Critical thinking encourages ethical behavior. Individuals who learn how to question assumptions, evaluate claims, and seek alternative perspectives can better understand the beliefs of others, reflect upon and adapt their beliefs to new information, integrate their values into their actions, protect themselves from coercion, and recognize their own potential for change. When entire communities practice critical thinking, it encourages tolerance and compassion through meta-cultural awareness.

Critical thinking allows individuals to reflect upon and change their beliefs. Doing so requires what Polish psychiatrist Kazimierz Dabrowski calls "positive disintegration," the theory that advanced moral development requires individuals to disintegrate their "existing psychological structures" so they can form new ones (Kienzler 327). Critical thinking facilitates advanced moral development by allowing individuals to recognize and adapt their beliefs to new information. In fact, critical thinking produces behavior listed in Dabrowski's higher levels of adult development; for example, critical thinking involves questioning societal values and examining multiple perspectives, which Dabrowski claims moves individuals to levels four (individuals show high levels of responsibility, judgment, and empathy) and five (individuals attain their personality ideals by integrating their values into their actions) (qtd. in Kienzler 328).

Find out about the benefits of critical thinking.