Critical Thinking Activities

Objective: Understand the components of critical thinking.

Instructions:
Select 1 or 2 exercises from the 3 exercises on the worksheet. Do the exercise(s)
and then answer the questions on the last page about how you applied your
critical thinking skills.

1. The Trolley Problem

Situation 1: There is a trolley coming down the tracks and ahead, there are five
people tied to the tracks who are unable to move. The trolley will continue
coming and will kill the five people. There is nothing you can do to rescue the
five people EXCEPT there is a lever. If you pull the lever, the train will be directed
to another track, which has ONE person tied to it. You have two choices:

(a) Do nothing and the five people will die

(b) Or pull the lever and save the five people, but that one person will die.

Did you make your choice? Well then consider this similar situation:

Situation 2: There is a trolley coming down the tracks and ahead, there are five
people tied to the tracks and are unable to move. The trolley will continue
coming and will kill the five people. However, in this situation, you are standing
on a bridge above the train tracks and you can see the train coming. There is a
man standing next to you, who is so enormous and heavy that if he places
himself in front of the oncoming train, it will hit and kill him but the train will
stop. So you have two choices:

(a) Do nothing and the five people will die.

(b) Push the big guy down the bridge. He will be killed but will stop the trolley
and save the five people.

The ironic part about this problem is that while most people would choose the
option (b) for the first situation, they will choose option (a) for the second
situation, when technically, in both situations, you are sacrificing one man to
save the lives of five people.
 Critical Thinking Activities
2. The Baby Problem
You, your baby, and all the people in your entire town are being chased by this
band of bad people who will kill you all if they find you. All of you decide to hide
in this secret place and are silently waiting for the bad guys to move away.
However you know that your baby WILL cry and the band will hear him. Then
they will find you, your baby, and the townspeople and kill all of you. So you have
two choices:

(a) Kill your baby and save yourself and the entire town
(b) Or let your baby cry and get yourself, your baby, and the entire town killed.

3. The Prisoner’s Dilemma

You are a member of a gang and you have been arrested with another member
of your gang. Both of you are confined away from each other and you have no
way of communicating with the other member. The police do not have enough
evidence to convict both of you with major charges and instead offer you and
the other member a bargain. You have two choices:

(a) You can remain silent

(b) Or betray the other member and testify that he has committed the crime.

Then there are three outcomes:

(a) If you betray the other member and he remains silent, you will be set free and
he will serve 3 years in prison. (But this also works vice versa. If you remain silent
and he betrays you, you will serve 3 years in prison)
(b) If you betray the other member, and he betrays you too, you both serve 2
years in prison
(c) If you and the other member both remain silent, you both only serve one year
in prison.

What would you do?

 Critical Thinking Activities
Once you’ve thought through at least one of these exercises, consider the
following questions:

How did you organize the information you used to think about the problem?

How did you structure your reasoning about the problem?

How did you consider the evidence related to the problem?

How did you identify any assumptions about the problem?

How did you evaluate arguments that could be made about the problem?

How did you reach your conclusion?