How Critical Thinking and Ethics Affect my Life? Heather H. Hubbard Bryant & Stratton College Philosophy 250 Mr. Christopher Schwab October 19, 2011 How Critical thinking and Ethics Affect my Life. For this paper I was asked how critical thinking and ethics will affect my career as both a student and a professional, in order to answer that question I must first answer the question of what is critical thinking and ethics. One thing that is certain about success in any and all aspects of life is that you must have at least basic critical thinking skills, and a strong foundation of ethical belief.

Critical thinking entails being able to appreciate all sides of an issue, as well as at least small level of ethical integrity; being able to differ right and wrong at all times. What is critical thinking and how do ethics play a role? Are ethics more than personal opinion, and does diversity make a difference? These questions along with the question of moral dignity being any different from ethics are what I will answer in this essay. Basic critical thinking skills are simple to achieve. All a person would need is the ability to be objective in reasoning rather than subjective, and confirmative.

Being objective in reasoning is simply being respectful of the diversity of all people. Unlike robots human beings are not uniform in their way of thinking. We humans allow emotion to take a large part in our thought process; to become a good critical thinker we must step back and observe, pause, and take a moment to separate or beliefs from that of the issue. We must consider the benefits and damage of our input to the greater population in every issue, especially here in the United States.

Since I will be not only going into the medical field; but specializing in front office, I will need to constantly focus on my abilities to think through all things critically. A lot of issues that will be placed in front of me will be private and protected under federal law; this stops me from being able to discuss bothersome things with my co-workers and family. Rather than let these things distract How Critical thinking and Ethics Affect my Life. me I must be able to step back, evaluate, reason all sides, and form a decision.

All four of these things are components of critical thinking. The evaluation and reasoning will take you into ethical behavior. One of the most important classes in the medical program is Law and Ethics of Medicine. The law component of this class is mostly based on the ethics of professionals. Being honest, truthful, and reliable to protect personal information of staff and patients is a must. The confusing thing about this is; how can you teach ethics? Shouldn’t being ethical come naturally? Surprisingly enough it does not come naturally and must be taught.

Ethics are not always based on a person’s upbringing and way of life. People who regardless of who raised them are able to make decisions that will help the whole and not just the part are ethical. What one may see as being helpful can often be more harmful in some cases. Others are who are considered selfish and self-serving, only caring about things that will benefit them, not the whole. So what is the defining line? In school it is refraining from gossip, at work it will be not breaking the HIPPA law.

Again the word law, man’s law, concepts that are based off of God’s law adjusted to fit man on earth. So the system will have you believe if you have never been arrested you are a law abiding person, and if you are God fearing in church and following the scripture you’re ethically clean. Not always true. I could name names of people who have no criminal record and definitely are criminals, just as we have all seen the minister and reverends that are ethically and morally filthy. In my opinion ethics are based on a person’s morals and

How Critical thinking and Ethics Affect my Life. beliefs, be it faith based or not. And morals are not always taught at home; most of the people I know were taught their morals from the street and are more ethically righteous than most CEO’s. So in conclusion, the ability to think critically and act ethically in the future for me will be based on my multicultural and multiracial background. Diversity is it in-bred or learned allows a person to have a more open, and vivid mind. So my advice to others would be to take every experience offered from any and everywhere!

Some may think it is dangerous, some may think it is stupid. But I know it is the key to figuring out worldly ethics, and the beginning lesson in critical thinking jumping outside of your box. The morals of those different from us are not that different and having an open mind ready to absorb is the key in being able to use step one of critical thinking, step back and observe. The man strategy I would advise someone to do for a reflective essay like this is, use your personal experience and thoughts.

Do not try and write what you think they want, write what comes out of your brain and fingers. Be yourself at all times, draw from your good and bad life experience, and you will succeed. To complete this paper I attempted to interview someone and they cancelled, I typed up questionnaire’s for associates in my field to complete they didn’t. So I finally sat down and read, and re-read the assignment handout until I decided that the only way for me to turn in a paper is to just break down the core components into what I have interpreted the definitions to be.