MY OPINION ISN'T A RIGHT

notes on the Socratic seminar

So the topic of the Socratic Seminar was the article," You don't have the right t your opinion." The gist of the article was that saying, " I have the right to my opinion," doesn't bring any new information or a relevant topic to the argument. Rather it provides sort of a red herring, which in fact is a fallacy.

So we got into the discussion in class, and someone kept saying they have the right to do this, or that, and Preston quickly shot her down and defined what a right is. Basically it's something that you have a social privilege of, meaning that everyone must follow and/or respect it. So a good example of a right is your right to live. You have a social privilege and obligation that mus be kept.( you can't kill anyone and no one can kill you, legally.) So by this definition having the right to your pinion doesn't make any sense. It would mean that everyone has to respect and believe your opinion, and no one can tell you otherwise.

This is demonstrated well with an analogy. Imagine your friend is about to cross a street but doesn't look both ways to see if cars are coming. You, however, do look both ways and see a huge truck speeding towards him. If he has the right to his opinion then you can't tell him that he shouldn't cross the street. This is because if he believes that no cars are coming, and starts to walk across, his opinion is such that he won't get hit. But you know he will. But if he has a right to his opinion then you can't tell him otherwise.

This is sort of like the Allegory of the Cave. I think we just need to be open to new knowledge and ideas, even if they aren't neccasrily our own.