Critical Thinking and Ethics
Josh Lee
ETH 315
February 26, 2015
Phillip Muir
Critical Thinking and Ethics
Ethics can be defined as the guidelines by which a person or group follow in what they believe to be right or wrong. It is how each individual defines his or her actions or motives. Ethics is how one determines bad choices or good choices. Ethics can mean something different for everyone, it also has a wide range of definitions and systems within its definitions. Critical thinking can be defined as using reasoning, problem solving, intelligence, knowledge, and rationality when making decisions.
Critical thinking and ethical reasoning are similar in the sense they are both used to define an individual’s actions. Critical thinking general concludes the strongest outcome because it uses knowledge and logic to determine which solution or action will be the most successful. Ethical reasoning determines the most successful action but it is not always determined by logic it is determine by ones beliefs and what he or she determines to be logical and what he or she feels is wrong or right. Critical thinking can pick the best solution for a problem but does not always taken into account if it is will cause any other issues. For example, if a company used critical thinking to find the best way to save money and logically it would be best to lay off the employee who makes the most money then that is what would happen. Ethically if a company need to lay off employees they would generally lay off the most recent hires or the employees who are not exceed expectations for the company.
If everyone only used logic and guidelines in decision making, there would not be any questions need when making decisions because everyone would be on the same page. Everyone would think the same and therefore everyone’s outcome would be the same. However, without ethical reasoning there would be no compassion for each...