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No, you’re not entitled to your opinion
Last edited Tue Oct 9, 2012, 07:01 PM - Edit history (1)
http://theconversation.edu.au/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978"...
Secondly, I say something like this: Im sure youve heard the expression everyone is entitled to their opinion. Perhaps youve 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, its 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.
The problem with Im entitled to my opinion is that, all too often, its used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for I can say or think whatever I like 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.
...
You cant really argue about the first kind of opinion. Id be silly to insist that youre wrong to think strawberry ice cream is better than chocolate. The problem is that sometimes we implicitly seem to take opinions of the second and even the third sort to be unarguable in the way questions of taste are. Perhaps thats one reason (no doubt there are others) why enthusiastic amateurs think theyre entitled to disagree with climate scientists and immunologists and have their views respected.
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A thought provoking read, in my, er, uh, yeah, opinion.
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No, you’re not entitled to your opinion (Original Post)
HuckleB
Oct 2012
OP
Enrique
(27,461 posts)1. interesting
a bit repetitive maybe.
Thanks! Corrected.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)2. Great Opinion ...
er ... Argument.
But that said, the OP has just pointed out what is killing this country ... this equal time for POVs.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)4. Considerations too often overlooked, yes.
As the saying says, "opinions are like ... livers, everybody has one."
That's not how I heard the saying.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)7. Just trying to fit in here in the new DU.
Tien1985
(920 posts)6. GREAT classroom discussion!
This, coupled with why free speech does not extent to nastiness and hate speech should really be a staple in high schools across the nation.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)8. The postmodernist mentality poisons everything.
An open and democratic civil society is impossible if that society does not believe in Objective Truth.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)9. Indeed. Indeed. Indeed.