One popular superstition that has been thought to be a necessary element of democracy is that everyone is entitled to his own opinion. And it is thought to be one of the shining moments in the struggle for freedom when one famous man is recorded to have said: “I may not agree with you but I shall defend your right to say it.” All of these—freedom of thought and opinion, freedom of speech and of the press (which, today, bloggers claim for themselves) are thought to be self-evident and beyond dispute. But I do not agree, and I shall take the unpopular position of disputing this claim. I find two terms of the proposition particularly troublesome and in need of clarification: “entitled” and “opinion”!
In Bernard Lonergan’s highly commendable account of insight, having an opinion is advancing a proposition despite the fact that some relevant questions remain that do not allow for certainty about it. “Given climate change and all other man-made catastrophes, humankind has only one hundred years more to go.” That is an example of an opinion, because scientists, climatologists, anthropologists and observers of the human condition do have questions that do not allow such a proposition to be ranked as a certainty. It is only when the “conditions” for the truth of a proposition have been fulfilled and no further relevant questions remain that one moves from “I think…I believe” to “I know…I am sure.”
For those in the analytic tradition, every proposition “P” has “entailments” (on the one hand) and “predictions” (on the other). “I am suffering from depression” entails the proposition “I am not interested in things that normally interest me” and makes the prediction “I will not be focused on what I am supposed to be busy with.” When one or the other entailment or prediction fails the test of verification or remains unverified, P is an opinion—and, for that reason, vulnerable, and subject to revision.
So far all that I have advanced do not come from law books. There are no constitutional provisions enunciating them. They are matters of rationality—the way people think and conditions for using the predicate “rational.”
One forms opinions. This much is certain, and that one is entitled to form opinions, there is likewise no doubt. Many of the world’s revolutionary discoveries and inventions started as “gut-feelings,” hints, guesses even—opinions! But to be rational, one holds the opinion conceding that one might be wrong. One grants the possibility that it can be demonstrated that one’s reasons for advancing a proposition are not good, or that the entailments and predictions of what one holds have not and do not come to pass. In other words, rationality demands that whoever advances an opinion does so with the openness to revision.
That is just the trouble when someone pompously asserts “I am entitled to my own opinion” as if he were uttering some sublime truth. The forming of opinion is an inevitable consequence of the fact that human thought is reflective, discursive and that we progress in knowing by the act of predication. But those who make the claim in this fashion apparently also make the claim that their “entitlement” closes them off to revision. The full claim therefore goes: “I am entitled to my own opinion, and therefore it is none of your business to show that I am wrong.” This is irrational, and one who doggedly stands by this position stakes a right to be irrational! Hitler’s irrationality—that infected a considerable number of his party-mates—was that the German race was superior and that the Jews were diluting its superiority. Its consequence was the Holocaust. The terrorists who flew passenger planes into the Twin Towers maintained the intransigent opinion that the West was hopelessly ungodly and perverse, and left a story of horror that will forever be etched not only in American but in human history. And it will not do to say that opinions are fine, no matter how irrational, as long as one keeps them in the realm of thought and does nothing overt. This is unacceptable for two reasons: first, because thought never remains purely thought, especially when one’s opinions have to do with the fundamentals of co-existence; second, because even thought has action—what discourse theorists have called “illocutionary force”. When you say: “I hope all drug addicts die”, you are performing the act of hoping. When you assert the proposition: “All Chinese are enemies of the Filipino people,” you are classing all Chinese as enemies. No, thoughts are not harmless at all—which is the reason that there can be no such thing as a right to irrational thinking.
In fact, even in regard to those matters such as taste and art and music of which the belief has long been accepted that there is no objective criterion, Gadamer is only one among many who have convincingly argued that utter subjectivism cannot be true. Even if a senior high school student who is an addict to rock or metal has absolutely no liking for Chopin or Mozart, that will not make Chopin or Mozart any less “classical”, and if art were completely a matter of subjective taste, art criticism would be a completely thoughtless venture, and Michelangelo, Picasso and Monet would be no better than any side-street artist!
If we all had the right to our opinions—no matter that they are clearly shown us to be false, perverse, specious, unreasonable —that would make all further rational consensus impossible, because rational consensus presupposes the responsibility whereby interlocutors and action participants, treating each others as equals, concede to the better reason and allow themselves to be won over by argument. But one who insists “I am entitled to my own opinion” will insist on his position even in the face of the better argument—and such intransigence makes the settlement of disputes and the engendering of legitimacy from rational consensus impossible, leaving only one door open—strategic action. This cannot be a welcome prospect at all, because it means that he who has the power and the stealth, the might and the guile to prevail shall prevail, no matter that his beliefs might fill us with revulsion!
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@outlook.com
