“The idea that everyone is entitled to his opinion is one of those truisms so often repeated that it now goes without saying. Like many truisms, however, it is false. It is also usually irrelevant. Let us suppose that Jill disputes Jack’s opinion that free trade causes poverty in the Third World. Jack may defend his opinion by producing evidence connecting trade and poverty but he cannot help his case by insisting that he is entitled to his opinion. How could that show that free trade causes poverty in the Third World? The entitlement would be relevant only if it guaranteed the truth of your opinions. But it can’t do that, because it is an entitlement supposedly enjoyed by everybody. And people disagree. Jack and Jill are both entitled to their contradictory opinions about trade and poverty, but they can’t both be right. So insisting that you are entitled to your opinion cannot possibly give you any proper advantage in a debate.”
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Samizdata quote of the dayMarch 1st, 2009 |
 40 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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Merciful heavens, I demand the right to my opinions! Otherwise, I’d be committing thoughtcrime for some of them, and Big Brother would be even bigger than he is now!
This is one of those “pursuit of happiness” things. I may not catch it – there is no guarantee – but I will chase it. Or, to use another ancient quote of the times:
“My opinions. May they always be right, but my opinions, right or wrong.”
Dr Ellen, the pursuit of truth is a fine thing, but as Whyte says, saying “one is entitled” to an opinion is not the same as being correct. I might argue that “I am entitled to believe that the Moon is made out of cheese or that Ipswich Town FC will win the Champions League next year, and none of those statements will be accurate.
I can recommend Whyte’s book, Bad Thoughts, by the way. He’s a real sharp customer.
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.”
………..and?
I recall someone once said…
“Opinions are like arseholes – everyone has one”.
Damn Nick got there first, as usual!
… and most of them stink, NickM.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but not to imposing them on others. As to debates, ideally they take place to give us an opportunity to change our opinions or those of others. Once someone begins insisting that they are entitled to their opinion, it means that they are choosing (rightly or wrongly) to forgo that opportunity, and the debate ends.
More seriously, I’ve always observed that any debate in which the “yes, but that’s my opinion’ is only one step away from being Godwinned.
Anyone who advances this as a debating point is (as Alice seems to imply) either doesn’t understand the what debate is for, or is basically retreating from the field of battle.
This is, of course, just my opinion.
“The law gives us all a right to life.” (Whyte, op. cit.)
“A real sharp customer”? I have a very different opinion, and I have the facts, too.
His general point of the article is a good one, albeit obvious and mundane. There is, however, no way for me to consider someone who says something like the quote above to be “real sharp”.
Oops, now I managed to get to read what Whyte typed, I see that my comments (and by extension, this, comment) were completely superfluous.
Oh, and sorry for misnaming you, Alisa.
Carry On.
Good one Nick but personally I have many opinions.
A different quote, which I use to refer to people such as the Prime Mentalist, is “I have one arsehole – I don’t need another.”
I thought I was being clear; but I guess I wasn’t. ‘Tis a case where my opinion was wrong.
I have opinions, and have the right to have opinions; and anybody who says I can’t is working on being a tyrant. This gives my opinions no leverage over yours. But until we get somebody who has access to Objective Truth, your opinions hold no more leverage over mine than mine do over yours.
Witness the Global Warming debate. (It was a Coming Ice Age debate when I was in college, and now that we’re having a series of cold winters, it’s a Climate Change debate.) I seem to recall various Warmers saying that Deniers should be hauled up before an international court to be punished.
You’re allowed to try to influence my opinion by arguments. But I hold the right to my opinion, and don’t want to go to court over it as the latest, mmmmh, celebrant of the auto-da-fe.
Bod, while busy misnaming me, you seem to have also misread my point, which I think was similar to yours. Never mind though, my opinion is no more important than yours, especially if they happen to be similar:-)
Jamie Whyte is entitled to his opinion.
But I find it odd to say that being entitled to your opinion gives you no advantage in a debate. Imagine trying to debate for an opinion that you were not entitled to have. Imagine being up against the thought police of some moonbat-lefty tribunal, or that Canadian subHuman Rights mob, trying to argue for a politically incorrect opinion (like that Jihad is communally obligatory under Islam) that was itself the reason for you being prosecuted. You can’t argue in your own defence, because such argument is itself a crime; would require you to express opinions you were not allowed to even hold. Wouldn’t that rather handicap your “debating advantage”?
Having a right to an opinion, even a wrong one, is not about winning debates, it is about being able to have a debate.
I can only imagine the problem here is that people are so used to living in a fairly free society that they don’t even notice the walls that defend their freedom any more. They get in the way! So let’s knock them down.
It is true that falling back on being entitled to your opinion probably means you’ve lost the debate. But losing the debate doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wrong, or must change your views. It depends on why you lost.
Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion in the same way I am entitled to build a 1/144 scale model of The Bismarck.
But clearly some opinions are worth more than others. And yes, when I have unleashed my own individualist opinion upon the throng I have on occasions been told to fuck off.
Even when espousing indivualism.
“Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion in the same way I am entitled to…”
But is it “obvious” to everyone?
“The idea that everyone is entitled to his opinion is one of those truisms so often repeated that it now goes without saying. Like many truisms, however, it is false.”
True?
I think it is precisely because it isn’t obvious to some people that others have felt the need to mention the freedom to hold opinions in a number of bills of rights and constitutions. As I have yet to hear of one that mentions your entitlement to replicate German battleships, I suggest that the latter is significantly more obvious than the former. Yes?
This truism doesn’t “go” without saying. You have to keep saying it. Or some bugger will come along and try to take it away.
The right to one’s own opinion should preclude thought crime. The right to express it implies a right to take part in debate. These are clearly very important- though clearly if one is taking part in a debate they have already been granted- at least for the subject under discussion. It seems to me that when used during a debate it essentially means either”You still haven’t convinced me but I need time to think of a reply” or “I’m too stubborn to admit I’m wrong”
Or it could mean it’s not subject to conclusive proof and is simply a matter of opinion, personal preference, or individual conscience. Or it could mean that I don’t have time to give all my arguments within the format allowed, but am not conceding that I therefore have to agree with you. Or it could mean that I have a good argument, but don’t want to use it for tactical reasons. Or it could mean that I admit that I am unqualified to evaluate the technical details, but that I don’t feel I therefore have to believe that you must have got them right, either. Or it can announce that you are only expressing an opinion rather than something you insist on as being the absolute truth. Or it could be somebody simply arguing in the abstract for the right to hold any opinion they like, even a wrong one.
Frequently, I’ve seen it used when irreconcilable world views collide and the debate come to an impasse. It means: “I still think you’re wrong, and I’m not conceding anything, but it’s obviously a waste of time arguing since neither of us is going to budge. Let’s move on.” You could see that as stubbornness on somebody’s part, but I don’t know how you can say whose.
People are indeed “entitled” to their opinions – in the sense that they should not be punished for their false opinions.
For example, no one should be sent to prison for believing that I am six feet tall with a full head of hair.
But this is does not alter the fact that I am a short, bald man.
You just figured this out? My lord you are slow.
There are two ways of finding out what is a false opinion.
The first is empirical evidence
“I think Paul Marks is six feet tall”
“Let us measure him – oh he is only 5’8”.
Of course the measurement could be false (the result of an illusion generated by space aliens or whatever) – but till contradictory evidence comes along………
The other method is logical.
“I think A is A” is not the best way of expressing this.
“A is A” – it is NOT a matter of opinion or evidence in measurement.
The law of identity (A is A) is one of the many laws of reason on which everything else depends.
Empirical science (and everything else) depends on them – they are not themselves empirical.
No evidence can exist that can prove that “A is not A” – for it can only “not be A” by not being A.
“These are unimportant tautologies”.
Tautologies they be – but “unimportant” they are not.
For example most errors in economics can be traced back to ignoring basic laws of reason – such as the law of idenity, the law of non contractiction, and so on.
Economics is far closer to philosophy than it is to physics – a point not understood by most of the people who call themselves “economists”.
And by saying “closer to philosophy” I do NOT mean vague or open to interpretation – quite the opposite.
Of course I should have typed “tautologies they may be” not “tautologies they be”.
The sneer word “tautology” is an effort to avoid the importance of basic laws of reason – “logic” as the word was once understood.
Of course I should have typed “tautologies they may be” not “tautologies they be”.
The sneer word “tautology” is an effort to avoid the importance of basic laws of reason – “logic” as the word was once understood.
Pa Annoyed and Paul Marks get a drink.
I believe it was Kant who thought long and hard about resolving arguments, and concluded that those where an outcome is empirically measurable you can resolve with… a wager, e.g Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich’s famous wager on exhaustion of resources. But there are also ones, like the existence of God, where the only hope for winning is “being convincing”, and for those being entitled to an opinion is critical.
Kant had just foreseen Popper’s falsifiability.
Disclaimer: atheist, of the don’t-care-to-argue-about-it-most-of-the-time-when-sober kind.
Tautology as a sneer word is used for when you say something that sounds empirical, but is only the case because of the way you define your terms.
For example, “the guilty can never escape the law, the police have a 100% success rate”, “how can you say that?” “Because everyone must be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” It’s logically true, if you define guilt that way, but empirically empty. You often get government statistics like that.
A case where someone was instructed to debate but was not allowed to have their own opinion.
In my opinion, debate is quite a good thing.
Mid, that was quite scary.
Whilst everyone is still allowed to have an opinion, not all opinions are equal. Still, this will prepare him for brown-nosing in the corporate world! Who says Unis teach you nothing?
“There is, however, no way for me to consider someone who says something like the quote above to be “real sharp”.
touche, Billy!
If someone has a right to an opinion, what does that do to my right to call them a fool? It destroys it, that’s what. Two contradictory rights.
It is not that I am entitled to my opinion, it is that no one is entitled to require me to hold to theirs.
I have no right to hold the opinion that the moon is made of green cheese, such an opinion is absurd. However, no one has authority to force another opinion on me.
Not at all. Everyone has the right to an opinion… and everyone has the right to call that opinion foolish.
Me sneering at some one else’s belief in god does not prevent them continuing to believe in god…. that people hold differing opinions does not require those who disagree to remain silent, it just requires them not to suppress those differences with violence (such as laws that outlaw unpopular opinions for example).
Bingo, Perry. Not all opinions are created equal, but they all have the right to exist. And the right to be refuted,ignored and/or ridiculed, as appropriate.
Everybody has a right to my opinion.
Not to mine – mine is special.
There are a lot of “special” opinions out there, Alisa. “Special” in the sense of riding the small school bus.
LOL! Samizdata is a very small bus indeed…
The final statement is valid and supported by the argument. The initial assertion remains unsupported.
Everyone remains entitled to their own opinions, as surely as every man may follow his own counsel.
It is my opinion that God proves His existence in small ways.
For instance, a bunch of climate change activists were going to meet in Washington to demand that Washington DO SOMETHING about the warming Weather, but it was called off because of the unseasonal snows……
God has a cool sense of humour!