Opinions and Arguments

For the relatively brief time that I was a student teacher and a teaching assistant, I began to recognize a recurring theme in discussions. It's possible that this theme came up more often because these classes were generally philosophy classes, but I also notice this trend in just discussing stuff with people in non-academic-only life.

The recurring theme is this: People have opinions. They 'have a right' to these opinions. You can discuss varying opinions with people, but at some point, because they have a right to the opinions, and you to yours, you have to either agree with them or 'agree to disagree'.

I think this view of things stems from good intentions. Among these intentions is this: To allow people to put forth opinions that may be unpopoular, or counterintuitive, or simply things we don't like. This allowance is closely linked, probably, to our surface feelings about the first amendment--as long as you're not yelling fire in a crowded moviehouse, you have a right to say what your opinion is, even if it is unpopular. Perhaps even especially if it's unpopular. Even if it is completely wrong. I want people to be able to put forward their opinions, even and espeically if I disagree with them prima facie, because I tend to think that figuring things out almost always requires other people's brains, as well as my own. There are matters of perspective, and blind spots, and all sorts of reasons why, in general, more opinions=good. The thing is that this generalization doesn't hold universally, for all opinions at all times. Some opinions are better than others, for various reasons that I hope to begin to explore.

So, this comes up in classes a lot, especially in critical thinking classes when you get people to start talking/debating/arguing issues that they feel strongly about. Discussing abortion rights in a class that isn't all pro-choice is sort of a 'classic' example--eventually the discussion hits a wall of sorts, and one side (or both) will say, "Well, that's your opinion. I have a different opinion." The thing is, while this statement is true on the face of it, the implication is often that 'this is where discussion must end'.

But It's Opinions All the Way Down
But of course, anything one says (if it's a declarative of some sort, at least) is an opinion. But that fact in itself doesn't mean that every opinion counts, or that every opinion carries as much weight as every other opinion. Absurd examples illustrate this pretty clearly--if somebody came up to you and told you that they were actually really you and you were, unfortunately, some sort of weird doppleganger, likely you would hold that, while this is their opinion, that they are wrong. Or perhaps an even more absurd example: Somebody comes up to you and tells you that they are invisible (when you can clearly see them). It's their opinion and they are welcome to it, but presumably these opinions, while not valueless (if you had all the time in the world and the inclination, you might actually persue their views to find out if they have any merit), probably aren't worth persuing.

Now some types of opinions are sort of self-justifiable, or at least seem so on the surface of things--opinions which relate to things that only the person uttering them has any real access to the justifications for. If I say "I hate onions," that is not only my opinion (if I'm telling the truth), but also, there are few ways that anybody could argue with me on that point. Somebody could conceivably point out that, well, I eat onions every day. In fact, I'm eating one right now. And every time they've seen me, they've seen me eating an onion. So when I say that "I hate onions," there seems to be a disconnect between what I'm saying and what I do. But aside from a case where there is obviously some sort of conflict between what I'm saying and what I'm doing, there are no other real bases from which somebody might argue with me about my opinion about what I like. In cases of what I like, I am pretty much the sole arbiter of truth.

Opinion and Truth Come Connected to Lotsa Stuff
But in most cases of opinion, no individual is the sole arbiter of truth. Who/what is the arbiter of truth may be a complex question, but all that I want to consider right now is the person who says, "Well, that's your opinion" as a way of blocking the road to further inquiry. That something is an opinion alone doesn't mean that it can't be contested...if that were the case, then almost no discussions would be worth the trouble.

Opinions are connected up with the rest of the world, and as such, one can endorse or question them to the degree that one thinks there is evidence that they are connected up in the world correctly. (There are more technical ways of describing this--the correspondence theory of truth, for instance--but I am trying to talk here in more sort of everyday language, attempting to get to the heart of how we think about opinions.) In short, my opinions can be wrong or right. Which is not to say that claiming that they are wrong or right doesn't have some possible/probably complications--if, for instance, you take Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions seriously in any way, then getting to truth may be more complex than some people want it to be. But that things can get messy isn't to say that we can't get to right and wrong at all, or that opinions are somehow sacred just because they are opinions or the like. Sure, I believe what I believe, and you believe what you believe--but just because I believe it, or just because you believe it, doesn't mean that one of us (or both of us!) can't be wrong.

Our opinions do often have serious effects on the world--they certainly shape what we do in the world; but even espousing our opinion can have quite an effect on the world. Even acting on our opinions without explicitly stating them can have great effects--people watch what we do, and their actions may change according to what we do.

My main point is this: That sometimes when people say, "But that's just your opinion!" they are wanting you to give them more evidence for why you think what you say is true. Sometimes, however, they are using that to draw a line about what may be talked about, demarcating a space where all opinion is holy, and unassailable, and always true 'for you'. I don't really think that such a space exists.

Of course, things get very much more complex very quickly regarding this stuff. While I believe that some opinions should carry more weight than others, when discussing why I think this, it gets messy fast. Usually I think about context and evidence, but these two concepts are messy themselves. In the context of, say, an argument with a loved one about the relationship, it may be the case that how people are feeling is more important than the facts of how they came to feel that way. If I believe I'm sad because I'm not getting enough lovin', even if it would be clear to an outside observer that I'm getting LOTS of lovin', that fact doesn't matter as much (possibly) as how I'm feeling. Evidence is even more complex--because lots of different people have lots of different sorts of things they will count as evidence, and things they won't. Still, even if we have to discuss context and evidence in the midst of another sort of discussion, I think this is a valuable sort of thing to talk about--and infinitely more valuable (to me!) than cutting things short and saying "Well, that's just your opinion."


Filed under:General and Philosophy