《Asking the Right Questions》读书笔记

作者：Neil Browne & Stuart M. Keeley
版本：11 edition (January 6, 2014)
来源：购买的PDF电子版

《Asking the Right Questions》1994年发行第一个版本，差不多每两年修订一次直到现在，这是一种非常棒的图书撰写和发行的方式，在西方有很多书都会进行不断的修订以符合时代的需求，著名的《Robert's Rules of Order》最早发行于1876年，后来经过 Robert 家族几代人和委员会形式的不断努力，修订到现代的第11版，这种精神是我们特别需要的。

While adventure, ambition, autonomy, comfort, excellence, justice, rationality, tolerance, and spontaneity may be important values to us, it is quite likely that other reasonable people will have important values that conflict with many of these.

• autonomy 这个词在中文语境中很少出现，可以简单的理解成“每个人承担起自己的责任，为自己的行为负责”，但是在英语世界中会被经常提及，是一种非常重要的价值观；
• rationality 可以翻译成“理性”（英语里面对应“理性”这个意思的单词很多，我另一个比较认可的单词是哈耶克在《法律、立法与自由》中精挑细选的 Reason），强烈推荐一个我订阅的叫做《Rationally Speaking》的 Podcast；
• spontaneity 这个词在中文语境中很少出现，和 rationality 具有一定的对立性，哈耶克的“自发秩序”的概念用的就是这个词，这个词对于整个奥地利经济学派意义重大。

书里面提到的“价值观冲突”（Value Conflict）的相关提问，对我有非常大的启发，人与人之间的冲突，主要是源自持有着“冲突性”的价值观。但具体是哪些价值观之间的冲突呢？并不容易判断！所以需要通过“提出合适的问题”这一重要的“价值观判断”（Value Assumptions）手段来辨别，也是进行 Critical Thinking 的重要突破方式。

• Freedom of Speech-Security
• Equality-Individualism
• Achievement-Learning
• Security-Excitement
• Generosity-Material success
• Tradition-novelty
• Individual Responsibility-Collective Responsibility
• Efficiency-Social stability

以前没有深入的了解过关于价值观冲突的问题，有机会需要系统的学习，这里记录几个简单的对于价值观的想法，不深入展开：

• 价值观的定义、区分和判断，是沟通的纽带，分歧发现和协调的关键
• 通过参加辩论活动的经验，发现只要你持有某一价值观上的观点，深入思考下去，都是可以找到立足的观点，甚至经常会被这些观点的说服
• 价值观的冲突很难被辨识，不开放的人更难，所以价值观不容易被改变
• 开放的人的价值观更容易被辨识，所以吸纳到新观点的机会会比较多
• 宗教的价值观，科学的价值观是会有比较大的稳固支持群体的，伊斯兰的价值观，犹太教的价值观等等，都会决定这个宗教的行为
• 价值观的不同，对决策是有极大的影响的，对于某些冲突性的问题，会形成不同的判断
• 美国的宪法其实就代表了美国的价值观，高院的投票结果，是对价值观冲突的选择

摘录：

We already made the point that if you expect to lean on experts as the tool with which to wade through the multitude of people wishing to own your mind, you are in for a big disappointment. They often sound as if they know far more than they do. They probably understand at some level that you are much more likely to listen to them when they sound certain about what they claim to be true. So, they give you what you want to hear.
But we want to drive this point home to you by 3 examples from David Freedman’s important 2010 book, Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us

1. Should you stay out of the sun? The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays may be the most important factor influencing the development of skin cancer. In short, stay out of the sun. But wait. The World Health Organization says exposure to ultraviolet light is a minor contributor to disease in the world. Then to confuse us all the more they add that too little exposure to the sun may cause more disease in the world than does exposure to the sun.
2. Does it make sense to buy a pet as a means of having better health? The American Heart Association says that many studies have demonstrated the positive effect of pet ownership on the owner’s health. However, a reliable study in Finland found that pet ownership is linked to poor health.
3. Do cell phones emit harmful radiation? The Director of the International Epidemiology Institute says there is no basis for believing that cell phones produce harmful emissions. But an expert linked to a South Carolina Hospital has a quite different response to this question. He claims there is sufficient evidence to justify a health advisory warning about the link between cell phones and cancer.

Critical Thinking teaches you skills and attitudes that make you proud to have rationally discovered answers that make sense to you. Critical thinking encourages you to listen to and learn from others, while at the same time weighing the quality of what others say. In this regard, you are learning that we must depend on others, but only selectively. Critical thinking thereby liberates you, empowering you to be the supervisor of who you are becoming.

Critical thinking, as we will use the term, refers to the following:

1. awareness of a set of interrelated critical questions;
2. ability to ask and answer these critical questions in an appropriate manner; and
3. desire to actively use the critical questions.

One common approach to thinking is similar to the way in which a sponge reacts to water: by absorbing. This popular approach has some clear advantages.
First, the more information you absorb about the world, the more capable you are of understanding its complexities. Knowledge you have acquired provides a foundation for more complicated thinking later.
A second advantage of the sponge approach is that it is relatively passive. Rather than requiring strenuous mental effort, it tends to be rather quick and easy, especially when the material is presented in a clear and interesting fashion. Though absorbing information provides a productive start toward becoming a thoughtful person, the sponge approach also has a serious and devastating disadvantage: It provides no method for deciding which information and opinions to believe and which to reject. If a reader relied on the sponge approach all the time, he would believe whatever he read last.
We think you would rather choose for yourself what to absorb and what to ignore. To make this choice, you must read with a special attitude—a question-asking attitude. Such a thinking style requires active participation. The writer is trying to speak to you, and you should try to talk back to him, even though he is not physically present.
We call this interactive approach the panning-for-gold style of thinking. The process of panning for gold provides a model for active readers and listeners as they try to determine the worth of what they read and hear. Distinguishing the gold from the gravel in a conversation requires you to ask frequent questions and to reflect on the answers.
The sponge approach emphasizes knowledge acquisition; the panning- for-gold approach stresses active interaction with knowledge as it is being acquired. Thus, the two approaches complement each other. To pan for intellectual gold, there must be something in your pan to evaluate. In addition, to evaluate arguments, we must possess knowledge, that is, dependable opinions.

Critical thinking can be used to either (1) defend or (2) evaluate and revise your initial beliefs. Professor Richard Paul’s distinction between weak- sense and strong-sense critical thinking helps us appreciate these two antagonistic uses of critical thinking.
Weak-sense critical thinking is the use of critical thinking to defend your current beliefs. Strong-sense critical thinking is the use of the same skills to evaluate all claims and beliefs, especially your own.
If you approach critical thinking as a method for defending your present beliefs, you are engaged in weak-sense critical thinking. Why is it weak? To use critical-thinking skills in this manner is to be unconcerned with moving toward truth or virtue. The purpose of weak-sense critical thinking is to resist and annihilate opinions and reasoning different from yours. To see domination and victory over those who disagree with you as the objective of critical thinking is to ruin the potentially humane and progressive aspects of critical thinking.
In contrast, strong-sense critical thinking requires us to apply the critical questions to all claims, including our own. By forcing ourselves to look critically at our initial beliefs, we help protect ourselves against self-deception and conformity. It is easy to just stick with current beliefs, particularly when many people share them. But when we take this easy road, we run the strong risk of making mistakes we could otherwise avoid.
Strong-sense critical thinking does not necessarily force us to give up our initial beliefs. It can provide a basis for strengthening them because critical examination of those beliefs will sometimes reinforce our original commitment to them. Another way of thinking about this distinction is to contrast open- and closed-mindedness. When my mind is open, it welcomes criticism of my own beliefs. But when my mind is closed, the beliefs I have are going to be the ones I keep.

Let’s remind ourselves how knowledge about values relates to the social nature of critical thinking. While we must require ourselves to listen carefully to those who have different value priorities than our own, the most obvious social link established by values is similarity. Those of us who see individual responsibility as an extremely important value tend to be comfortable with and to seek out those who similarly believe that improved personal choices are the solution to most human problems. Hence, many of our most valuable social interactions or learning experiences start with communications with those who have similar value priorities. Our huge challenge in this regard is to make ourselves work hard to understand the reasoning of those whose value priorities differ from ours.
While adventure, ambition, autonomy, comfort, excellence, justice, rationality, tolerance, and spontaneity may be important values to us, it is quite likely that other reasonable people will have important values that conflict with many of these. Our normal tendency to listen to only those with similar value priorities needs our active resistance. We have to fight against the tendency.

What follows are a few verbal strategies that you can use to keep the conversation going:

1. Try to clarify your understanding of what the other person intends by asking, “Did I hear you say?”
2. Ask the other person whether there is any evidence that would cause him to change his mind.
3. Suggest a time-out in which each of you will try to find the very best evidence for the conclusion you hold.
4. Ask why the person thinks the evidence on which you are relying is so weak.
5. Try to come together. If you take that person’s best reasons and put them together with your best reasons, is there some conclusion that both of you could embrace?
6. Search for common values or other shared conclusions to serve as a basis for determining where the disagreement first appeared in your conversation.
7. Try to present a model of caring and calm curiosity; as soon as the verbal heat turns up, try to remind yourselves that you are learners, not warriors.
8. Make certain that your face and body suggest humility, rather than the demeanor of a know-it-all.

Being on the receiving end of critical questions can make someone feel as if he is being questioned on the witness stand in a courtroom. As more questions are asked, he may feel uncomfortable or even threatened. As a result, he may become angry or refuse to continue talking. He may not be used to explaining his reasons that support his arguments or why he supports those reasons. Just because you see asking these questions as essential to your and the other person’s careful thinking does not mean he sees the activity in a similar way.
Many people are not used to being questioned about their beliefs. We have to be aware of how our questions affect the people we are interacting with. If critical thinkers are not careful, they can damage or lose relationships due to the discomfort of those around them. Therefore, in the interest of preserving relationships, we must know our audience and use our critical thinking diplomatically.

Wishful thinking has staying power because of the frequency of our denial patterns. Quite unconsciously, we fight with the facts, trying to reinforce visions of the world that are rosy beyond the bounds of reality. Anxieties and fears about the problems we face together and individually serve as a protective shield against seeing the actual world in which we live.
Think of how frequently over the course of your life you will hear leaders of nations declare that the war they are fighting will soon be over, and victory will be won. But such predictions usually turn out to be hollow promises. To have to face the facts that the war may go on and on or that it will not result in a clear victory for the home team is just too painful to consider. So the mind erases it.

1. Descriptive issues are those that raise questions about the accuracy of descriptions of the past, present, or future.

Does musical training improve a person’s ability to learn math?
What is the most common cause of domestic abuse?
Is Paxil an effective way to treat depression?

All these questions have one thing in common. They require answers attempting to describe the way the world was, is, or is going to be. For ex- ample, answers to the first two questions might be: “In general, children who are musically trained learn math more easily than nonmusical children,” and “Chronic alcohol use is the most common cause of domestic abuse.”
Such issues are descriptive issues. They are commonly found in text- books, magazines, the Internet, and television. Such issues reflect our curiosity about patterns or order in the world. Note the boldfaced words that begin each question above; when questions begin with these words, they will prob- ably be descriptive questions.

2. Prescriptive issues are those that raise questions about what we should do or what is right or wrong, good or bad.

Should intelligent design be taught in the public schools?
What ought to be done about Medicaid fraud?
Must we outlaw SUVs to reduce increasing rates of asthma?

All of these questions require answers suggesting the way the world ought to be. For example, answers to the first two questions might be: “Intelligent design should be taught in the public schools,” and “We ought to impose more severe penalties for Medicaid fraud.”
These issues are ethical or moral; they raise questions about what is right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, good or bad. They demand prescriptive answers. Thus, we will refer to these issues as prescriptive issues. Social controversies are often prescriptive issues.
We have somewhat oversimplified. Sometimes, it will be difficult to decide what kind of issue is being discussed. Keeping these distinctions in mind, however, is useful because the kinds of critical evaluations you eventually make will differ depending on the kind of issue to which you are responding.

Once you have found the conclusion (in the question), use it as the focus of your evaluation. It is the destination that the writer or speaker wants you to choose. Your ongoing concern is: Should I accept that conclusion on the basis of what is supporting the claim?

It is the mark of a rational person to support her beliefs with adequate proof, especially when the beliefs are of a controversial nature. For example, when someone asserts that China will soon overtake the United States as the dominant country in the world, this assertion should be met with the challenge, “Why do you say such a thing?” The person’s reasons may be either strong or weak, but you will not know until you have asked the question and identified the reasons. If the answer is “because I think so,” you should be dissatisfied with the argument because the “reason” is a mere restatement of the conclusion. However, if the answer is evidence concerning the projected military and educational expenditures of the two countries, you will want to consider such evidence when you evaluate the conclusion. Remember: You cannot determine the worth of a conclusion until you identify the reasons.
Identifying reasons is an essential step in critical thinking. An opinion cannot be evaluated fairly unless we ask why it is held and receive a satisfactory response. Focusing on reasons requires us to remain open to and tolerant of views that might differ from our own. If we reacted to conclusions rather than to reasoning, we would tend to stick to the conclusions we brought to the discussion or essay, and those conclusions that agree with our own would receive our rapid agreement. If we are ever to reexamine our own opinions, we must remain curious, open to the reasons provided by those people with opinions that we do not yet share.

If you were to see the term human rights in an essay, you should immediately ask yourself, “What rights are those?” If you examine the con- text and find that the writer is a leading member of the Norwegian government, it is a good bet that the human rights she has in mind are the rights to be employed, receive free health care, and obtain adequate housing. An American senator might mean something very different by human rights. She could have in mind freedoms of speech, religion, travel, and peaceful assembly. Notice that the two versions of human rights are not necessarily consistent. A country could guarantee one form of human rights and at the same time violate the other. You must try to clarify such terms by examining their context.

Local law enforcement needs to do more to impose consequences for pub- lic intoxication. Obviously, people are not taking enough initiative on their own to follow the laws; therefore, city police have to do something. How can we expect change without enforcement?

The reason—at first glance—supports the conclusion. If the city expects change in the behavior of its citizens, it follows that the city’s law enforcement should have to enforce that change.
But it is also possible that the reason given can be true and yet not necessarily support the conclusion. What if you believe that it is the individual’s responsibility—not the collective responsibility of the government—to curb the extent of public intoxication? If so, from your perspective, the reason no longer supports the conclusion. This reasoning is convincing to you only if you agree with certain unstated ideas that the writer has taken for granted. In this case, one idea taken for granted is that one value, collective responsibility, is more desirable than the other, individual responsibility.

Our advice is based on some invisible beliefs, and if you do not share those beliefs, our advice should not be followed. Critical thinkers believe that such values as autonomy, curiosity, and reasonableness are among the most important of human objectives. The end-product of critical thinking is someone who is open to multiple points of view, assesses those perspectives with reason, and then uses that assessment to make decisions about what to believe and what actions to take. We trust that you like that portrayal of life and, consequently, that you will want to be a critical thinker.

If you are aware of typical conflicts, you can more quickly recognize the assumptions being made by a writer when she reaches a particular conclusion. We have listed some of the more common value conflicts that occur in ethical issues and have provided you with examples of controversies in which these value conflicts are likely to be evident. You can use this list as a starting point when you are trying to identify important value assumptions.
As you identify value conflicts, you will often find that there are several that seem important in shaping conclusions with respect to particular controversies. When evaluating a controversy, try to find several value conflicts, as a check on yourself.

Typical Value Conflict and Sample Controversies

A major advantage of becoming aware of others’ value assumptions and their rationale for those preferences is the possibility of creating a greater appreciation of where people are coming from. For example, Jonathan Haidt’s recent book The Righteous Mind suggests in the context of American politics that Republicans and Democrats could engage in more constructive disagreements by gaining appreciation of each other’s core value preferences. He argues that the most central value of liberals is Care, in the specific sense of care for victims of oppression, while the most central value for social conservatives is Authority, in the sense of preservation of the institutions and traditions that sustain a moral community. Haidt’s hope is that both sides being more aware of such core values will lead to more willingness to consider the other side’s arguments.

Common descriptive assumptions
Assumptions are as numerous as they are important. They are a required component of any argument. They are priors or givens, the unannounced beliefs that the person presenting the argument does not share with us. They are present and powerful, but you as the reader or listener have to dig for them.
An effective way to develop the skill of discovering and using assumptions as an aid to evaluation of the arguments they are sustaining is to sensitize you to some of the more common assumptions. These assumptions are present so frequently in our thinking that once you learn to look for them, you will start to appreciate the power they have over our thinking in general. Once you become skilled at recognizing the influence they have, you will be much more eager to make identification of key assumptions a regular part of your critical thinking.

• The events that happen to people are primarily the result of personal choices. This assumption is the elephant behind the curtain shaping when and whom we blame and give credit to.
• The speaker or writer is a typical person. When someone makes this assumption, she reasons explicitly based on her own experience or tastes.
• The world is just. This assumption is in the background, holding up reasoning of the form: That something should be true means that it will be true. We think you can understand why this type of reasoning is often called the romantic fallacy.
• Because something happened in the past, it will happen in the future. This assumption represents an uncritical and overly simplified reaction to the history of a person or even a country.
• My world is the center of the universe. This assumption makes it difficult for us to support laws or policies that primarily benefit others; that is, it inhibits empathy for the vulnerable. This assumption also makes it difficult for us to appreciate cultural diversity.

Clues for Discovering Descriptive Assumptions
1. Keep thinking about the gap between the conclusion and reasons.
2. Look for ideas that support reasons.
3. Identify with the opposition.
4. Learn more about the issues.