Critical Thinking and the Psycho-logic of Race Prejudice

Abstract

Introduction:  The relation between critical thinking and race prejudice can be made obvious, once we grant that race prejudice cannot be supported by good reasons.  For, if, as Harvey Siegel (1988) has pointed out, critical thinking is being "appropriately moved by reasons," then holding racially prejudiced beliefs is to believe without being appropriately moved by reasons, thereby being, in this regard at least, an uncritical thinker.  A practical corollary of this, for those of us who espouse critical thinking as an educational ideal, is that it is incumbent upon us to speak to the issue of race prejudice, an obvious and glaringly pernicious example of uncritical thought that affects one of, if not the most, central social and ethical issues of our times.