Question It is often said that people have the right to hold whatever beliefs they want, even if they fly in the face of fact. To what extent is this true? There is surely no serious problem with a person believing that tulips are hallucinogenic (the worst case scenario is that they will be disappointed), but there is surely something wrong with a parent believing that large doses of arsenic is an integral part of a healthy child's diet. Is harm really the only factor that matters? Do people have a duty to hold true opinions if they are able to do so? Do people have the right to try and correct the false beliefs of others?

Accepted:
June 25, 2011

Comments

"Private," Hobbes writes in Leviathan, regarding the nature of beliefs, "is in secret free." These words are, I think, absolutely correct, and pertinent in the context of your excellent question, regarding whether agents have a right to hold whatever beliefs they wish, and whether other agents--and maybe even the state--have a right to correct those false beliefs. Hobbes's point is that the state need not concern itself with agents' beliefs, provided that those beliefs are not made publicly manifest; similarly, insofar as agents' beliefs do not interfere with the lives of others, then the state, and indeed, most other agents, have no right to try to change those beliefs. I am inclined to think that this point is broadly correct, since I'm inclined to favor minimal state interference with individuals. There is a question, however, whether agents have an epistemic duty to try to achieve true beliefs. This topic was the subject of an exchange between William James and W. K. Clifford, in which Clifford maintained that agents had an absolute duty to proportion their beliefs to the evidence, and James demurred; the basis for this disagreement was different conceptions of the point of belief. If one thinks that belief aims at the truth, an agent who does not even seek to achieve the truth may not even count as a believer, or at the very least, not a responsible believer; if, however, one holds some alternative conception of the nature and aim of belief, then one might not think that beliefs do indeed need to aim at truth. But what is it to believe something? This question, which has gripped philosophers interested in the theory of knowledge--epistemology--from Plato to the present, and in order satisfactorily to resolve your question, one needs to come to terms with it.