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Critical thinking

Critical thinking skills emphasize capabilities and competencies required for generating and processing information to evaluate, judge, and guide future actions. Critical thinking is not the rote memorization and retention of information. Its aim to achieve the best possible outcome for a given situation.

Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It requires rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.

Richard Paul Linda Elder [1]

Critical thinking is a rational and intellectual endeavor. Someone practiced in critical thinking can make well-constructed arguments, locate logical fallacies, connect ideas to draw conclusions, and identify bias. A critical thinker without ethical integrity would seek to manipulate others for the sake of their own benefit. One who is ignorant to critical thinking skills would be easy prey to such a person, thereby reinforcing critical thinking as a requisite work and life skill in any modern society. It is also an imperative skill for social, cultural, political, and technological leaders to guide society in a purposeful and beneficial way.

Constructing arguments

An argument is comprised of a premise, supporting evidence, and conclusions. In a design critique, constructive arguments are meant to aid in the technical, contextual, and conceptual understanding of the design process and outcome. Four typical kinds of logic arguments include deductive arguments, inductive arguments, abductive arguments, and analogy arguments. Deductive arguments rely on direct logical connections and fall apart if the premises are proven incorrect. Inductive arguments rely on general observations and grow weaker with every observed counterexample. Abductive argument conclusions are a best available explanation for all available facts and data, connecting evidence that directly and indirectly confirms the argument. An analogy argument produces a conclusion based on another conclusion from a similar issue.[2]

In design, it is typically undesirable to have a pre-determined conclusion or outcome ahead of seeing the premises and discovering evidence. Assumptions and pre-determined conclusions can undermine innovation and invention. The term "ripping the brief" describes a design process where a designer or design team will question the project's premises to locate any false or problematic assumptions. Design thinking and research is done to dig up evidence to guide design decisions (conclusions). In storytelling, a well constructed story is often a well constructed argument that focuses on a central theme or issue. For many film viewers, poor visual effects or a departure from plausibility breaks the premise that what you are watching is real, and pulls you out of the illusion.

Ethics

Ethics is a rational study of moral dilemmas within human action and thought. Morals are codes of conduct defined by personal or socially-imposed beliefs and values. Ethical studies help ascribe an act to be considered moral, immoral or amoral. To be moral, the action or thought must be within established codes. An immoral act is a thought or action that disregards established moral codes. An amoral act or thought has no relevance to established codes.[2]

Ethics issues are also design issues because design is an aspect of human action that can have dramatic consequences to a person's livelihood and mortality. For example, Facebook has come under fire in recent years for running experiments meant to manipulate their user's moods and implementing privacy controls that automatically revealed private information to a users's personal network. If designed carelessly, social media can inadvertently enable bullying, push certain at-risk individuals to suicide, cause the loss of employment, expose minorities and people of alternative lifestyles to mortal danger, and negatively affect familial relationships. Examples of these consequences are well documented and make a compelling case that design decisions in the tech industry are failing ethics tests.

Victor Papanek published the book, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change in 1971, where he connected problematic ethics and sustainability issues to the role of the designer. He was met with tremendous backlash by the design community. He was asked to resign from professional design associations and his work was publicly ridiculed. However, in the years since, Papanek's ideas have gained widespread acceptance, and Design for the Real World is now a required text in many design and architecture programs. In a chapter titled Do-it-Yourself Murder: Social and Moral Responsibilities of Design, Papanek writes, "The designer's ... social and moral judgment must be brought into play long before he begins to design, since he has to make a judgment, an a priori at that, as to whether the products he is asked to design or redesign merit his attention at all. In other words, will his design be on the side of social good or not."[3]

A speculative near-future science fiction television series produced in the UK, called Black Mirror, delves into a world where ethics are a secondary consideration to technological advancement. In some cases, the scenarios are already in play in certain parts of the world, including a new credit score initiative in China which closely matches the plot of a Black Mirror episode called "Nosedive."

Critical Making

Open design heralds new possibilities for artists, scholars, and interested citizens to engage in a simultaneously conceptual and material critique of technologies and information systems in society.[4]

The term 'critical making' is intended to highlight the interwoven material and conceptual work that making involves. As a teaching and research strategy, critical making shares an emphasis on values with both critical design and critical practices — such as the critical technical practice[5] from which it derives, as well as value-sensitive-design[6] and values-in-design.[7]

Citation

  1. Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2008
  2. Condensed and adapted from: A quick primer for ethics in design. http://mlab.uiah.fi/polut/Yhteiskunnalliset/lisatieto_ethics_primer.html
  3. Papanek, V. J. (1984). Design for the real world: Human ecology and social change (2nd, completely rev. ed.). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.

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