The use of evaluativist thinking

16 August 2019

In the same week as the US federal government crashed a bulldozer through the Endangered Species Act, the Australian federal government has announced – in contravention of its own policy – that it will be clearing critical koala habitat for a housing project.

These twin developments, occurring almost simultaneously on different sides of the planet, have two things in common: they both increase the risk of extinction for vulnerable wildlife, and they both allow economic factors to weigh more heavily than ecological ones when deciding what protections should be afforded to threatened species.

In the US, the law has until now stipulated that wildlife management decisions must be made on the basis of science and “without reference to possible economic or other impacts of determination”. The newly announced changes, will which expand industrial land-use, have been described as a ‘wrecking ball’ that will speed the extinction of many species.

A parallel in our Australian context is the Federal Environment Department’s recent housing development approval which will push koalas one step closer to extinction. This post addresses what we citizens should do when two sides of a debate are presented with false equivalence.

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If you needed an example of the importance of evaluative thinking, look no further than this week’s decision by the Australian Federal Environment Department to approve the clearing of 75 hectares of critical koala habitat in south-east Queensland.

At a time of unprecedented natural decline, with a million species under threat of extinction due to human land use decisions, you might think that protecting vulnerable species like koalas would be at the top of the agenda for the Federal Environment Department. Certainly, there are ample reasons for taking a precautionary approach and conserving koala habitat – particularly as increasing heatwaves and bushfires are now placing threatened koala populations under additional pressure. Indeed, approving the land clearing is inconsistent with the Department’s own policy on environmental offsets.

But the Federal Environment Department has attempted to justify its decision with an appeal to precedent, arguing that the land clearing has been approved “in order to maintain consistency in decision making” with other development projects which had already been given the green light.

So, reasons have been given on both sides: On the one hand, science matters (and it tells us that habitat conservation is needed to protect koalas from extinction); and on the other hand, Departmental precedent matters (and it tells us that further development is acceptable).

Further, the question of consistency has been raised on both sides. On the one hand, there the Departmental should act consistently with its own policy – and the land clearing approval clearly violates that. On the other hand, there should be consistency in decision-making across different development applications; decisions (as a Department spokesperson says) should “be equitable and take account of circumstances on a case by case basis” – and on these grounds, the land clearing is arguably justified.

There seem to be two sides to the story. What are we to do?

As any evaluativist thinker knows, just because reasons have been given on both sides, it doesn’t mean that both arguments are equally strong.

We can all learn to assess competing arguments and draw judicious conclusions, but it takes practice and support — the kind of practice and support that we provide at The Philosophy Club.

Rather than being perplexed by rival arguments or bamboozled by false equivalence, students learn to weigh up the reasoning and evidence on both sides; to do so independently and collaboratively, and with attention to nuance; and to come to well-considered conclusions that they can defend rationally.

Becoming accomplished in critical thinking is a major undertaking, but it’s a vital one. It’s the only path to distinguishing cogent arguments from weak or fallacious ones, and it’s one of the best ways to guard against spin, rhetoric and motivated reasoning.

There are lots of reasons to learn to think well. Perhaps most importantly, we should improve our thinking so that we can better hold our leaders to account, and protect the natural systems that support life on Earth.

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