Week9 - Refutation and Confession Qs

1. What is my thesis?

People try to justify their behaviors and beliefs .

 

2. What is the opposite position?

People are rational being so that they judge themselves objectively, not justifying themselves.

 

3. What arguments can I anticipate?

a) Normative models (People reason logically.)

b) Kant and Descartes (They are philosophers who insisted humans' rationality, opposing empiricism.)

c) Cognitive biological approach (This study shows that human minds are too complex to make mistakes and are computative in thinking.)

 

4. How will I counter those arguments?

a) Normative models are just study of what people ought to reason. Instead, the study of descriptive models is what people reason in reality, which means that descriptive models are far more important than normative models, because they are applicable right to humans.

b) They are just one of philosophers who insisted rationality of humans, and there are also many philosophers who supported my thesis.

c) This cannot explain why we excuse our faults.