[Note: This is post #9 in the Blogiversary II series.]
"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.
If it fell below 51% I would have no reason to maintain that opinion rather than accept its alternative.
That's assuming there's only two alternatives. For example, being 49% confident that George Bush is the best person to vote for for president is enough to hold a pro-Bush opinion if you're 45% confident that Kerry is the best and 6% confident that Nader is.
Sweetheart, you should NOT have "confidence in your opinions," because you are a believer in a bogus "religion" that is actually a political control mechanism invented in the desertifying portions of North Africa and central Asia 6000 years ago. Christians are first cousins to Moslems and Hindus, having originated from the same root stock. You are all warrior-god desert "religions" (read: political control systems). And that's exactly what you fundmentalists spend all your time doing today: trying to control, control, control. You're belying your true nature: you are nothing but a control system. Control and ruin women. Control and ruin nature. Control and ruin the planet. Control and ruin history. Please, I beg of you, GIVE IT UP! GET REAL! Get healthy!!! You can do it!
Gee, I hope that Athana becomes a regular commentor. She's 100% sure of her/his/its opinions, so it's gotta be truth.
This discussion brings me to think of mathematical odds. We have all kinds of formulas, but in reality there are only two that are ever correct; 0% and 100%.
'Humble certitude' has a good meaning. It provides a basis upon which to 'do' and keeps space for repentance and change.
>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.
Actually, you're wrong on that - it *is* vainglorious pride - trust me.
> While I don’t always agree with Mill ...
You should.
All:
Kindly note a comment by Steve:
'Humble certitude' has a good meaning. It provides a basis upon which to 'do' and keeps space for repentance and change.
He is right.
We live in a world full of forced momentous choices among live options at he core worldviews levle, as William James said so long ago. In such a world, we have to act on choices that are possibly wrong; but be open to the point where we may have to change our minds.
Of course -- and Joe has recycled a post on that too -- there is the issue that for some things, we have to factor in regret: it is better to err in safer directions than in unsafe ones. That brings up Pascal's Wager.
As for the notion that there is "no evidence" for believing in God, or the assertion that the JudaeoChristian tradition is:
This, sadly, says more about the historical and theological/philosophical ignorance and rage of the poster than it does about the state of the case on evidence, fact and logic; maybe you need to start by actually reading say Matt 5 - 7 and see if that fits the description of the sort of god you imagine. A look at Ac 17 would help too, to see how the Christian faith has responsibly interacted with Western thought over the past 2000 years, indeed drawing upon its insights at key points, while critiquing the main gaps in its foundation.
[Have a look at what Justin Martyr had to say, and pause over Aquinas's great works. Glance at the great mathematician-physicist-mystic Blaise Pascal's Pensees. Then come on down to say Plantinga's recent works on epistemology and inter alia on the problem of evil. C S Lewis's major works and essays have a lot to say too. Maybe you should begin by getting a copy of Mere Christianity and simply reading it, as did former Nixon White House Hatchet-man Chuck Colson. Indeed, a read thought some of Colson's writings may help give you a lot of perspective, maybe starting with his latest edition of The Body.]
This is important; especially in an age where we just went through a century in which it is secularist systems that have been the leading exemplars of totalitarianism; and in a context where a balanced look at the history of liberation from the ages long tyranny was in a very large measure due to Christian people who took their Bibles seriously and stood up for freedom of conscience and thence political and economic freedom.
If you doubt me on that, look up the history of Duplesis Mornay's Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos, from 1579 on and its echoes in say the Dutch Declaration of 1581 down to the US DOI, Articles of Confederation and Constitution, with stops in Rutherford's Lex Rex and Locke's 2nd Essay on Gov't -- which borrowed heavily from Anglican church polity -- along the way, not to mention Blackstone's Commentaries. Abraham Kuyper's 1898 L P Stone lectures [available online, use a search tool] would help round off: this is the last of the great Calvinist statesmen, a man of whom it was said that the history of the Netherlands for 40 years was largely his biography.
{BTW, I speak here as the descendant of slaves who were in significant part liberated and empowered through people who took the Bible seriously; people who were the forebears of today's evangelicals, I might add: the dissenters. A reading of Jamaica's history from C17 - 19 will bring that out.)
In short, I am pleading for moving away from rage-filled propaganda and simplistic, ignorance-driven dismissals to a serious engagement of the facts in balance.
Okay, trust that helps.
Gordon