LINK You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to | Aeon Ideas
Beliefs are factive: to believe is to take to be true. It would be absurd, as the analytic philosopher G E Moore observed in the 1940s, to say: ‘It is raining, but I don’t believe that it is raining.’ Beliefs aspire to truth – but they do not entail it. Beliefs can be false, unwarranted by evidence or reasoned consideration. They can also be morally repugnant. Among likely candidates: beliefs that are sexist, racist or homophobic; the belief that proper upbringing of a child requires ‘breaking the will’ and severe corporal punishment; the belief that the elderly should routinely be euthanised; the belief that ‘ethnic cleansing’ is a political solution, and so on. If we find these morally wrong, we condemn not only the potential acts that spring from such beliefs, but the content of the belief itself, the act of believing it, and thus the believer.
Such judgments can imply that believing is a voluntary act. But beliefs are often more like states of mind or attitudes than decisive actions. Some beliefs, such as personal values, are not deliberately chosen; they are ‘inherited’ from parents and ‘acquired’ from peers, acquired inadvertently, inculcated by institutions and authorities, or assumed from hearsay. For this reason, I think, it is not always the coming-to-hold-this-belief that is problematic; it is rather the sustaining of such beliefs, the refusal to disbelieve or discard them that can be voluntary and ethically wrong.
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15 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.So we should make it illegal for people to hold reprehensible beliefs? Sounds a bit like 1984 to me. Of course, we're way past 1984 !
fishline79
Level 7
June 18, 2018
1
Lalo:
The point is that believing things in the absence of sound evidence is ethically indefensible. No one is saying it should be illegal.
@EdWilson But the premise was that one doesn't have the right. Who's to stop them from believing?
Lalo:
@fishline79 I agree that the word 'rights' sounds legalistic so that's not the best term to use. We all have the legal right to believe what we want. But it's not ethically sound to believe anything we happen to pull out of our ass, so to speak.
@Lalo I'll buy that.
Illegal? Says who?
@RawLuv ?????????????
@fishline79
????????????????
@RawLuv Nyeeh! Nyeeh! I said it first!
@Fanburger The "Thought Police" could probably tell you, but I won't!
To quote Stevie Wonder: "When you believe in things that you don't understand, you suffer. Superstition ain't the way!"
CalicoJake
Level 3
June 14, 2018
2
Excellent!
Yes, you have the right to believe whatever you choose or want.
But, walk out in rain and you will get wet. Be born and you will die. Jump into a raging fire and you will burn.
Now whether you choose to believe such examples is up to you. The right to believe such examples is totally your right. 
RawLuv
Level 4
June 6, 2018
2
Belief: I do not care what it is you believe. When you act on that belief, that is where you and I may have to interact Then it will be come interesting, problematic or delightful.
Ergo: I hardly ever ask for your opinion. I observe your actions and step farther and farther away from you.
Waving from a distance.
Spinliesel
Level 9
June 6, 2018
4
An opinion without observable evidence to support it is, surely, prejudice.
moNOtheist
Level 7
June 5, 2018
2
It's not prejudice, it's a lie.
I think this is also a language issue, or a problem of language.
The word 'believe' can mean subtly different things, such as:
I trust that such a thing is true (believe).
I agree with certain ideas (believe).
Such and such fits with my own morality (believe).
I value something highly (believe).
Ellatynemouth
Level 8
June 5, 2018
4
I much prefer to avoid the word "belief" altogether, for exactly this reason.
@RawLuv The ambiguity caused by different meanings of the word, as given above by @Ellatynemouth.
I think I understand exactly what you’re referring. Such beliefs are to imaginatives. Not concrete or visible objects.
Everyone has an opinion.
jlynn37
Level 8
June 5, 2018
0
And everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
Worst beliefs are those shared among society (masses) that glue them together around a false belief or lie.
Belief as a right, okay go ahead and believe that God is real. If it's a choice then that is an option and you can prove your article's premise by doing that. Only for a moment, how about 10 seconds, just "believe" something you don't currently believe?
If you can't, you cannot condemn anyone for their beliefs either.
mattersauce
Level 7
June 5, 2018
1
If a person believes something that he has no right to believe, what should be done with that person?
WilliamFleming
Level 8
June 5, 2018
0
Burn him at the stake was an option. Not done that much lately but might come back into fashion the way we are headed!
He can 'hold' that belief as much as he wants, it still doesn't make it a right.
J.W. von Goethe says: Name ist Schall und Rauch -Names ( words) are echoes and smoke. You can hold any belief you wish. Only when youact on it, does it become real.
usually it's the opposite. When societies shared beliefs are questioned and evidence is shown that the beliefs are false, they burn the person questioning their shared (false) belief.
@rayfunrelax would you put North Korea in that category, where it’s the atheists who are doing the “burning”?
@WilliamFleming I didn't say ALL the societies beliefs are false, but some of them are controversial and some are or have been proven false. In many ways societies shared beliefs, Christianity, Islam, racism, diet, customs, dress-codes, etc... are more powerful than laws which are also mostly based on those shared beliefs (for example anti-nudity, or anti-abortion laws).
It is your right to believe anything you want to ONLY IF you also believe that it is your right to be an ignorant, unintelligent, bigoted, destructive. and immoral person and no one has the right to judge such vile behavior..
wordywalt
Level 9
June 5, 2018
1
Walt, wait a second pls. You’re equating the right to hold erroneous beliefs, which I maintain we have, with the right to engage in any conduct consonant with our beliefs and the right to do so without facing any judgment or consequences. I don’t believe that the first right implies or necessitates the other two rights.
@zblaze, @wordywalt This is correct. It is dangerous to live in a society where people have the right to hold any beliefs that they choose. It can be expected that such an environment will nurture the skills and inclination to separate the preferable beliefs from the less desirable ones. And the alternative is to impose a thought police and to allow only permissible groupthink, the tool used by totalitarian regimes to wipe out dissent and secure their power through terror.
Well, I don’t agree that we don’t have a right to believe as we wish. If our freedom of thought means anything, it must be freedom to believe as we wish even if we happen to be wrong. The truth value or correctness of our beliefs is not up to us. If I wish to believe that the earth is flat, I cannot expect that others will be persuaded of the correctness of my belief merely because I hold it. But I can expect that I will be able to hold this belief as long as I wish, no matter how irrational or arbitrary it may be, and that no one will compel me to change my mind about it without my consent.
ArturoS
Level 6
June 5, 2018
4
More from the same article:
Moreover, as the psychologist William James responded in 1896, some of our most important beliefs about the world and the human prospect must be formed without the possibility of sufficient evidence. In such circumstances (which are sometimes defined narrowly, sometimes more broadly in James’s writings), one’s ‘will to believe’ entitles us to choose to believe the alternative that projects a better life.
In exploring the varieties of religious experience, James would remind us that the ‘right to believe’ can establish a climate of religious tolerance. Those religions that define themselves by required beliefs (creeds) have engaged in repression, torture and countless wars against non-believers that can cease only with recognition of a mutual ‘right to believe’. Yet, even in this context, extremely intolerant beliefs cannot be tolerated. Rights have limits and carry responsibilities.
Unfortunately, many people today seem to take great licence with the right to believe, flouting their responsibility. The wilful ignorance and false knowledge that are commonly defended by the assertion ‘I have a right to my belief’ do not meet James’s requirements. Consider those who believe that the lunar landings or the Sandy Hook school shooting were unreal, government-created dramas; that Barack Obama is Muslim; that the Earth is flat; or that climate change is a hoax. In such cases, the right to believe is proclaimed as a negative right; that is, its intent is to foreclose dialogue, to deflect all challenges; to enjoin others from interfering with one’s belief-commitment. The mind is closed, not open for learning. They might be ‘true believers’, but they are not believers in the truth.
bobhoff59
Level 7
June 5, 2018
4
Thanks!
I had my Right to Believe I am Never going to Need viagra. So far, so good. You dream small, you will die in a little hut with no rights and some unused viagras in your pocket.
GipsyOfNewSpain
Level 9
June 5, 2018
1
LMAAO ♥
@zblaze If I ever get out of line I will blame Ambien.
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