Thank you William, I will talk about critical thinking and ethical application. There are two approaches to the role of critical thinking in management education. The first approach values critical thinking as a necessary component of good decision making and a prerequisite to becoming a wise consumer of management knowledge. The second point of view experiences critical thinking as yet another example of scientific method applied to management problems. These techniques includes the familiar tools of decision science, such as decision trees, along with less quantitative methods of organizing thinking such as force field analysis. The common thread of the scientific approach is that all these methods, including critical thinking, purport to be able to make objective analyses of subjective information.
We can reconcile the two views of critical thinking by agreeing that knowledge is largely a social construct and that there is value in looking for alternatives to any assumption or conclusion.
CRITICAL THINKING AND EFFECTIVE ETHICAL DECISION MAKING
An ethical decision does not necessarily arise with a sense of urgency. There is usually time available to consider alternate actions and possible consequences. This is where critical thinking adds to and informs our ethical analysis. Critical thinking might lead to an ethical outcome, and ethical intent might also lead to an ethical outcome. However, when both are used in conjunction, we can suggest that an ethical outcome is more likely.
That’s look at this box. Some speculations might occur:
1. A situation of low critical thinking but high ethical intent, the second quadrant, might indicate good intentions but a poorly thought-out set of actions leading to unethical behavior (e.g., the grade school teacher who wanted to demonstrate the evils of slavery and acted this out in her fifth-grade class by having a slave auction with the African American children standing in as the slaves).
2. A situation of high critical thinking and low ethical intent, the third quadrant, might result in perceived ethical behavior simply. The outcome is "ethical" but the intent was simply to avoid prosecution or embarrassment.On the other hand, this quadrant (Hi CT and Lo EI) might just as easily result in unethical behavior; that is, as result of thinking through illegal activities and making a thought-out but flawed risk assessment. For example, the Enron fraud scheme, tax cheating, and so on.
3. The fourth quadrant is a condition of low critical thinking and low ethical intent and seems most likely to result in unethical behavior. However, the outcome might also be the result of unintended consequences rather than malfeasance. For example, kids playfully put a hubcap on railroad tracks to see it get crushed but it also derails the train. There was no unethical intent; however, unethical behavior was the consequence of their actions.
4. Even the first quadrant where high critical thinking is paired with high ethical intent does not guarantee a positive outcome. Unexpected variables or context may intervene or there might be a critical thinking failure. This combination (Hi CT + Hi EI) seems most likely to result in an ethical outcome; however, human variability means that we can never be sure.
The general implications of this figure support the notion that the difference between ethical intent and ethical behavior might be the application of critical thinking.