what to say to people who think they are entitled to an opinion
We're each entitled to our opinion; or so the undergraduates in my introductory philosophy course remind me. They're right, of course. Merely I doubtable that they misunderstand what they're right virtually, and this tin atomic number 82 to confusion about contemporary discourse.
To exist entitled to do (say; recollect) something is to take the right to practice (say; recall) it. Normally, the entitlements in question are legal or political: people'due south entitlement to healthcare, say, or a worker'southward entitlement to a living wage. Roughly put, to relish these entitlements is to accept a claim against the government to ensure that our access to the good in question (whether healthcare or a living wage or …) is preserved and protected.
At least since the enlightenment, people in liberal democratic countries have enjoyed the legal right to think as they choose: nosotros are legally entitled to our beliefs, religious and otherwise. This doesn't protect united states from criticism or censure for assertive as we practise; only that nosotros tin can expect to be protected – assuming such protection is needed in the beginning place – against attempts (past others or past the country itself) to have beliefs imposed on us.
No one should dispute the claim that nosotros each enjoy a legal right to our own opinions. (Fifty-fifty if information technology were possible to forcefulness someone to believe something, neither the state nor anyone else should exist allowed to force some other person to believe in 1 way or another.) Yet, I have the sense that this is not really what my students mean when they say that nosotros are each entitled to our ain opinion. For what prompts my students to say this is not any worry near the regime imposing a rigid orthodoxy of belief. Rather, they typically make this statement when, in the midst of a persistent disagreement, they want to bring the debate to a shut with no side feeling "less than" the other. For example, one student advances the thought that unfettered commercialism is the best solution to our social issues; some other responds that without serious authorities regulation markets are likely to brand our issues worse. Neither gives the other credence. Eventually someone speaks upward and says, "Hey, we are each entitled to our own stance!"
At this point I similar to introduce the distinction between being entitled to believe equally ane does (in the legal or political sense) and being epistemically warranted in believing as i does. Whereas the former has to do with our legal or political rights, the latter has to exercise with the quality of our reasons or evidence. To be epistemically warranted in one'south conventionalities is to believe on the basis of adequate reasons or prove – reasons or evidence which go far likely that our conventionalities is true.
When I illustrate the importance of the distinction betwixt being legally entitled to believe equally one does and being epistemically warranted in believing every bit i does, I typically exercise so in terms of beliefs which no i thinks are reasonable: for example, the belief that the globe is apartment. Of form we have the legal right to believe this if we wish, but such a belief would exist unsupported past what we know of the world. This much is unremarkably uncontroversial. However, when we motion to more contested matters – which news reports are imitation, which public policies are most likely to produce equitable outcomes, which medical precautions (such as vaccines) are effective, which scientific results (most climate alter) are trustworthy – many students shy abroad from the idea that some beliefs are ameliorate-supported than others. Worse still, when disagreements arise over what evidence we ought to use every bit nosotros effort to achieve conclusions about these topics, students often opt out, resorting to the thought that nosotros are each entitled to believe equally nosotros wish.
I believe that there is a cautionary lesson hither. In cases of deep disagreement, there volition be a potent temptation to avert the take a chance of a more serious confrontation past resorting to the thought that we are each entitled to our opinion. It is a good thing, of class, that we avoid resorting to forcefulness or violence to settle our disputes. Withal, I believe that it is to be regretted when we attain the point at which we return to our own corners, each comforted past the fact that "we are each entitled to our own opinions."
For i thing, agreeing to conclude a protracted dispute in this manner can encourage intellectual laziness. Why should we go to the trouble and attempt of continuing reasoning with each other, and (when necessary) of seeking out farther evidence, when we can settle into a comfortable understanding in our disagreement?
Second, the motility to conclude a dispute past saying that "we are each entitled to our ain opinion" encourages a distorted mental attitude about the significance of evidence and reasons themselves. Information technology tin can encourage the idea that reasons are merely valuable when their probative force is appreciated by those we hope to convince, so that when our reasons fail to convince, these reasons must not have been so good after all. Just such a conclusion is seriously misguided: the intellectual value of show and proficient reasons does not depend on our power to convince others with these reasons to believe as i does. If it did, then the committed skeptic (who is convinced by nothing) would reveal that none of our reasons are expert.
Third, dealing with a disagreement past concluding that "we are each entitled to our own stance" leaves us with express resources for collective deliberation. In item, in any situation in which a community needs to decide how to act, the community will be left nothing except the various beliefs of its members. This should be worrisome even – perhaps particularly – to those who believe in autonomous decision-making. Community decisions are best when they are based on facts, and the facts themselves are not determined by a democratic vote.
4th, the motility to end discussion with "nosotros are each entitled to our own opinion" offers the wrong incentives to the worst amidst us. If one can be certain that any dispute, if prolonged enough, will reach the point where all we have to go along is what each person thinks, why should the cynical or the selfish or the racist or the abuser bother reasoning with you in the start instance? If they stick to their guns long plenty, then they will accept succeeded at ensuring that their belief counts equivalently to anyone else'due south – the absence of any back up for their and then-chosen opinions notwithstanding.
Information technology is in the context of these concerns that I worry a skillful bargain almost the corrosive doubts virtually expertise so common these days. If there are no experts, then there are no people whose beliefs are particularly authoritative on the difficult factual questions of our twenty-four hour period. Merely if at that place are none whose beliefs are peculiarly authoritative on the difficult factual questions of our day, how are nosotros to reach decisions on matters whose success will depend on what those facts are? Information technology seems that the only fair thing to practice is to do so democratically: let each weigh in with an equal voice. This would exist fine if we could be confident that each of united states arrives at our opinions on the basis of the best reasons and prove at that place is. Only this is far from the case: each of us is profoundly influenced by our family and group affiliations; we have a strong tendency to believe things that are in our own interest, any the testify happens to be; and we are inclined to "confirm" what we already "know," swayed past our deepest convictions despite evidence to the contrary. What is more than, no single ane of us on our own can ever learn very much most our earth; we depend on others – parents, teachers, professionals, and so forth – whether nosotros like information technology or not. In this regard nosotros all ought to be interested in the question of who is worthy of existence believed.
With this, I return to my students' use of the idea that nosotros are each entitled to our ain stance. Fifty-fifty if they are correct in what they say – each of us should exist protected confronting threats and violence when it comes to matters of conventionalities – how much condolement is there in this idea, one time nosotros give up on the prospects for knowledge? My students' mantra should exist seen as the outset of the conversation, not its termination; what remains is the hard piece of work of determining what is worthy of existence believed.
Image: Megaphone by Bruno Buontempo on Flickr CC-Past-NC-SA 2.0
Source: https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/openfordebate/2019/02/11/on-being-entitled-to-ones-opinion/
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