Question If it is assumed that a person is indeed free to have his/her own opinions, views, perspectives, etc., should this right still be respected even if a person's opinions are demonstrably wrong, misleading, or potentially harmful (to themselves and others)?

Accepted:
October 4, 2010

Comments

Great question! Replying to the question will depend on the kind of "right" you have in mind. Consider three areas: politics, education, and the general issue of integrity.

In a pluralistic democracy that respects basic liberties, you may have to tolerate (though to tolerate is not necessarily to respect) demonstrably false beliefs unless there is serious reason to believe that they will lead to actual (not merely potential) harm. So, it seems there is no obstacle for most world democracies today to insure that overt racism is not cultivated by any public institutions and to make it difficult (if not impossible) for private institutions to cultivate racism, especially when this is harming the innocent. But it will not be easy to directly control what people think or believe using political tools (how might a government insure that no citizen ever believes their horoscope?). The government can and most governments do control certification processes involving medicine and health, and so there are some ways in which the government might control dangerous beliefs, but probably the more effective means will have to involve education.

In educational institutions (and all the certification systems that go with them), there will be means to expose demonstrably false opinions, views, perspectives, and to bring to light the harms involved. There seems no ill involved (and indeed much good is involved) when universities weigh in on what practices are deserving of our respect and what practices are not. Educational institutions can be profoundly flawed, but this seems to be a setting in which one may rightly expose demonstrably false, dangerous views.

Apart from politics and education, philosophers disagree about when a person has a right to any given belief. According to a strong form of evidentialism, it is wrong (or bad) to adopt any belief without sufficient evidence. On this view, you would not have a right to a belief even if it turns out (unknown at the time) to be true and if acting on the belief generated great, demonstrable good, if you did not have sufficient evidence to believe it is true. Other philosophers think this is too stringent and hopeless, as we currently lack clear criteria for identifying sufficient evidence.

Question If it is assumed that a person is indeed free to have his/her own opinions, views, perspectives, etc., should this right still be respected even if a person's opinions are demonstrably wrong, misleading, or potentially harmful (to themselves and others)? Accepted:October 4, 2010

Question If it is assumed that a person is indeed free to have his/her own opinions, views, perspectives, etc., should this right still be respected even if a person's opinions are demonstrably wrong, misleading, or potentially harmful (to themselves and others)?

Accepted:
October 4, 2010