130: Critical Reasoning/Module 3/Activities

Learning Pathway 3 has three activities. Each of the Journal activities is accompanied by a self-assessment rubric. The quizzes have an answer key. Once you have completed the journal entry, you can use the rubric to evaluate how successful you were in meeting the learning objectives. While the assessments are optional, and the grades will not be directly related to whether or not you receive credit for this course, completing them will help you gauge your progress and prepare for the TECEP&copy; exam.

Journal Assignment 5
In Learning Pathway 1, you had the opportunity to explore what it means to think for yourself and to become a critical thinker. At the end of Learning Pathway 1, in the critical self-reflection exercise we suggested that, as a starting point in developing your competence at critical self-reflection, it would be useful to express your views on some controversial issues. Let us now take critical self-reflection a step further. Return to your earlier responses to the topics (marriage, single parenting, racial differences, gender differences, etc) that you wrote down in your journal and consider the following questions:


 * Did you label or stereotype the persons in your responses?
 * If you used labelling and stereotyping, do you think it was the result of social conditioning, a defence against discomfort or perhaps some other reason?
 * Do you want everyone to be like you?
 * Who are you really and whom/what do you represent?

Rubric: Journal Assignment 5

Journal Assignment 6
Consider the following example of labelling and then respond to the questions that follow: I knew a man who had lost the use of both eyes. He was called a “blind man”. He could also be called an expert typist, a conscientious worker, a good student, a careful listener, a man who wanted a job. But he couldn’t get a job in the department store order room where employees sat and typed orders which came over the telephone. The personnel man was impatient to get the interview over. “But you’re a blind man,” he kept saying, and one could almost feel his silent assumption that somehow the incapacity in one aspect made the man incapable in every other. So blinded by the label was the interviewer that he could not be persuaded to look beyond it. Jot down your thoughts to the following question:
 * 1) Do you think that the outcome of the interview would have been different if the interviewer was aware of the obstacle of labelling?

Rubric: Journal Assignment 6

Quiz 6
Identify the fallacies in the following arguments:

SS = Slippery Slope

SM = Straw Man

BQ = Begging the question

EQ = Equivocation

CQ = Complex question

FA = Faulty analogy

AH = Ad hominem

FD = False dilemma

HG = Hasty generalization


 * 1) ___ If euthanasia is legalized, then many people who are not terminally ill and have not elected euthanasia will wind up untreated or administered sufficient medication to end their lives.
 * 2) ___ If recreational marijuana is legalized it will open the door to more dangerous drug use.
 * 3) ___ The US needs to reduce its deficit spending. Therefore Congress should vote against an increase in investment in alternative energy sources.
 * 4) ___ Allowing unlimited freedom of speech is always advantageous to the State. Everyone benefits when there are no limits to individual expression.
 * 5) ___ Criminal actions are illegal, and all murder trials are criminal actions, thus all murder trials are illegal.
 * 6) ___ The sign said "fine for parking here", and since it was fine, I parked there.
 * 7) ___ How long have you been beating your wife?
 * 8) ___ People who have to have a cup of coffee every morning before they can function have no less a problem than alcoholics who have to have their alcohol each day to sustain them.
 * 9) ___ To say humans are immortal is like saying a car can run forever.
 * 10) ___ President John F. Kennedy had friends in the mafia. He was a bad president.
 * 11) ___ More doctors smoke Marlboros than any other cigarette. They must be less damaging to health.
 * 12) ___ Isaac Newton believed in astrology. Astrology must be true.
 * 13) ___ Either you’re for us or you’re against us.
 * 14) ___ New York City is too noisy. All bars should be closed at 8 pm to reduce adding to the noise level in neighborhoods around the bars.
 * 15) ___ If you vote for this bill you must be a Communist.
 * 16) ___ Jake is tall. He’d be a good choice for our basketball team.
 * 17) ___ The man I saw break into the apartment was wearing a hoodie. Philip is wearing a hoodie. He must be the man I saw.
 * 18) ___ The most common age for women having twins is 34 years old. I am 33. I should wait until next year to get pregnant if I want twins.
 * 19) ___ If God is perfect then he exists. God is perfect. Therefore he exists.
 * 20) ___ Old man Brown claims that he saw a flying saucer in his farm, but he never got beyond the fourth grade in school and can hardly read or write. He is completely ignorant of what scientists have written on the subject, so his report cannot possibly be true.
 * 21) ___ I believe in the Bible because it is the written word of God through his prophets. Obviously, God would not lie to his prophets. After all, the Bible says so.
 * 22) ___ You look like you are ready to buy a new car. Would you like to pay cash or buy on the installment plan?
 * 23) ___ As I walked around campus today, not one person said hello to me. This is not a friendly campus.
 * 24) ___  I don’t care what your arguments are. You are a mean old man and nothing you say should be taken as truth.
 * 25) ___ Quincy says that we should spend more state revenue on education. But Quincy is a professor who wants a better salary, so you know his opinion is worthless.
 * 26) ___ Those who support gun control are wrong; they believe that no one should have the right to defend himself under any condition.
 * 27) ___ Paul came home late again. He must have a girlfriend or else he was out drinking. There are other possibilities.
 * 28) ___ Republicans in Congress refuse to raise the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans. They don’t care for the common man at all.
 * 29) ___ We have to cut social programs this year or we will have a huge deficit which is unacceptable.
 * 30) ___ Hitler was a vegetarian. Therefore we should eat meat.
 * 31) ___ If you don’t agree with me then we can’t talk. I don’t want to argue.
 * 32) ___ Water is not a human right. It should be privatized.

Answer Key - Quiz 6