Crimes Against Logic, continued...
D Does your right to your opinion oblige me to let you keep it? ... On matters like whether or not a car is about to crush them, everybody is interested in believing the truth; they will take the correction of their errors as a favor. The same goes for any other topic. If someone is interested in believing the truth, then she will not take the presentation of contrary evidence and argument as some kind of injury.
It's just that, on some topics, many people are not really interested in believing the truth. They might prefer it if their opinion turns out to be true--that would be the icing on the cake--but truth is not too important. Most of my friends, though subscribing to no familiar religion, claim to believe in a 'superior intelligence' or 'something higher than us.' Yet they will also cheerfully admit the absence of even a shred of evidence. Never mind. There is no cost in error, because the claim is so vague that it has no implications for action (unlike the case of the oncoming car). They just like believing it, perhaps because it would be nice if it were true, or because it helps them get along with their religious parents, or for some other reason.
But truth is not really the point, and it is most annoying to be pressed on the matter. And to register this, to make it clear that truth is neither here nor there, they declare, 'I am entitled to my opinion.' Once you hear these words, you should realize that it is simple rudeness to persist with the matter. You may be interested in whether or not their opinion is true, but take the hint, they aren't.
The second quote:
..It becomes clear that many are more interested in displaying their concern and sincerity than in arguing cogently. Indeed, they seem to believe that genuine concern licenses irrationality. 'You can't argue with his sincerity' is the reaction they seek. And in seeking this, they resemble many of their listeners.
The idea that you can't argue with the morally sincere, that caring licenses irrationality, is as pernicious as it is popular. It displays a lack of moral seriousness. If the matter at hand is something you genuinely care about, then you should seek more than ever to believe the truth about it. And rationality is merely that way of thinking that gives your beliefs the greatest chance of being true. To dispense with it on the ground that you care is preposterous. As the moral temperature rises, so should our devotion to the truth and hence to proper reasoning. ...
People will hold an opinion because they want to keep the company of others who share the opinion, or because they think it is the respectable opinion, or because they have publicly expressed the opinion in the past and would be embarrassed by a 'U-turn,' or because the world would suit them better if the opinion were true, or....
Perhaps it is better to get on with your family and friends, to avoid embarrassment, or to comfort yourself with fantasies than to believe the truth. But those who approach matters in this way should give up any pretensions to intellectual seriousness. They are not genuinely interested in reality.
Nor are they genuinely concerned about the welfare of others. For we all live in reality, even if we might wish it otherwise. To know what is in the best interests of those you care about, you need to understand the world in which they live. If heaven does not really exist, for example, then those deprivations the religious recommend as the path to it are not really in their children's best interests. If they are seriously concerned about their children, they should be serious about the existence of heaven. And if this is true for religion, it is even more obviously true for physics, biology, economics, psychology, medicine, and everything else on which people have opinions.
Separating intellectual from moral seriousness is harder than those who are intellectually frivolous may care to admit.
