there are rights and then there are rights
Oldsan leaves this comment on this post.
And this is my reply:
And this is my reply:
I was making a cultural point, not a legal one. Libertarians are more precise with the word "right" than is the general population, but in this case I was using the phrase "right to an opinion" in the common cultural sense, not in the stricter sense of rights theory.
The only irony in my post was the stylistic conflation of the two, but if you understand that cultural point, you can take what I say at face value.
Legally and ethically, I define rights negatively, according to this scheme:
blackcrayon.com/library/dictionary/?term=obligations
I am not advocating that anyone use coercion against the ignorant or the irrational.
What I am advocating is a culture of intellectual responsibility. The mature and responsible thing to do with a subject you don't understand is to decline from holding an opinion on it. If you want to have an opinion, then the mature and responsible thing to do is to have an informed opinion, and to recognize that those who disagree with you are behaving appropriately when they ask you to defend your opinion under the scrutiny of both facts and logic.
I am in favor of the legal right to do all sorts of dumb and ugly and irresponsible things, but I'm also in favor of a culture where we don't hesitate to call those things dumb and ugly and irresponsible. Expressing an uninformed opinion is one of those things.
Instead we live in a culture where we are supposed to believe that "one person's opinion is as good as the next" -- a view which is not only absurd but poisonous.
I confess that this point is so obvious to me that I am puzzled when anyone struggles with it.
6 Comments:
Well, now that you've clarified your point, there is little I disagree with.
When one says "I think...blah blah blah" is that a bad form to verbally speculate?
For instance, my wife often asks me what the weather will be like over the weekend, and I hate to say "I think it will be decent/nice/hot/cloudy/etc" because I believe that it devaluates the overall effectiveness of opinion holding, when I offer a conjecture based on incomplete information.
I think, that the phrase "I think" should be used more sparingly and only in the occassion when one is very sure of what they are saying. Otherwise, one should use stick to "I am under the impression", "I imagine such and such", and the almost-weasely "I believe that..." and "I feel that...".
What do you "think"? ;-p
I think iceberg's above comment makes perfect sense. It is my belief that people know quite well when someone is speaking his subjectively held views, and therefore it is unnecessary to begin every statement with a disclaimer that it is in fact one's views one is speaking. I opine that we should avoid it all the time. My view, I think, is that pithiness as well as simple eloquence call on us to avoid extraneous instances of "I think," I do believe. At least, that's what I think. In my humble opinion. I say.
I feel your opinion is as good as the next.
If my opinion was as good as the next, would that mean it was as good as the last?
What if my opinion were that my opinion is not as good as the next?
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