I wish I could answer this in a few simple sentences but it is not so easy. There are many factors that go into good thinking and into bad thinking. As a consequence there are many approaches to explaining it. My approach with this will be to try to establish common ground with the reader and progress from there. Different readers may well accept different levels of common ground. To facilitate this I will try to establish the most basic fundamental common ground. Where there is an easy step where the reader already accepts the conclusions of an argument I will try to add a link so that s/he may skip the relevant material and get on to the next argument.
Before I can start to justify saying that some thinking is good and some thinking is bad it is necessary to find an acceptable definition or explanation of what thinking is:
The basic sources of knowledge: observation and reason, should be considered in terms of processes of thinking: search and inference. The search is an attempt to use our faculties, such as our senses, to identify relevant information; the second is the process of reflecting on what we discover and drawing conclusions through using reasoning. I will use the verb 'to think' in a very general way. Not only is it the process of reflecting on what the senses perceive but it is also an interpreter of the senses. It is quite possible to hear but not to listen. Listening requires that the mind is engaged in interpreting the senses. For the purposes of this explanation I shall consider 'listening' to our senses, to be part of thinking. This is of course only a convenient definition, since certain aspects of listening or seeking information will necessitate action that could not easily be described as thinking.
Thinking can roughly be separated into 2 processes: searching and inferring. These processes are sometimes inextricably interlinked but it is often instructive to see how they can be separated. We search for 'certain objects' and then we make inferences from and about the objects we have found2. Our preconceived ideas about what we are searching for may well influence what we find as they may also influence what we infer from those objects. As it stands this definition isn't very useful this is because thinking is essentially a process of exercising free choice. Free choice to reach conclusions and free choice to make decisions about future thinking. Whatever limits I might think I have discovered enabling me to describe thinking more narrowly I can in principle think in another way beyond and outside those limits. (e.g. if I discovered that I tend to make bad decisions because I am biased towards my own ideas, then I can change that). This is very closely related to arguments surrounding free will, which I won’t go into here..
For this reason the study of thinking revolves around understanding how we ought to think. The study of thinking is probably the only academic study where the words good and bad are regularly used as descriptive terms of reality(see below). Secular academic studies such as chemistry and physics are usually considered to be studying how nature works and doesn’t attribute any value to any particular aspect of it. (A possible exception is Physics where some theories are preferred by some people over others because of their aesthetic value) In the study of thinking some thinking is good and some thinking is bad. This leads to a paradox that academics get themselves into, and it is this paradox that I believe lies at the heart of the flaws of current thinking. It is the understanding that says
"It is a fundamental part of good thinking that in reality it is nonsense to talk of good and bad. Reality just is." Or - put another way- “every study should be value neutral - and that is good”. This is a lie and a self-contradiction at the heart of the 'modern' mind and I aim to replace it with the statement:
"Good and bad are determined by what is good thinking and what is bad thinking."
[Perceptive Muslim readers will recognise in this formulation a strong hint towards the hadith that says "All deeds are judged by intention." i.e. a deed is judged good because of its good intention. ]
Good thinking is often referred to as being rational thinking. Indeed the two terms are often used synonymously. Our next step is to examine the definitions that people have tried to give for 'rational thinking' and see how adequate they are.
How can rationality be defined?
For the purposes of this discussion I will take one definition from a respected academic in this field. Jonathan Baron in his book "Thinking and Deciding" [Jonathan Baron, Thinking and Deciding, Cambridge University Press 1994] chooses to define being rational as
"the kind of thinking we would all want to do, if we were aware of our own best interests, in order to achieve our goals."
He then goes on to categorise thinking as being about decisions, beliefs or about the goals themselves.
Language and choices of definitions of its words can of course be highly subjective matter but I find this definition particularly inadequate because the choice of goals is entirely left to irrational and subjective choice and can easily be wrong. For example my goal could be to justify the equation 1=0 for which I would have to use very irrational arguments. If we build in the requirement that the goals are being, or have been, rationally set then we have a circular definition where any irrational goal would lead to completely irrational thinking which might, for example, be quite illogical. Then, this type of thinking would reinforce the irrational goal!
We cannot use this as a definition- at least until we have some clear refinement of it. Baron acknowledges this further on
"When I argue that certain kinds of thinking are "most rational" I mean that these help people fulfil their goals. Such arguments could be wrong. If so, some other kind of thinking is most rational."
If we are to understand from this that ‘people’ means any person and therefore any goal then we still have the same problem. However, his arguments make sense because they appeal to the fulfilment of goals that people generally have. In other words if he uses the word people here to mean ‘people in general’ then rational thinking is defined (at least in so far as goals are set) as being what people generally do.
This is a fairly major weakness in this attempt to define rationality in purely objective terms. You cannot describe rational thinking and forget that the criteria are themselves a matter of value judgement, such as the judgements made when setting goals. If one leaves the subjectivity of such value judgements in place then the objective approach fails.
Taking Baron’s definition of rational from a different angle we could well ask what does it mean to be "aware of our own best interests"? This, in contrast to the above description, presupposes that there is such a thing as ‘best interests’, which for all intents and purposes we can take to include the goals we set. This is closer to the position I shall take. There are such things as our own best interests, which include what our goals should be. We may not know perfectly what they are but we must assume that they are there, for without them any attempt to define rationality is self-defeating.
The goals we set, and therefore the very definition of rationality is governed by moral choices - by what our goals should be.
"Unlike many other fields of psychology, such as the study of perception where the emphasis is on "how it works", Much of the study of thinking is concerned with how we ought to think, or with comparing the way we usually think with some ideal."
The study of thinking is the area in which the ‘Is-Ought’ problem is closest to being resolved. For to study thinking we must study what is ‘good thinking’. The Is-Ought problem can be stated as "It is impossible to infer, by any logical means, a normative statement from a descriptive statement." i.e. you cannot infer from any statement of the form "A is the case" the conclusion that "John ought to do X.” i.e. "Is" and "Ought to" . If we want to break out of this we must make value judgements. Using statements of value we can infer normative statements. For example, If I said "It is raining outside. Therefore you ought to take an umbrella." it would be an illogical inference. However, if I say "It is raining outside. It is good for you to avoid getting wet by taking an umbrella. Therefore you ought to take an umbrella." it is clear that the 3rd statement follows from the first two. The Is-Ought problem can therefore be seen as a matter of value judgements; how do we judge that something is good for someone - or for ourselves?
In these pages I am attempting to map out the solution to this problem by asserting that there are aspects of the way we think which we are morally responsible for - there is good thinking and there is bad thinking. There are ways of thinking that you ought not to indulge in and ways of thinking that you ought to adhere to. Once we have an 'ought to' statement accepted then it is possible to derive many other ‘ought to’ statements and we have a consistent 'rational' framework for a system of moral guidance.
Some examples of aspects of good thinking
Returning to the description I brought up earlier, thinking broadly consists of two essential processes: searching and reflecting. Good thinking requires that we do enough searching and reflection about what we have found in order to guide our actions towards what is good for us. Good thinking also requires that we do not think so much that we don’t act enough.
There are various ways in which we try to prioritise the searches we make and ways in which we choose to reflect or infer from those searches. How we prioritise these searches is of critical importance in determining whether the thinking is good or not.
In the Qur’an we find a very important verse through which we can draw the parallels firstly between the search element of thinking and ‘listening’ and secondly between reflecting or inferring and ‘using our reason’:
They will further say: "Had we but listened or used our reason we should not (now) be among the Companions of the Blazing Fire!"
As I mentioned earlier, good thinking cannot be defined in terms of being successful at achieving goals that are in contradiction with reality. So we can start our description of good thinking by saying that one of the most important elements of good thinking is that it results in best knowledge of reality. Another way this could be put is that the overriding priority in the way we choose to search ought to be to seek the truth.
Related to this is intellectual honesty.
Standards and beliefs are useless unless a student has the goal of discovering the truth and making good decisions. Surely just about everyone has these goals to some extent, but the real issue is the strength of these goals relative to others. For example, good thinkers frequently find themselves reaching conclusions that they or their peers do not like; a strong commitment to "intellectual honesty" is required if standards of thinking are to be maintained.
To say that you do not like the conclusions you reach reflects that you would have liked to reach a different conclusion – that is, your goals were at some level to reach a different conclusion. This dislike reflects a preference for previous beliefs about what would be concluded. This bias for previous beliefs is a very important issue in judging good or bad thinking and will be discussed in more detail later. To hold such biases is easier than having to remember new conclusions - it is a more lazy approach to thinking. To attempt to eliminate such biases is a more active approach to thinking. Lazy thinking is bad thinking so we must attempt to be active in considering new possibilities with an open mind.
Rejecting old beliefs can also have social costs, which I might call a political investment such as when someone makes a claim so that writing off the claim has a political cost. Someone could be overly concerned about what others think about them so that they may be tempted to be thought of as not making mistakes rather than someone who makes mistakes (though they learn from them). This is often a serious block to intellectual honesty. It is much easier to exist in an environment with like -minded people (i.e. people with the same beliefs) than to stand out for the conclusions you reach and attempt to convince others of them. To stand out in such a way requires strong intellectual honesty.
Before I go on to discuss Baron’s formulation of this aspect of good thinking, I should like to mention a common attitude with regard to intellectual honesty that may result in atheism . Instead of realising that not liking the conclusions one reaches is from a healthy albeit wrong set of previous goals, they conclude that to have any goals in your thinking leads to intellectual dishonesty. This attitude gives us the equation of true intellectual honesty with the complete absence of goals. This is not true. Goals are always present in thinking and have driven the most brilliant thinking that human beings have ever achieved, it is only when those goals are wrong that they hinder good thinking. Some examples of this are inconsistencies and lack of symmetry in existing theories of physics which led physicists to seek a more symmetric and beautiful theory. The study of chemistry began by trying to find the various properties of materials so as to bring benefit to people. Indeed much research in science has been and is directed at the possible benefits new knowledge may bring.
What makes a good search?
Active open mindedness
Baron’s criteria include allocating importance and searching in accordance with this, confidence appropriate to the amount & quality of thinking done, fairness to other possibilities than the one we initially favour. The search needs to be active rather than passive: we ought to be active in seeking out knowledge and we ought to be open minded in considering new possibilities, new goals etc.
What makes a bad search?
Biases in the search
In the thinking processes where we are searching for evidence, we may be searching for clues and evidence by our actions or by searching our memories for something that may shed light on our investigations. There may be a number of biases in the way we think. We often search in a way that favours finding results that appeal to us already. A good example is in thinking about history. People sometimes want to demonstrate, for nationalist purposes, that their nation or people or culture is the best and so in searching for evidence, they look only for evidence and arguments that support their case and conveniently leave out searches that might yield evidence against their positions. To recognise this as bad thinking one has to recognise the goal of demonstrating that one nation is better than another (whatever better means). The search should really be concentrated in what is thought to bring the most decisive evidence, whether or not it is pleasing to the thinker. However this again depends on the goals of the thinker. Why should the thinker have intellectual honesty as the driving force? Where this becomes bad thinking is where intellectual honesty is compromised. It is of course a matter of degree and the more compromised the more serious this is (as part of the sin of disbelief)
Inactivity in the search
Inactivity in the search is really just another form of bias in our thinking. It results from trying to maintain intellectual honesty at the same time as keeping cherished beliefs, beliefs that are in possible danger if the search is too thorough. However, searching takes time and effort and you may have other priorities in life to spend your efforts on. There is a perception in this of diminishing returns, i.e. that the more you search the less significant the results will be. However, bad thinking in this respect will be in proportion to the degree of self-delusion about how whether the returns are diminishing or not. What these returns are and how well they fit into intellectual honesty is of course a value judgement decisive in the way we think and in what good thinking is.
Searching not in accordance to the importance of what the search is for
What is important is very much a value judgement; the importance will depend on what your goals are. If good thinking is to imply that you search in proportion to the importance of what the search is for, then it is first essential that the goals themselves are right; we must first search for our goals. What is important? I mean what is REALLY important? This is the most important question. The question can be asked as "what is good and what is bad?" or " What is the criterion for deciding good or bad?". If there is no absolute good and no absolute bad then what is important? Nothing. And if nothing is important then no thinking can be good and no thinking can be bad. (I will return to this theme in depth later) What is really important is whether anything is really important? Whether there is a single judge who determines what is good, useful, important and what is bad, damaging and useless, or just unimportant. This is the most important question: Does the judge exist, does God exist? - It is this question above all that deserves time and effort spent searching.
Confidence in the results, not appropriate to the amount and quality of thinking that has gone into reaching them
As far as this relates specifically to future searches it manifests itself either as arrogance or as timidity. Arrogant people say, "I know - therefore I don't need to listen". Such an attitude prevents the search process before it even starts. Timid people say, "there's no point listening - I couldn't understand". Both these approaches make thinking bad, though arrogance is usually worse because timid people tend to follow arrogant people.
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