View source for Philosophy:I'm entitled to my opinion

{{short description|Informal fallacy}}
'''I'm entitled to my opinion''' (or '''I have a right to my opinion''') is an [[Informal fallacy|informal fallacy]] in which someone dismisses arguments against their position by claiming that they have a right to hold their own particular viewpoint.<ref>{{cite book | chapter=The Right to Your Opinion | title=Crimes Against Logic | publisher=McGraw-Hill | last=Whyte | first=Jamie |  year=2004 | location=New York | isbn=0-07-144643-5 | pages=1–10 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/00book1207906499 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/columnists/article2047652.ece | title=Sorry, but you are not entitled to your opinion | work=The Times | date=August 9, 2004 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131212222508/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/columnists/article2047652.ece | archive-date=December 12, 2013 | first=Jamie | last=Whyte | author-link=Jamie Whyte | url-status=live}} [http://www.brickboard.com/OPINIONS/index.htm?id=1468712 Alt URL]</ref> The statement exemplifies a [[Philosophy:Red herring|red herring]] or [[Thought-terminating cliché|thought-terminating cliché]]. The fallacy is sometimes presented as "let's agree to disagree".<ref>{{cite news |last=Bestgen |first=Benjamin |date=16 September 2020 |title=The right to my opinion (Free Speech I) |url=https://scottishlegal.com/article/benjamin-bestgen-the-right-to-my-opinion-free-speech-i |newspaper=Scottish Legal News |access-date=5 June 2021}}</ref> Whether one has a particular entitlement or right is irrelevant to whether one's assertion is true or false. Where an objection to a belief is made, the assertion of the right to an opinion side-steps the usual steps of discourse of either asserting a [[Philosophy:Justification (epistemology)|justification]] of that belief, or an argument against the validity of the objection.<ref name=Godden/> Such an assertion, however, can also be an assertion of one's own freedom from, or a refusal to participate in, the rules of argumentation and [[Logic|logic]] at hand.<ref>For example: {{cite book | title=Difference and Repetition | publisher=Columbia University Press | last=Deleuze | first=Gilles | author-link=Gilles Deleuze | chapter=The Image of Thought | year=1994 | orig-year=1968 | pages = 129–167 (130) | location=New York | isbn=0-231-08159-6 | others=Paul Patton (trans.) | chapter-url-access = registration | chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/differencerepeti0000dele/page/129 }}</ref>

Philosopher [[Biography:Patrick Stokes (philosopher)|Patrick Stokes]] has described the expression as problematic because it is often used to defend factually indefensible positions or to imply "an equal right to be heard on a matter in which only one of the two parties has the relevant expertise".<ref>{{cite web|last=Stokes|first=Patrick|title=No, you're not entitled to your opinion|url=https://theconversation.com/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978|website=The Conversation|access-date=7 April 2017|language=en-AU|date=4 October 2012}}</ref> Further elaborating on Stokes' argument, philosopher David Godden argued that the claim that one is entitled to a view gives rise to certain obligations, such as the obligation to provide reasons for the view and to submit those reasons to contestation; Godden called these the principles of {{em|rational entitlement}} and {{em|rational responsibility}}, and he developed a classroom exercise for teaching these principles.<ref name=Godden>{{cite journal |last=Godden |first=David |date=2014 |title=Teaching rational entitlement and responsibility: a Socratic exercise |journal=Informal Logic |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=124–151 |doi=10.22329/il.v34i1.3882 |url=http://informallogic.ca/index.php/informal_logic/article/view/3882 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Philosopher [[Biography:José Ortega y Gasset|José Ortega y Gasset]] wrote in his 1930 book ''The Revolt of the Masses'':
{{Blockquote|text=The Fascist and Syndicalist species were characterized by the first appearance of a type of man who "did not care to give reasons or even to be right", but who was simply resolved to impose his opinions. That was the novelty: the right not to be right, not to be reasonable: "the reason of unreason."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gasset |first=José Ortega y |title=The Revolt of the Masses |publisher=University of Notre Dame Press |year=1985 |isbn=9780268016098 |editor-last=Kerrigan |editor-first=Anthony |pages=62 |orig-date=1930 |editor-last2=Moore |editor-first2=Kenneth}}</ref>}}

== See also ==
* [[Aumann's agreement theorem]]
* {{annotated link|Begging the question}}
* {{annotated link|Philosophy:Ethics of belief}}
* {{section link|Freedom of speech#As a negative right}}
* {{section link|Freedom of speech#Limitations}}
* {{annotated link|Philosophy:Intellectual responsibility}}
* {{slink|Pragma-dialectics#Rules for critical discussion}}
* [[Philosophy:Relativist fallacy|Relativist fallacy]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

{{Fallacies}}

[[Category:Informal fallacies]]



{{Sourceattribution|I'm entitled to my opinion}}