Aimee, both your prof and this student responding to you are making unproven assertions in their statements that porn is bad, and they are making those assertions due to personal anecdotes that are laden with emotion, all of which are the exact opposite of critical thinking.

The unproven assertion is simple -- that all porn is bad in all cases, which is not only a huge leap to make, but can easily be proven untrue with just a little bit of thinking it through (they are not only making unproven assertions, they are not following their assertions all the way through to the implied conclusions), and with a little bit of research. And, as has been previously pointed out, they are using very broad terms ("porn" "bad") without defining them, something antithetical to critical thinking.

The emotion laden anecdotes are utterly irrelevant. That's not to nullify their personal experiences, particularly that of your fellow student and her relationship, but personal experiences by nature carry emotional connotations, which critical thinking must ignore simply because the emotional baggage of claiming "my very personal experience with porn was very bad for my relationship" only reinforces the overly broad and undefined terms of "porn" and "bad" by not only not defining them, but making the incredibly faulty assumption that all porn experiences are identical to her own experience, and that they too all had identical bad outcomes.

I think you would do well to drift away from the inclusion of personal morals in this particular part of the debate, and focus on the fact that their continued use of broad, vaguely defined terms and personal anecdotes are inhibiting any critical thinking (an assertion probably backed up by whatever course text or materials you've already been using together as a class).

Argh. Had to make some edits to my thoughts. It still may be a cludgey and inelegant way of phrasing my thoughts on this matter.

For instance, I am morally opposed to abortion. However, I don't believe that it should be illegal to get one. If someone wants to get one, that's on them and does not affect my morals at all.

Not on topic, but Aimee = my sistah.

Off what Sean said, even "morals" is a really broad term. That discussion need refining.

It's like that bullshit "Gay marriage undermines het marriage."

Wha-huh? How? How does GC and her GF or Kat and Lori or our friends E &T getting married make my marriage to Joe any less than what it is? Other couples, hets included, do not have any impact on the strength of my marriage. And I resent anyone who tells me that it does.

Off what Sean said, even "morals" is a really broad term. That discussion need refining.

Word to Cindy's mom. A critical thinking course should always address thorny, complex, emotion laden issues like "porn - good or bad?" but Aimee's class discussion has gone a little off the rails, in part because of the prof, and there is a lot of non-critical non-thinking going on.

And Aimee, you're doing an admirable job of trying to get it back on track. I hope some of what I've said can give you some extra ammo for that endeavor.

I completely agree that they can.

I know you do. I was thinking of them. Obviously they really can't, but are instead using emotion-laden words to append value judgements, and are expressing their fuzzy thinking and knee-jerk reactions to your statements on an emotional level instead of thinking things through and responding logically.

I hope that reads semi-logically. Aidan's beating me up.

critical thinking=willingness to consider that what you've previously held to be true is subject to change

Too many times people arguing from a morals standpoint equate morals with faith/belief, which is not often subject to criticism. A person can have both the capacity to criticize a subject and a firm faith in whatever, but the two occupy different spheres of thought.

IMO.

It's like that bullshit "Gay marriage undermines het marriage."

A very unproven assertion.

fuzzy thinking and knee-jerk reactions to your statements on an emotional level

Yep. "I had a bad experience with X, therefore X is evil and bad and wrong" is poor moral AND critical thinking. Seriously, fill in that blank with anything other than "porn" and it becomes ridiculous --

"I'm allergic to strawberries. Therefore, eating strawberries is a SIN."

"I was in a car accident. Therefore, driving is morally wrong."