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Right to be Wrong

Entry 1701, on 2015-02-09 at 22:03:16 (Rating 4, Comments)

Do people have the right to be wrong? Do they have the right to anything? Do rights even exist? I guess it all comes back to definitions again, as is often the case. Some people will equate rights back to objective morality and therefore claim the requirement for a "moral source" (which is usually whatever their personal interpretation of god might be) but I tend to be a little bit more flexible and rational about it.

A right is an entitlement granted by society which a person (or other conscious entity) has which any reasonable person would consider to be essential to being able to live a full and productive life (here I use the word "productive" in the general sense, not just meaning economic productivity).

Clearly there is room for disagreement on what rights of this type should be but that is the case whatever your source. If you want to believe rights are bestowed by a god then there are problems in choosing the correct god and in interpreting that god's true meaning. We see this all the time, and I would say that is because gods don't really exist and people are trying to interpret something created by humans with no deeper meaning.

I often get involved in discussions where my opponent is supporting something which any reasonable person would see is wrong. For example, I have pointed out that some people argue based on an urban myth which has been revealed to be untrue, or a scientific study which has been discredited, or an alternative therapy which has been shown not to work. But they often say "well even if it isn't true it's still interesting or meaningful or has a deeper truth". Yeah, right.

Another thing I hear is that they demand the right to be wrong and resent people like me pointing the problems with their beliefs. Or sometimes they say that their truth is a different type of truth than mine. Yeah, it's the sort of truth which isn't actually true, apparently!

So these people are wrong and some of them are idiots but it's a free world (well, maybe) so don't they have the right to be wrong? Before I answer let's look at example...

There is a case in New Zealand at the moment where a father is refusing to treat his son for HIV because he doesn't believe the diagnosis, doesn't believe that HIV causes AIDS, and thinks it the treatment which makes people sick rather than the disease itself. His basis for these beliefs is material he read on the internet which he prefers to believe in preference to the health professionals working on the case.

The District Health Board involved has taken legal action to gain the ability to treat the boy directly instead of relying on the father who has either not given him the medication at all or who has given it intermittently (which is even worse).

So it seems that on the balance of evidence this person is wrong because he's going against the advice of experts and seems to have sourced information from a crazy AIDS-denial web site. Does he have the right to be wrong?

No. No one has the right to believe and act on something that they should know is wrong. Deliberately ignoring experts and the vast weight of credible opinion and believing a nonsensical fringe group for some obscure reason is not a right anyone should have. And when that irrational belief harms and potentially causes the death of another person then it is even less a right.

And yes, the same applies to irrational religious and political beliefs. No one has the right to believe the world is 6000 years old. No one has the right to believe climate change is a left-wing conspiracy. No one has those rights because no one has the right to act like a moron when they (in most cases) aren't actually that stupid.

I welcome new ideas and different perspectives and everyone does have the right to present new thoughts for our consideration. But there does come a point where continuing to support an idea which is obviously wrong is no longer a good thing. That's when people should exercise their right to change their mind or their even more valuable right to shut the hell up!

Comment 21 (4335) by OJB on 2015-03-14 at 00:04:55: (view earlier comments)

The Bible was used to both support and oppose slavery in America. Neither of those interpretations was "right" or "wrong" and both sides thought they had the correct interpretation. This "full and complete interpretation" is not that at all, it is simply one possible interpretation which happens to match what the person doing the interpretation wanted to believe, and is not necessarily any more or less accurate than any other.

So yet again the morality of various interpretations of Bible texts are compared against another standard - that being the currently preferred values of the society at that time and place. There are no absolutes because any religious work which claimed that would need to be tested before it could be accepted as absolute and because it was tested it is no longer absolute. This is related to Plato's point, of course.

Comment 22 (4336) by OJB on 2015-03-14 at 13:47:26:

A question for you. How would you interpret this...

And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money. (Exodus 21:20-21)

Comment 23 (4337) by OJB on 2015-03-14 at 14:24:15:

Also, I didn't really address you main point which seems to be that any source (not just a religious text) of moral guidance can be mis-interpreted to suit the individual. You will be surprised to hear that I don't really agree with you! :)

For a start, an absolute source of revealed wisdom (allegedly) from a divine source can more easily be mis-used than a source which has a clearly human origin. I don't see many people using the teaching of a philosopher like John Stuart Mill (a significant contributor to Utilitarianism) to justify murder, war, or other atrocities. But I do see religious texts being used this way all the time.

Also, because religious texts are supposedly the ultimate wisdom of a god followers are not encouraged to question the ideas presented. In philosophy and science debate and skepticism are integral parts of the system.

And religious texts come from a variety of authors, not of whom are gods, so the various parts of the texts are contradictory and confusing.

Finally, generally I don't see people who follow a moral system such as Utilitarianism doing that because a particular book says so. In my case for example I find it to be a useful philosophy but not one I am wholly committed to.

In general the problem is this: when you are religious you generally stop being skeptical of what you are told because if you did question it you would quickly arrive at the point of leaving the religion (because they are all so blatantly false). The rest of us don't hold any idea as being above criticism because we have a intellectual rather than an emotional attachment.

Comment 24 (4338) by 9942507 on 2015-03-15 at 10:07:05:

The important point is not whether both sides thought they had the right interpretation, it is whether there can be a right interpretation at all.Your opinion is that "neither of those interpretations was right or wrong". Yes - a precise description of subjective morality, which means you are OK with Slavery, should the decision have gone the other way. Got it. Thanks. But we already knew that.

Regarding John Stewart Mill, and other texts: You are confusing what does happen under our 'reality' with what would happen under the alternate reality we were imagining where no 'religious texts' exist. You really think that individuals won't then use whatever source of moral law documentation exists to justify whatever they want to do if it happens to be against that view? There is no sound reason to think that (imo). Simple as that.

Hmm - you don't follow it because a book says so? The delivery media of the moral system isn't really the significant point is it.

The final bit is a little insulting, and you have made this claim before, that I have some form of 'emotional' attachment to my world view. We have discussed this before. I am open to skepticism about all world views, and have arrived pretty emotionless at the one which best fits reality - whether I 'like it' or not. There are things I do NOT like about my world view - but this is the problem with discussions like this which tend to focus on the things we don't happen to like about various world views. Whether we 'like' them has nothing to do with changing whether they are a true match of reality or not. You are indeed correct that this goes in both directions - unfortunately some do choose a world view because they like it - a bad reason to do so. But also some to choose to reject a world view because they do not like it - also equally bad.

BTW - I will answer the Exodus question for you - will take a bit longer to give a complete response, which I can't do off the top of my head, since it won't be just cherry picking a single verse, which I agree by itself does cause confusion. Cheers.

Comment 25 (4339) by OJB on 2015-03-15 at 14:45:34:

There can be right or wrong interpretations of any text if the origin of that text is taken into consideration. If we consider a particular part of the Bible as being the opinion of a particular anonymous writer with no greater credibility than any other and with no consistency with the rest of the text then we can say, yes that is a correct explanation of what he was trying to say. If we try to give it a deeper meaning (as if it really did come from a god) then we will fail.

I don't believe that any philosopher's work would be taken as literally and uncritically as something that allegedly came from a god. Why would it? Sure, there may be a few people who take the opinions of humans far too seriously but it is unlikely to happen to the same extent as something which is supposedly of divine origin.

Yes, I know it sounds insulting and condescending but it is what I genuinely believe. I cannot see how an intelligent person like you can believe something so obviously absurd unless the idea has an emotional rather than intellectual origin. The fact that even really smart people sound ridiculous when they start talking about their religion supports this view.

Re the verses form Exodus: you have said in the past that the Bible is easy to interpret and clear so I am a bit surprised you need time to prepare a defence of that particular material!

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