Tuesday, November 02, 2021

What does it mean to say we are entitled to our opinion?

A redated post. 

What does it mean to say that someone is entitled to their own opinion? People say that a lot, but I am not sure what they are saying when they say it. To say I am entitled to something, I take it, implies someone might want to take it away from me, and either shouldn't or shouldn't be permitted to. But who might be taking out opinion away from us, and what kind of protection do we need from whoever it is that is trying to take our opinion away from us? Further, it isn't clear what an "opinion" is in this context. That can mean a personal preference that can be neither true nor false (country music is better than rock-n-roll), or it can mean a claim which can be true or false, and for which there can be evidence, but is not completely settled to everyone's satisfaction. Consider the "opinion" of Kirilov in Dostoyevsky's The Possesed, who believes that "he who kills himself, becomes God." Is this something that Kirilov is "entitled to," even if it may lead him to suicide (and did, in the novel).
And then we can look at the various means that people might use to get people to stop holding an opinion. We can torture someone to make them change their minds, we can disown them or give them a lot of disapproval and make them feel bad for believing what they do, or we could try to give them reasons why their beliefs are false. Does our being entitled to our opinion mean that no one should attempt to give another person a logical reason for rejecting what he or she currently believes? I would say, certainly not.

This essay is entitled "Sorry, but you are not entitled to your opinion."

I believe I have linked to it before.

59 comments:

Leah said...

Completely agreed, thanks for posting. If you think someone's wrong, it's more respectful to point it out and explain why than to 'respect their opinion' by letting they continue in error.

--Leah @ Unequally Yoked

awatkins909 said...

Couple of problems here. 1. Rock and roll is better than country music. 2. You don't read The American Conservative instead.

awatkins909 said...

But in all seriousness, in some contexts, it seems to be the case that we really should respect someone and leave them in their error, even if it is completely illogical. For instance, a terminally sick person who would suffer greatly from knowing they would die soon has convinced themselves that they will get over this and live and not suffer death. If it would cause them to suffer less, and nothing could would come out of them from knowing the truth, shouldn't we encourage them, or at least not rigorously debate them?

Ken said...

Victor says: "I believe I have linked to it before."

And I may have responded with this before:

"If I am a fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of self-approved wisdom." - Lord Byron (1788-1824), English poet

DL said...

The interesting thing is that this sentiment typically used to be applied to someone else: "He's entitled to his opinion" meant something like "He's probably wrong, but it's not worth arguing with him." ...the implication being that the issue was not particularly important, although (especially if said in a sarcastic tone) it could also imply that the person was too ornery or too thick to appreciate the facts. When somebody says this of himself, though — well, I guess anyone who admits that he's probably wrong but not worth the effort of arguing with is probably right.

Bobcat said...

Not a huge fan of Jamie Whyte.

Have you read his section on the logical problem of evil in Crimes Against Logic? He just gives Mackie's argument and says it's irrefutable and moves on. Now that I think about it, the book is well-titled!

Mr Veale said...

Well, I disagree, but you're entitled to your opinion

Mr Veale said...

A terrible joke, I know, but someone had to make it...I think you'll find that Kant said that terrible jokes are a categorical imperative!

guy said...

While some people clearly use the phrase for different reasons, i take the entitlement claim to express a disapproval of some level of thought control. Perhaps during a time when a church had political power to try and enforce assent to their creeds, or perhaps on occasions where those in power trying to enforce a belief upon those under their power believed they had no obligation to try and provide any evidence or reason for adopting that belief--in such circumstances a phrase like the opinion-entitlement claim expresses a denial that an individual is morally or politically obligated to forego their freedom to weigh and consider the evidence for themselves and come to their own conclusion. Is there something basically illogical or problematic about that?

--guy

James M. Jensen II said...

I'm get more annoyed at this article the more I read it. Let's start with the first three sentences:

"I DON'T believe in astrology but many people do. About half the women I meet ask me my star sign. I used to try to explain why they shouldn't believe in it but I have given up."

So, wait, is he really saying (as I'm reading this) that he tries to explain this after they've just met?. I can only And he wonders why they get offended?

And the bulk of the article is a case study in trying to be clever through overanalyzing. Clearly he has the makings of a true ladies' man (not).

More seriously, did it ever occur to him that the term "right" may have a different sense here? Does anyone think we're actually talking about a right enforceable in a court of law here, besides him apparently?

He also doesn't seem to follow up on this (most admirably correct) point:

"Does your right to your opinion oblige me to listen to you?


No, I haven’t the time. Many people have many opinions on many matters."

Because logically that entails that the astrologers he harangued don't have to bother listen to him, either.

And his exposition on "Does your right to your opinion oblige me to let you keep it?" is severely wrongheaded. Long story short: Yes, sir, it does entail that.

The counter-example he gives is really unpersuasive. Two problems:

1. "You" in the example have not expressed an interest in not having opinion changed.
2. It's an emergency situation. Emergencies weaken rights.

Finally, we have his obvious implied disdain for people who are reluctant to have their opinions challenged. Well, okay, he can feel how he likes about the issue. (This is interesting in itself: skeptics talk as if skepticism is obligatory, yet most of them reject objective morality. In which case, all they're saying is "Ick!")

But is it realistic that we act as he wants? Not at all.

First of all, we haven't the time to debate with everyone about everything. In practice, the love of truth never extends to all truths equally: we all pick certain questions to try to answer, to the exclusion of others. We should at least be given a reason to bother about any given belief (consequently, I don't think atheism, strictly speaking — that is, solely on the issue of god(s), divorced from other, more practical issues associated with religion — should be taken very seriously: if it's true, why bother about it?).

Second of all, we risk committing the opposite error of giving in to a bad argument that only looks good on the surface, especially when the other side is engaging in ridicule and intimidation. (I invite you to go to YouTube and search for "religion" or "atheism" if you doubt that there's a lot of this out there.)

Thirdly, you can't always justify yourself to someone else. There seems to be this disturbing groupthink mentality among a lot of skeptics where if you can't prove it to them, you shouldn't believe it, either. While I agree that intersubjective agreement and the ability to persuade others has a lot to do with justification, it's not the whole of it.

James M. Jensen II said...

Oh, wow, my last comment was full of grammatical errors. Forgive me; it was a long comment and a lot of the errors are just where I started to change the way I expressed an idea but didn't finish updating text.

Starhopper said...

Everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to a platform from which to spread it around. The Constitution gives us the right to express ourselves freely (as long as we don't incite violence or conspire to commit a crime), but it does not compel privately owned media (such as Facebook or Twitter) to broadcast what you have to say.

If Victor were to ban me from his blog, he would have a perfect right to do so. It's his blog, and I have my own (HERE), in which I can say whatever I please.

oozzielionel said...

"I am entitled to my opinion" is a dated and debunked sentiment from the times when "tolerance" reigned supreme. It used to mean that a person had a right to their own truth without being challenged, debated, or proven wrong. The opinion was not required to have a rational basis. The opinion could even be self-contradictory or obviously unreasonable or false. The spirit of tolerance silenced debate.

We now live in the post-opinion entitlement world. Now, we must follow the science, be politically correct, submit to the intersectionality, conform to the correct narrative, and enumerate the lies of the opposition. We are no longer entitled to question, doubt, debate, disagree, reason. We are now silenced by fear of being cancelled.

One Brow said...

oozzielionel,

Could you whine any harder?

What happened to people facing the consequences of their actions? What happened to using market forces to support what people like and downplay what they don't like? You're opposed to that?

bmiller said...

The MISSING LINK

bmiller said...

Many times when people say "I am entitled to my opinion" is to end the discussion when the better argument is on the other side.

Starhopper said...

Alternatively, the discussion may concern an unprovable (such as "Is there intelligent life on other planets?") or about something purely subjective (as in "I think J.R.R. Tolkien is a far better writer than C.S. Lewis.")

In such cases, people truly are entitled to their own opinion.

bmiller said...

Etymology of the word.

opinion (n.)
early 14c., opinioun, "a judgment formed or a conclusion reached, especially one based on evidence that does not produce knowledge or certainty," from Old French opinion "opinion, view, judgements founded upon probabilities" (12c.), from Latin opinionem (nominative opinio) "opinion, conjecture, fancy, belief, what one thinks; appreciation, esteem," from stem of opinari "think, judge, suppose, opine," from PIE *op- (2) "to choose" (see option).

Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. [Milton, "Areopagitica"]
The word always has tended toward "a judgment or view regarded as influenced more by sentiment or feeling than reason." The meaning "formal statement by a judge or other professional" is from late 15c. The specific sense of "the estimate one forms of the character or qualities of persons or things" is by c. 1500. Public opinion, "the prevailing view in a given community on any matter of general interest or concern," is by 1735.

Middle English, perhaps reflecting the era's concern for obtaining knowledge through learned disputation, had opinional "characterized by likelihood rather than certainty" and opinial "based on probable but not certain evidence" (both mid-15c.).

bmiller said...

It seems some people approve of the suppression of other people's opinions.

If one opinion is true and another is false, then why shouldn't the false opinion be suppressed?

Starhopper said...

There are no false opinions, only false beliefs.

"in my opinion, the Beatles were the best rock group ever." Neither true nor false.

"I believe the 2020 election was stolen." False, and provably so.

bmiller said...

There are of course false opinions.

I wonder if Victor has finally succeeded in chasing away any people who are interested in serious discussions.

Starhopper said...

That would be you doing the chasing, bmiller. It is nearly impossible to carry on a meaningful discussion with a person who regards himself as more Catholic than the Pope, and who thinks that anyone to the left of Mussolini is the antichrist.

But it is fun to trigger you.

bmiller said...

I'm glad you're amused.

Now I'll wait for a serious response from a serious person.

bmiller said...

So should false views be allowed? What if they were to drown out true views?

Wouldn't that be bad?

Starhopper said...

In a free market place of ideas, the Truth will always win. Unfortunately, we currently do not have such. The internet and social media seem to favor the loonies and conspiracy theorists (such as Qanon).

Kevin said...

in my opinion, the Beatles were the best rock group ever."

But it is fun to trigger you.

You triggered me with that Beatles statement. My daughter loves them and listens to them on Spotify, which recently informed her that she is among the top 0.1 percent of people who listen to them the most.

Consequently, and unwillingly, so am I.

Starhopper said...

Since it is a truism that "The best is the enemy of the good" it is more important to determine who is 2nd best. I'm torn between Jefferson Airplane and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. It depends on who I've listened to last.

(And there are way too many ties for 3rd place!)

bmiller said...

I suppose there is not now nor has ever been "a free market place of ideas" and so I guess the Truth has never ever gotten a fair shake.

Starhopper said...

Maybe so, but the Truth is ultimately stronger than falsehood, so it eventually wins anyway. The Soviet Union persecuted the Orthodox Church for 75 years, but look at Russia today. Orthodoxy is flourishing, and where is Bolshevism?

bmiller said...

The Soviet Union had a mess of "conspiracy theories" that ran contrary to the official narrative. Didn't the authorities have a duty to squelch them for public safety and stability of governance?

Starhopper said...

The USSR was founded on a conspiracy theory, namely Leninism. My favorite Stalinist quotation is "The state will wither away via the maximum intensification of state power." (or words to that effect, I'm too lazy right now to look it up)

We all know how that turned out!

bmiller said...

Izvestia was the newspaper of record in the Soviet Union.

Wasn't it their duty to warn people of the lies being spread by pernicious opponents, and then ask citizens to help find those people so they could be investigated and punished?

Starhopper said...

The joke is lost on those who don't know Russian, but "Izvestiya" is the Russian word for "news" and "Pravda" is Russian for "truth". So the Russians would (quietly, of course) say "In Izvestiya there is no truth, while in Pravda there is no news."

But as to your question, I regularly read both newspapers from the early 70s right up to the end of the Soviet Union, and I not once ever saw such a request for citizens to rat on anyone else. With the NKVD on the job, the regime needed no such help.

bmiller said...

So I guess they didn't attempt to deny any conspiracy theories then. Maybe on theory that to address them would be to give them a wider audience? So they just ignored them.

bmiller said...

It must have been an incredibly effective campaign to insulate the Russian people from what was actually going on for so long. Even high ranking Poliburo members like Yeltsin had no idea.

He had to have heard reports of American grocery stores but must have imagined that it was all propaganda since that is what the Soviet Poliburo did.

Starhopper said...

In the early 70s, I was co-host to a visiting class of English language students from the Soviet Union at Arizona State University. We held a reception for them at the home of one of the university's Russian language professors. While there, one of the students noticed that there was a second refrigerator on the back porch. Astonished, she told the group leader about it. "They have two refrigerators in this house!" The response from the group leader was an annoyed sniff and a curt "Lots of Russian homes have two refrigerators." (As if! They rarely had one.)

I was witness to that exchange, and have never forgotten it. I've often wondered what else they were instructed to ignore on the trip.

bmiller said...

So if you lived in the Soviet Union and you occassionally published information embarrassing to the government how were you treated? Were you welcomed into the community of diverse opinions? Or did you hear a knock on your door at 6AM demanding you open the door by a bunch SWAT troops with a battering ram?

Starhopper said...

Definitely the latter.

My point was, the regime was not looking for volunteer denouncers in their newspapers. The USSR was truly an evil system, second only to Nazi Germany and Pol Pot's Cambodia. Its only saving grace (and even this is a stretch) is that some times were worse than others. The mid-20s were the period of the so-called NEP, and there remained a good deal of the private sector as yet untouched by the Soviet state. Stalinism began in earnest in 1928 and lasted until the tyrant's death in 1953. What followed was the "Thaw"in the mid 50s and early 60s. This was ended with the Brezhnev coup in 1964 and the ouster of Khrushchev. The Brezhnev Era is known in Russia as the Zastoj (meaning "stagnation"), during which there was no return to Stalinist terror but the state was still repressive,but less so. (If you kept your nose clean and didn't rock the boat, there was no "knock on the door".) Finally, there was the brief period of Perestroika, a desperate attempt to save a crumbling system. What brought down the house was not the US or the Cold War, but rather the twin economic disasters of the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion and the 1987 Armenian Earthquake (200,000 casualties and untold billions in damages). The already teetering Soviet economy simply could not recover from these.

bmiller said...

The USSR was truly an evil system,

In many ways I'm sure. But the OP regards opinions and, within the thread, opinions have been expressed that it's a good thing that some opinions be disallowed. The USSR Politburo agrees with that opinion. Is the US government different from the old USSR in this respect?

bmiller said...

But maybe the real question is:

"If you had the power to squelch opinions you thought were bad/wrong/evil would you? And why?"

Starhopper said...

Without hesitation, if I had to suppress some opinions, I would do so. For instance, if someone's "opinion" was that we should gas all the Jews, I would do everything in my power to prevent him from spreading that opinion.

bmiller said...

What if the opinion was that certain groups should be sent to camps?

bmiller said...

Or that certain journalists with pesky opinions should be spied upon, raided in order to identify their sources.

bmiller said...

Maybe if you were in power, you'd simply tell people that the journalist actually wanted to gas all the Jews. Since you can squelch opposing opinions I guess ordinary people would take your word for it.

bmiller said...

Here is an opinion I found from a religious leader:

Religious Leader 1, [2] draws an even more powerful distinction between the essential nature of a X and that of a Y. He explains that a X has two souls – a Godly soul, which partakes in some fashion in the actual substance of God Himself, and an animalistic soul, which descends from zzz, the evil that contains within it an admixture of divine light. Therefore, he explains, any good character trait found in a X reflects the essential goodness found in his soul. The soul of a Y, however, according to the Religious Leader 1, is purely animalistic and not Godly. It descends from the evil forces that have no potential for goodness in them whatsoever. Therefore, any good deeds performed by Ys are done for ulterior motives and cannot possibly reflect essential goodness.

Is this an opinion that should be prevented from being expressed?

Starhopper said...

No. It incites no violence, nor does it endanger anyone's safety.

bmiller said...

That's interesting.

bmiller said...

From above:
What if the opinion was that certain groups should be sent to camps?

Starhopper said...

Some people should. And I'll bet Yankee dollars that you think so too.

bmiller said...

Yankee dollars are growing more worthless every day.
Which certain groups should be sent to camps?

Starhopper said...

What, after all, are prisons, other than indoor camps?

bmiller said...

OK, you're for prisons.
What groups of people should be sent there?

Starhopper said...

Our former president and his entire criminal family.

bmiller said...

I agree. Looks like it's going to happen too.

Guess no one wants to seriously discuss things on this site anymore.

Sorry Victor. You used to have an interesting site until you went bonkers.

Starhopper said...

Politics make everyone bonkers. That's why I am praying that the Bishops about to meet in my home town of Baltimore keep politics out of whatever statements they decide on. The Catholic (read: Universal) Church needs to be a "big tent" that embraces everyone.

Except those who need to be sent to the camps. :)

bmiller said...

Politics make everyone bonkers.

No. Only people who politicize everything. That's why no one pays attention to this site anymore.

Starhopper said...

But bmiller, look in the mirror! YOU are the one who thinks all "leftists" (whatever that means) are the root of all evil. When you embrace the idea that persons of all political leanings have something of value to contribute to the conversation, then I might start taking you seriously.

I recall a verse about a speck in another's eye while there is a log in your own.

bmiller said...

I'll pray for you.

Starhopper said...

There's a good chance my picture will be in the Baltimore Sun tomorrow. I went to City Hall this morning to take part in the Armistice Day (a.k.a., "Veterans" Day) observances there. Well, I happened to be standing right behind the bugler playing Taps when a reporter from the Sun started snapping pictures of him playing. If they decide to publish any of those pictures, I'll be in it. I hope so, because it would show me wearing my Veterans For Peace t-shirt and holding my VFP hat in my hand. (Bad form to be wearing a hat while Taps is being played.) Free advertisement!