So, does everyone have a right to their opinion?\u00a0 It depends what you mean by “opinion” and by “right,” I suppose.\u00a0 But, no, everyone does not have a right to every opinion, whether their own or by taking on the opinion of someone else.<\/p>\n
An interesting commentary by Patrick Stokes, Lecturer in Philosophy at Deakin University in Australia.\u00a0 Read the whole thing article: “No, you\u2019re not entitled to your\u00a0opinion<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Quotes from paragraphs:<\/p>\n Secondly, I say something like this: \u201cI\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard the expression \u2018everyone is entitled to their opinion.\u2019 Perhaps you\u2019ve even said it yourself, maybe to head off an argument or bring one to a close. Well, as soon as you walk into this room, it\u2019s no longer true. You are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to what you can argue for.\u201d<\/p>\n A bit harsh? Perhaps, but philosophy teachers owe it to our students to teach them how to construct and defend an argument \u2013 and to recognize when a belief has become indefensible.<\/p>\n The problem with \u201cI\u2019m entitled to my opinion\u201d is that, all too often, it\u2019s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for \u201cI can say or think whatever I like\u201d \u2013 and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful. And this attitude feeds, I suggest, into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse…<\/p>\n Perhaps that\u2019s one reason (no doubt there are others) why enthusiastic amateurs think they\u2019re entitled to disagree with climate scientists and immunologists and have their views \u201crespected.\u201d…<\/p>\n So what does it mean to be \u201centitled\u201d to an opinion?<\/p>\n If \u201cEveryone\u2019s entitled to their opinion\u201d just means no-one has the right to stop people thinking and saying whatever they want, then the statement is true, but fairly trivial.<\/p>\n But if \u2018entitled to an opinion\u2019 means \u2018entitled to have your views treated as serious candidates for the truth\u2019 then it\u2019s pretty clearly false. And this too is a distinction that tends to get blurred.<\/p>\n ….or to borrow a phrase from Andrew Brown, it \u201cconfuses losing an argument with losing the right to argue<\/a>.\u201d Again, two senses of \u201centitlement\u201d to an opinion are being conflated here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, does everyone have a right to their opinion?\u00a0 It depends what you mean by “opinion” and by “right,” I suppose.\u00a0 But, no, everyone does not have a right to every opinion, whether their own or by taking on the … Continue reading