1. Madeline Cortes PHL 103 – Intro to Logic and Critical Thinking
Student ID: 0432071 Instructor: Jeff Sellars
Week 2 Response Paper April 17, 2012
Ethics – You Shouldn’t Have
The subject of ethics proved to be an intriguing one for me this week. It was an eye-opener to
stop for a moment to consider what my own internal compass is, and how far I’m willing to follow it.
So often, ethics are an acquired guideline, learned from our parents or our peers,but not
something that we take the time to actually define even to ourselves. Only once the value has been called
into question, either by a circumstance or a debate that challenges us, do we take the time to decide why
we feelas we do. The almost instinctive quality to our acceptance of the ethics we with which we were
indoctrinated can cause some problems when it comes to critical thinking.
In my case,I was raised in a very conservative environment. Over the years,there were times
when my value system would be called into question and I would find myself vehemently defending my –
or at least what I perceived as my – ethics. As I matured, I learned that no threat was implied in listening
with an open mind to another’s viewpoint. Surprisingly, I came to find that many of the values that I had
blindly accepted were not even my own, that some were not even reasonable. As our text stated, “All that
is reasonable can be supported”. The more I learned about other creeds and morals, the more I realized
that some of my values had no basis in reality. It reminds me of a story I heard once about a newlywed
who cut the corner off her Sunday roast before cooking it because that’s what her mother had always
done. The girl was convinced that the roast wouldn’t turn out if the corner wasn’t removed. Later,she
learned that her mother did this to make the meat fit in her roasting pan; it had nothing to do with the
quality of the meat at all.
Because I am now so aware of this tendency to blindly accept a value system that is not our own
strictly because it’s how we were raised,I make certain that I analyze an ideal before I attempt to defend
it. I felt threatened by this process in the beginning, but soon learned that a valid point is strengthened by
argumentation. If I’m right, a debate will only further convince me. If I’m wrong, an exercise in analytical
thought will make the error obvious and I can change my perspective. Either way, nothing is lost, and, in
fact,there is much I stand to gain.