Moral Conflicting, Critical Thinking, And Mental Dexterity

1. Conflicting views improve one’s moral reasoning, critical thinking, and mental dexterity, but difficult to accept because of their context and one’s cognitive dissonance (Dalton, Week 5).

Moral reasoning begins with our own set convictions of what is right, like believing abortion is wrong. One then uses critical reasoning to analyze the reason for these convictions, like the belief that abortion is murder. Introducing new ideas leads to confusion due to confliction between our “world of action and realm of reason” (Justice, 28), like the idea that abortion is murder with the conflicting view that the child may be the product of rape. In response, we constantly go back and forth between these ideas (Justice, 28). Inner conflict and tension encourages one to exercise mental dexterity. Mental dexterity expands through the process of rethinking and revising principles to include an adaptation of these ideas, which creates a deeper understanding (Dalton, Week 2). For example, accepting that there are cases where abortion is accepting like in the case of rape. (Justice, 28).

Cognitive dissonance makes it difficult for people to accept conflicting new ideas. Conflicting beliefs create discomfort

Moral reflections turn political when they “prompt us to articulate and justify our moral and political convictions, not only among family and friends but also in the demanding company of our fellow citizens” (Justice, Pg. 29). This is true for the case of segregation, which started with the enactment of the Jim Crows laws in the 1880’s legalizing racial segregation of public facilities, including railroad cars. As illustrated in 1896 with Plessy v. Ferguson when Plessy, a 7/8 white man was arrested for refusing to move from the white seating area back to his assigned seat in the African American seating area. This case upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine in it’s decision, stating that racial segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment (Dalton, Week