No, you’re not entitled to your opinion
This article by Patrick Stokes, lecturer in philosophy at Deakin University, first appeared on online comment and analysis site The Conversation where it has now been viewed more than a quarter of a million times – the biggest since the site launched
Every year, I try to do at least two things with my students at least once. First, I make a point of addressing them as “philosophers” – a bit cheesy, but hopefully it encourages active learning.
Secondly, I say something like this: “I’m sure you’ve heard the expression ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion.’ Perhaps you’ve 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’s no longer true. You are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to what you can argue for.”
A bit harsh? Perhaps, but philosophy teachers owe it to our students to teach them how to construct and defend an argument – and to recognize when a belief has become indefensible.
innaresting!
fabulous
In my opinion, one of the best articles on Mumbrella in ages.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion…and similarly, everyone is also entitled to see the person with the opinion as a complete, utter nutjob, two cents short of being locked up in a looney bin.
Of course, if the nutjob is persuasive enough to get decent popular support (no matter how crazy the ideas), he/she might enter politics or join Today Tonight…
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
But one isn’t entitled to their own facts.
Investigating the credibility of the facts behind a pundit’s opinion is what marks out good journalism from crap. Harold Scruby used to be a good litmus test which ACA and TT regularly failed.
Meryl Dorey willfully twists and obfuscates scientific fact to present a distorted and invalid view of the dangers of vaccination. WIN Wollongong were complicit, stupid or lazy in not validating the views of an extremely marginal campaigner. I suspect the latter.
For further reading see http://meryldorey.org/ – which I have nothing to do with, but find very amusing.
An interesting read but with a few fallacies, in my unexpert opinion.
I don’t think it is trivial to say “no-one’s entitled to stop my opion being said” – that’s an important right not afforded everybody and people have died defending it.
The solution to any disagreement is surely not censorship, but debate. everyone has the right to air their opinion, and as Bob said everyone else has a right to ignore it.
The real problem is when a third party, i.e. in these instances a mass medium, takes up one person or group’s opinion and broadcasts it, giving it equal weight with more objectively informed opinions – in a way trying to take that evaluation decision out of peoples’ hands by lending it credence it is not really afforded.
Critcise the media for their poor choices by all means, but not the people for exercising their right to a point of view, however misguided.
brilliant article, thanks for publishing it.
The great irony of posting this here is that marketing and advertising essentially operates at the level of Meryl Dorey. And like Dorey, most here will miss the point.
@Bob (comment 4)
or 2GB?
“Criticise the media for their poor choices by all means, but not the people for exercising their right to a point of view, however misguided.”
Yes, people have a right to a point of view held to themselves. Yes, they cannot be criticised for simply holding the view. But if seeking to express that view to the public, then they have to be prepared to argue for it with logic and facts. There is no Right of Free Speech to say just anything and not justify it.
When will someone give us the law-based origins of that Right (17th Century?) which certainly was a right to put a considered and defensible view, not a right to rant and obfuscate. This blur is at the core of the “Preachers” debate in Adelaide’s Rundle Mall right now.
“But if seeking to express that view to the public, then they have to be prepared to argue for it with logic and fact.”
Not quite. Anybody can hold a view – but if seeking to persuade someone else to believe it or agree with it, then they need to be able to convince that other person, ideally via facts and similarly strong justifications.
The triumph of many con artists, bullies and liars however, shows that convincing others is not always a matter of truth and logic, but often of force of personality and unethical means.
But proof does not always consist in an argument either. People can be persuaded of something once they have investigated it, the person holding those views and the credibility and background of the person and the information s/he cites. Etc.
Convincing a person or group etc is seldom just a matter of one argument at one place or one time, assuming of course that the person arguing his/her case is being truthful.
Then of course there is the line of spurious argument, which is only about perusading someone to believe something, and therefore lying is one of the tactics because what is really being pursued is converting the person to one’s cause, not proving the truth of an argument, the investigation of which could prove that the cause is immoral and the argument merely an instrument rataher than a real investigaton into truth, facts and reality.
Phwwoooahhh:
Lecturer in philosophy appearing in mUmbrella, and getting applause too. Nice…
Sorry, I don’t want to seem too flip:
It’s just that media are so hugely influential today and the level of commentary about what’s happening is either so thin as to be invisible, or so slanted as to be crooked, that I long for a bit more serious commentary about what is going on before our very eyes & ears.
Media Watch is welcome, as is Gruen Transfer, and mUmbrella’s at least open, I guess: but gee, why do TV critics, for example, ignore the fact that some 25% of what’s being watched is ads?
Paul, I could be wrong … but I suspect that TV critics are critiqueing the progammes, and are doing so before they are broadcast (i.e. off a DVD or something similar). Duh!