The Marriage Between Critical Thinking and Ethics

The Marriage of Critical Thinking and Ethics

Tony Garcia

GEN/201

15 March 2017

Emily Ammons

The Marriage of Critical Thinking and Ethics

Would you ever sacrifice the life of one person for the lives of six people? How about losing a friend of over thirty years for telling the truth? Even though problem solving in a professional manner should exclude ethics, I believe you can’t have critical thinking without ethics being part of the process. Your ethics are based on your morals and the critical thinking process deals with how you would solve a problem rationally. Without ethics in critical thinking, your decision becomes immoral and against norm societal.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking can be explained in several different ways. “Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe” (Lau, 2004).  In the military, critical thinking is an everyday process ranging as small as day to day problems with Soldiers to those Soldiers lives in combat as well as your life. As leaders in the U.S. Army, we learn a seven step problem solving process. The steps are as follows: recognize the problem, gather information, establish criteria, develop solutions, analyze and compare possible solutions, make a decision and analyze implemented solution (“Military Problem Solving Process”, 1999). This training establishes a guideline for success throughout life in any problematic situation. It encourages decision making on a higher level and confidence in your solution implemented. Leaders are considered professionals in the U.S. Army and utilizing this training as a knee-jerk reaction is important. Sometimes implementing a plan that is not the popular vote is difficult but at the worst-case scenario, that decision could save lives. “Critical thinking plays a large role in ethics because it is the process by which we determine for ourselves whether or not something is right or wrong…By taking the path of a critical thinker, a person develops a mental process of evaluation which helps to determine their ethical standards (Melillo, 2010).