Psychology 242 | Critical Thinking Assignment | Due no later than April 14th

In Monday’s class (March 24, 2003) we discussed some of the reasons that are typically offered in favor of and in opposition to the war in Iraq. Because this is a research methods course, we took the approach of critically analyzing these reasons and discussing the “evidence” (i.e., the empirical facts) that underlie or are entailed by various viewpoints.

Your assignment is to write an essay that adopts a position for or against the war in Iraq. In this essay you will present two reasons why you support or disagree with the war. Importantly, after presenting your reasons, you must evaluate those reasons in light of empirical evidence—evidence or facts based in the historical record or projected “facts” or predictions based on careful reasoning and analysis (i.e., things that will be true if your position is correct).

What does it mean to evaluate the empirical credibility of an opinion? Aren’t opinions simply opinions—matters of subjective judgment that can neither be right nor wrong? Ultimately opinions are just that—opinions. However, some opinions are better justified than others. Just as theories in science are nothing more than theoretical abstractions, some theories have an extraordinary amount of evidence that support them (e.g., evolutionary theory) and other theories are contradicted to a sizable degree by the facts (e.g., classic psychoanalytic theory). In this assignment I would like for you evaluate the opinions you hold as if they were scientific theories; I would like for you to subject your opinions to a rigorous analysis and see how well they hold up against the facts.

How might you do this? It is hard to explain the details in a non-ambiguous manner, so let me give you two examples. If in your essay you claim that you are against the war in Iraq because war entails inevitable casualties and that killing people is “bad,” then you should find a way to determine whether the number of people who are expected to die in this war is greater than the number of people who would have died if this war had not begun. There is obviously no “correct” way to obtain such data, but I want you to make a serious and deep attempt to do so. For example, one could compare the average number of people Saddam Hussein has purportedly killed each year since 1991 against the number of projected casualties over the coming year. (How might one estimate projected casualties over the year? Again, there is no one “right way” to do this, but here are a few quick ideas: (a) take the estimates reported by our government at face value or (b) take the number of people—Iraqis and allied forces—that have died since March 20^th and multiply it by the number of weeks left in this year.) Following this example, if it turns out that the number of expected (or actual) deaths is greater than those what we would expect if Hussein were to remain in power, then your argument has empirical credibility. If not, you may need to reconsider your opinion.

Let’s take another example from the pro-war side. If you state in your essay that you are in favor of the war because we need to get rid of Hussein to protect ourselves (and others) against future terrorist attacks, you need to discuss evidence that allows you to critically evaluate this claim. One way to do so is to determine whether Hussein had plans to attack the U.S. either explicitly or by supporting terrorist organizations that had plans to do so. For the purposes of comparison, it would also be necessary to demonstrate that this evidence is greater with respect to Hussein and Iraq than it is for other countries. Another way to evaluate this opinion is to determine whether the initiation of war has proven to be an effective way to reduce the incidence of terrorism (against the U.S. or others) in the past. This may entail studying the historical record and counting the number of times a country is subject to terrorist attacks both in the years before and the years after a military attack organized by that country. If military actions on the part of a country appear to reduce the frequency of terrorist actions against that country, then the opinion has empirical credibility. If not, then you may need to reconsider your opinion.

This paper is due on April 14^th in class. It should be typed and thoughtfully written. There is no minimum page requirement, but I would like for you to not make it longer than three pages single-spaced. How will this paper be graded? To help eliminate any biases on my part, I will grade the papers on a curve. Specifically, I will separate the papers into two groups: Those that adopt a pro-war stance and those that adopt an anti-war stance. Within each group, the most thoughtful third will be given an A, the middle third will be given a B, and the final third will be given a C. This paper will count toward 5% of your section grade.