Some Thoughts on an Annoying Conversation-Stopper

I cannot speak of other "cultures" because I simply am not familiar with them. But anyone who is even marginally familiar with American "culture" knows that one of the commonest phrases in discussions of ethical or political matters is "everyone has a right to their own opinion" or some variant of that. Because the meaning of the word "right" in this context is rarely reflected on, few who use or hear this phrase will wonder whether everyone has a right to their own opinion as to whether everyone indeed has a right to their own opinion about X (whatever is the topic in question). Surely this must be settled before we can agree with the original phrase?

I suppose the most sensible way of dealing with the phrase is to admit that everyone has a right to their own opinion about X, and then to ask, "Okay, now whose opinion about X is correct?" After all, one surely has a right to accept incorrect opinions? And surely the right isn't violated by questioning or even by refuting the opinions? Very few are prepared to deny that everyone has a right to their own opinion; so one might wonder why anyone bothers to make the point and what is its relevance to the matter under discussion. Surely the more interesting and relevant question - in fact, presumably, the main question in almost any discussion about ethics or politics - is which opinion being discussed is correct. The "everyone has a right to their opinion" phrase can, at most, be only a diversion.

I suspect that the usual purpose of the phrase is to avoid altogether discussions about which opinions are correct. Most people who use the phrase, I think, have decided that such discussions are generally or always bothersome and/or unproductive. This is fine. But the phrase, in my experience, is insidious: It tends, for some reason, to encourage people to accept – with little reflection and with less investigation – either the view that (somehow) anyone's and everyone's opinion is correct or the view that it is impossible to arrive at a correct opinion about X (either because there is no such thing or because of our inevitable limitations). At least some of the reason for this must lie in the fact that the phrase is intended to be a conversation-stopper. Very typically, I think, "ethical" conversations do not last long, especially when there is a serious disagreement and when this conversation-stopper is in the offing. When they are thus ended with no resolution, it can encourage the view that there was no resolution because everyone has a right to their own opinion. This in turn can lead to silly views about ethical "truth" simply because resolutions in ethics are not to be pursued in polite society, especially after one hears that "everyone has a right to their own opinion".

My guess is that much of the force behind the phrase comes from its conscious or unconscious association with the First Amendment, sacred writ for well-indoctrinated Americans. Another guess is that the authors of the Bill of Rights would not be happy with how this Amendment is thus construed; their express intention was to delimit Congressional power, not to stop intelligent conversation or the discovery of truths.

I am familiar with another phrase which is sometimes supposed to be an antidote to the "everyone has a right to their own opinion" phrase. It is: "No one has a right to their own facts." I suspect that this by itself does little to re-engage people in ethical conversations, simply because most are already convinced that no one has or can have the "facts" about ethics (because they are supposed not to exist or because we supposedly can't arrive at them anyway). Also, the proposed antidote probably does more to confuse the matter, as it suggests (though fairly clearly ironically) that there are facts all our "own", even though we may have no right to them.

There is some reason to think Socrates was tried and executed for examining critically and refuting ethical opinions which he found to be incoherent, mistaken, or groundless, and for causing young people to do the same (Plato's Apology of Socrates 21d-e, 23a, 23c-24a). Though modern American society might not execute a Socrates of that sort, they would likely find him or her to be intolerable (see, e.g., here).