There Is No Such Thing as a Neutral Question - Coursework Example

There is no such thing as a neutral question. Evaluate this ment with reference to two areas of knowledge. Introduction This essay focuses on the neutrality of questions, and whether it exists in reality or is only a thing written down in the books. The paper starts off by explaining what a neutral question is, and it does so by making comparisons with other form of questions. Moreover, this paper also provides examples of other types of questions so as to instill, by contrast, a clear definition of neutral questions in the mind of the readers. In the second phase this essay looks deep in to two areas of knowledge, and tries to evaluate the key pointers pertaining to the neutrality of questions. The two areas of knowledge that this paper deals with include religion and law. The first area of knowledge, religion takes the question of existence of God to prove that there is no such thing as a neutral question, while the second area of knowledge, law, takes the example of a lawyer to support my point. Finally, this paper concludes by proving that neutral questions do not exist. Essay A neutral question can be defined in very simple words as a question that is not a leading in nature. Before we go on to understand what a neutral question is, we first need to understand what forms a leading question so as to be able to clearly distinguish between the two. A leading question is one that in itself leads to an answer. The way lawyers cross question their opponents can be best described as leading questions. For instance, in a bid to confirm something from a person in a witness box of a court, a leading question can be “So you are telling me that at 12pm you were at the club? You can’t say no because clearly you just confirmed that at that time you weren’t at your home either”. On the contrary, a neutral question is of the sort that is totally unbiased in nature, does not take sides or is asked with an open mind, and the person asking the question is ready to accept any answer that may or not conform to the views and beliefs of the person (Thompson). According to the claim set by the essay statement, questions are never neutral in nature. This follows with the belief that the person asking a particular question almost always wants to hear something that conforms to his views, or put simply, the person behind the question always has a notion of knowledge that they are on the lookout for. Therefore, it can be clearly said that the essay is pointing towards the fact that almost all questions are leading in nature, and it is technically next to impossible to find out or gain knowledge regarding something without having our own preset view or notion about the way we actually want to find out that thing. Moreover, in light of the key statement forming this essay, it is rather difficult to escape from biases that may stem from our opinions of the way we want the other person so answer to our question. This can also be taken as ceasing to look for knowledge with open eyes, even though there is every possibility of it flowing from the other party. It is therefore thoroughly essential, although impossible as we believe that neutral questions do not exist, to understand that we always have a built-in confirmation bias within ourselves that forces us to only listen / make up our minds about things the way we want to know about them, and not with an open mind. This essay seeks to determine to what extent we agree or disagree to the statement, and further focuses on two areas of knowledge in a bid to support my view. The first area of knowledge that I would be focusing on as a part of this study would be religious knowledge. When it comes to religion, almost all of us have our own rigid views regarding the subject and only a few are ready to go out of the box and further talk about the subject in detail, including criticism about key issues. When dealing with the issue of neutrality in the religious context out focus will be towards faith and neutrality, as we strive to focus towards the difference between various religious myths and the actual truth. Getting deep into a particular area of knowledge, religion in our case makes it much easier for us to determine whether neutrality exists. For instance, religion makes us all believe that God exists. It is a fact, a belief that has been instilled into each and every child from the minute they were born, and is further strengthened every time one goes to their place of worship, be it a mosque, a cathedral, church or synagogue. However, how many people have actually sat down, wondered and tried to find out with a clear mind that does God really exist (Alvesson and Sandberg)? There is a clear bias instilled in all of us, a directional bias given to us from our childhood by our parents and further strengthened by our places of worship that God does exist. However, there is no concept of neutrality here. Hardly any of us have ever tried to challenge the beliefs that we have been carrying over from our decedents regarding the existence of God. This clearly points out towards one thing; that there is no such thing as a neutral question. Think about it, had we been asked to think as neutral human beings about the existence of God and had we been told to find out reasons behind the existence of God, our conclusions would probably have still been the same: that God exists. However, we clearly cannot see Him and that alone would have sufficed as a major reason for us to conclude that God does not exist. Having said that, our beliefs override the concept of neutrality and that alone is enough for us to conclude that there is no such thing is a neutral question. My second area of knowledge focuses on law. In law, it is all about proving your point of view, no matter you are standing with the person who is right at all lengths, or supporting his rival party. When it comes to court cases, there practically does not exist a chance of neutral questions. Plus there is no such thing as a neutral question when it comes to the court of law because they are of no use to the lawyer. When cross questioning a witness, a lawyer would never ask his witness a neutral question as it would totally defeat the purpose of him questioning the witness. Questions which remain neutral in nature and ask the client openly about everything in detail provide a chance to the witness to mess up the case for the lawyer by often providing them with information that can be used against the opponent party. On the contrary, had close end or leading questions been used, it would have been much easier for the lawyer to trap the witness within his web. This is achieved as leading questions are often designed in a way to tap the other party into saying what you want them to, even though they might not actually mean it. With the two examples listed above, I have clearly proven my point that there is no such thing as a neutral question at all. I have supported the case with the help of references from two key areas of knowledge; religion and law. Conclusion This essay was meant to determine if there exists a type of question known as a neutral question. Throughout the course of this essay I have taken an approach that seeks to explain to the audience what exactly a neutral question is, and it does so by making comparisons with leading and other type of questions. As discussed above, a leading question is one that in itself leads to an answer. On the contrary a neutral question is of the sort that is totally unbiased in nature, does not take sides or is asked with an open mind, and the person asking the question is ready to accept any answer that may or not conform to the views and beliefs of the person. With the examples from the areas of knowledge, religion and law, it can be clearly proven that neutral questions are just found in theory, and are nothing close to existence in a real life scenario. Our study on religion helped us reach this conclusion by focusing on faith and neutrality and by drawing out thin lines between various types of religious myths and the truth underlying them. On the other hand, we drew our conclusions from an area of knowledge similar to all of us; law. Here we took the examples of questioning in a court room to support of point. To conclude, there clearly is no such kind of thing as a neutral question. While the existence of neutral questions can be found within a dictionary and theory, reality poses a totally opposite scenario. Works Cited Alvesson, Mats, and Jorgen Sandberg. Constructing Research Questions: Doing Interesting Research. London: SAGE Publications, 2013. Internet resource. Thompson, Mel. Philosophy. London: Teach Yourself, 2010. Print. Read More