"We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion," John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still." While I don’t always agree with Mill, I think on this point he is correct. And being a man who attempts to avoid doing evil, I try not to stifle opinions -- especially my own. I avoid this evil even when I may certainly be wrong on matters of which I am certain.
Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear that I have a high opinion of my own opinion. My friends, family, and co-workers will also nod in agreement, adding that my confidence in the correctness of my opinions borders on the obnoxious. It is certainly true that I am quite opinionated. Like Ivan Turgenev, "I share no man’s opinions; I have my own."
While I’ll admit that this may be a potential character defect, I don’t believe, as many might suspect, that it is evidence of vainglorious pride. I may embrace and defend my opinions with firmness; but it is a humble form of certitude. While rigidness of opinion could signal a lack of humility, wishy-washiness could be an even greater sign of haughtiness. Excess pride may cause a person to hem and hedge and qualify their claims so that thy may not have to admit being wrong. Have enough strong opinions, though, and you will eventually be served a five-course feast of crow. Personally, I have no fear of being wrong and humbly accept the fact that I will often have to admit that I am in error (I do, however, fear being uninteresting, which I probably am more often than not).
At this point it might be necessary to clarify that I make a distinction between knowledge and opinion. I subscribe to the standard definition of knowledge as justified true belief (JTB). As Bret Watson explains, JTB consists of:
First, belief: you do not know something unless you also hold it as true in your mind; if you do not believe it, then you do not know it. Second, truth: there can be no knowledge of false propositions; belief in a falsehood is delusion or misapprehension, not knowledge. Third, justification: the belief must be appropriately supported; there must be sufficient evidence for the belief.
Opinion, in my view, differs from knowledge in that in that it is a true belief that either cannot or has not been adequately justified (and is also not, like knowledge of God, a properly basic belief). The support for the opinion is based on subjective probability (i.e., dependent on the person making the assessment) rather than objective probability (e.g., a probability, like the outcome of a die roll, that everyone agrees on).
Not all subjective probabilities, of course, are equally probable. If you possess relevant information that I do not have, then your opinion may be more likely to be true than mine. (It could also be the case that you possess actual knowledge - a justified true belief - while I only have an opinion - a subjectively probabilistic true belief.) What if neither of us, though, harbors relevant information? How do we judge between two opinions when each are based on a subjective probability? And how do we know how much confidence we should have in our opinions?
The Italian statistician Bruno De Finetti offered one method to help determine the true subjective probability of an event that is useful for this task. The De Finetti Game is a method to gauge someone’s confidence in the chances of a given event occurring by measuring it against a lottery with a known probability.
Say for example a friend claims he is 95% sure he aced a test. Is he really that confident? Offer him a hypothetical choice. He can either get the result of the test, and if he aced it, he wins one million dollars, or he can pick a ball out of bag. There are 90 red balls and 10 blue in the bag, and if he picks a red ball then he wins the million. Now if he doesn’t choose his test score then he is at most 90% confident.
Now tell him that there are now 70 red balls in the bag and 30 black ones. If he answers that he would rather wait on the results of the test rather than draw, then he is between 70-90% sure of the outcome. You can keep adjusting the ratio of red to blue balls until he chooses the test score to find out how confident he really is. The final outcome is the person’s true subjective probability.
The true subjective probability behind all of my opinions ranges from 51% to 99%. (If it fell below 51% I would have no reason to maintain that opinion rather than accept its alternative.) Unless I can muster enough warrant to move an opinion into the knowledge category, I have to acknowledge that there is a statistical likelihood -- whether trivial or significant -- that I could be wrong. No matter how confident I may appear in expressing my opinion, I am almost always aware that I could be in error. This is what I refer to as "humble certitude." I believe this is the proper attitude to maintain about opinions and that if provides a sufficient hedge against false pride.
Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
1
Joe
Thought-provoking and valuable as usual.
I note and highlight a key qualification to your comments that should have been pretty near the top of your remarks:
Opinion, in my view, differs from knowledge in that in that it is a true belief that either cannot or has not been adequately justified (and is also not, like knowledge of God, a properly basic belief).
Proper basicality of course gets back to the issue that we all have start-points for our analysis that are basic, plausible and yet unprovable -- the alternatives are circularity or infinite regress. But as Plantinga famously discusses, such a basic belief is rational as opposed to certain beyond correction or defeat. (I still recall my shock on discovering Godel's work on the defeasibility of mathematics at its root.)
That further means that all of us have basic metaphysical commitments that shape our worldviews, so the point is that we must all do metaphysics, the question being: how well. [Thus, too, my insistence on the too often ducked issue of comparative difficulties on factual adequacy, logical coherence and explanatory power. But this is the way to avoid circularity in a world of finite and fallible thinkers. Openness to revelation from God, who knows whatever is knowable also helps!]
I must also point out that the JTB framework has been modified in light of Gettier counter-examples: justification is objective not subjective. Hence, Plantinga's work on WARRANT. (Which comes in degrees. IN my own thinking, the concept that may of our knowledge claims are defeatable, i.e. provisional, has proved highly bebeficial. Indeed, those who have followed my comments will see how often I have adverted to Josiah Royce's point that "error exists" is undeniably true as a basis for what Trueblood, the famous Quaker Philosopher of the mid C20, called soft objectivity.)
I trust that your usual interlocuters will appreciate the value and subtlety of the point you are making.
Grace to all
Gordon
posted on 07.18.2005 4:42 AM2
All:
On a personal note:
10th anniversary eruption
Today is the 10th Anniversary of the Montserrat volcano eruption.
Duly, the volcano has kept up its reputation for acting on key days. Just now, Dr Sue Loughlin came on air to discuss an explosive eruption at about 6 am this morning!
What are the odds on this one!
My favourite ones to date are: 1st major eruption, a 40,000 ft sub plinian blast, on the 7th anniversary of the Hugo hurricane. On the day of my father in law's official funeral, a volcano salute to the passing of a hero: 11 balasts during the funeral. (He also managed to die on Montserrat's National day, March 17, the anniversary of an abortive 1768 slave uprising.)
Now, on 10th anniversary of the 1995 first eruptions, and as scientists gather from around the world for a conference, an anniversary eruption. I had a feeling Mr Lang was not going to disappoint them, making his own presentation . . .
Of course, some are saying that such an uncanny pattern may be meaningful . . .
You can't make up this stuff!
Gordon
posted on 07.18.2005 6:33 AM3
"At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view." G.K. Chesterton
It's a rude awakening to find that someone has written about the subject you had chosen for yourself that morning...and probably done it better.
4
Joe,
"We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion," John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still." While I don’t always agree with Mill, I think on this point he is correct. And being a man who attempts to avoid doing evil, I try not to stifle opinions -- especially my own. I avoid this evil even when I may certainly be wrong on matters of which I am certain.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you for believing in and endorsing freedom of thought and speech.
... wishy-washiness could be an even greater sign of haughtiness. Excess pride may cause a person to hem and hedge and qualify their claims so that thy may not have to admit being wrong. Have enough strong opinions, though, and you will eventually be served a five-course feast of crow.
Very good point.
How do we judge between two opinions when each are based on a subjective probability? And how do we know how much confidence we should have in our opinions?
The Italian statistician Bruno De Finetti offered one method to help determine the true subjective probability of an event that is useful for this task. The De Finetti Game is a method to gauge someone’s confidence in the chances of a given event occurring by measuring it against a lottery with a known probability.
I like your discussion of subjective probabities and the De Finetti Game. It's a very good way of looking at opinions and beliefs.
At this point it might be necessary to clarify that I make a distinction between knowledge and opinion.
[...]
Opinion, in my view, differs from knowledge in that in that it is a true belief that either cannot or has not been adequately justified (and is also not, like knowledge of God, a properly basic belief). The support for the opinion is based on subjective probability (i.e., dependent on the person making the assessment) rather than objective probability (e.g., a probability, like the outcome of a die roll, that everyone agrees on).
"Properly basic belief": this is an interesting concept for you to bring up in today's essay.
Although you only mention it casually in a side remark, properly basic belief (PBB) is a concept which differs materially in an epistemological sense from "opinion" and "knowledge", so it merits a few comments of its own. (Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that discusses the nature of knowledge and how the mind actually knows things to be true or false.) Also, the idea of PBB is important because PBB's serve as a foundation for all our other beliefs.
Opinions and knowledge, by your definition, which is a quite reasonable and serviceable definition from an epistemological perspective, must be true beliefs.
For example, if a young child in nursery school heard that "2 + 3 = 5", and memorized it, and believed it, it would not be knowledge, simply because it is false. Likewise, if it is my opinion that it is raining outside, but it is not actually raining, then my opinion is not an opinion (you could label it something else: a "misapprehension" for example).
As for PBB's (properly basic beliefs), they are a different species of epistemological beast. PBB's include all the raw material that serves as a foundation for other derivative beliefs, such as opinions and knowledge. They include basic propositions, such as "God exists", "God doesn't exist", "2+2 = 4", and so on. And they also include a variety of propositions we perceive directly from our experience and memory (the following examples are quoted from your post on PBB's):
Other examples of [properly] basic beliefs would be “perceptual beliefs” (I see a dog.), “memory beliefs” (I took out the garbage yesterday.), and beliefs about someone else's mental states (My wife is mad because I’m spending too much time on my blog.).
The key point to remember about PBB's is that they may be false. For example, you have the PBB that God exists and I have the PBB that God does not exist, and logically one of the two must be incorrect.
This is an important point because when we talk about "opinions", "knowledge", "properly basic beliefs", and other beliefs from a philosophical perspective, it's easy to get confused. Terms in philosophy have definitions that are different from the same terms in common usage, and it can be hard to keep track of which terms refers to beliefs that have to be true by definition, and which terms don't.
Consider, for example, the following bit of your post today:
Opinion, in my view, differs from knowledge in that in that it is a true belief that either cannot or has not been adequately justified (and is also not, like knowledge of God, a properly basic belief).
Some of your readers may have mistakenly assumed that "knowledge of God" must be a true proposition by virtue of its status as a PBB, but that is not the case.
Of course, if "knowledge of God" refers to a false proposition, then it is not "knowledge" in the epistemological sense (at least, not by the definition you are using), but it could still be a PBB.
Thanks again, Joe, for your thoughts on "Humble Certitude". As Gordon and Blestwithsons point out, you have again posted a valuable and thought-provoking essay.
5
Oops, I made a mistake:
For example, if a young child in nursery school heard that "2 + 3 = 5", and memorized it, and believed it, it would not be knowledge, simply because it is false.
That should have been:
For example, if a young child in nursery school heard that "2 + 3 = 4", and memorized it, and believed it, it would not be knowledge, simply because it is false.
Sorry!
posted on 07.18.2005 10:41 AM7
blest,
As written, the quotation from Chesterson makes no sense. He should have said at the end not "Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view" but rather "Of course he must believe his view to be the right one, or it is not his view". It is of course entirely possible for one to believe a thing and it be false. Thus the mere fact that something is false is no reason to suspect that I do not believe it.
posted on 07.19.2005 7:42 AM