are giving us this information, and it's hard to determine “which facts are facts,”32 we are allowed to choose who to listen to with our gut.
It's not that we ignore facts; it's that we select which “facts” presented to us we will accept as facts … we follow our guts and trust the people whose hearts we think we know … When there are too many “facts” to be accessed, and the situation is too complicated for an individual to understand fully without dedicating his whole waking life to that issue, truthiness seems to be the only thing we have to go on.33
He does have a point about conflicting “facts” and the difficulty of determining the truth, but I do not think “I'll just trust my gut to tell me who to believe” is the correct response to this difficulty. If it was, the guy who only relies on Fox and Friends for his “facts” because he likes what his gut says about them would be justified in believing all the stories they report, including that beer pong causes herpes – a hoax news story they reported as genuine without checking it.34 Instead, one should try to determine which facts to believe despite the difficulty. It may take a little time, but if the issue is important the time is worth it.
But what if one simply does not have the time to do the proper research, as Peirlott suggests? Regardless of why one has not done the research, if one has not done it, one should not pretend one has. Instead, one should admit that one does not know what facts to accept. A better response to the difficulty is agnosticism – the suspension of belief and admission of ignorance.35 If you do not know, admit it.
By admitting our ignorance we emulate Socrates (469–399 BCE). The Oracle at Delphi said “no one is wiser” than Socrates, but not because he knew everything – it was because he was the only one to admit he knew nothing. Socrates spent his entire life trying to find someone who had knowledge – because he knew he lacked it – but only found supposed “experts” who professed to have knowledge, but in fact had none. Not only does Socrates give us a good belief‐forming model, but he also gives us good reason not to trust who we would like to think are “experts” simply because our gut tells us to. Very often, those who claim to be experts aren't, and they do not know what they think they know.
Indeed, their expertise in one thing can make them think they are qualified to talk about something else, when it does not. Take Linus Pauling, for example, the famous Nobel Prize‐winning chemist, who fathered the idea that Vitamin C can boosts your immune system. This idea is still around today, but its utterly false.36 Pauling fooled even himself because he thought his knowledge of chemistry qualified him to draw a conclusion about the immune system. But chemistry is not immunology.
So, again, the principle of charity dictates that Report‐Colbert cannot have been serious – the real Colbert cannot really be a gut thinker. But that is not the only way that Report‐Colbert defended his positions.
A Right to Your Opinion
Now Folks, I'm no fan of reality [It Has a Liberal Bias] and I am no fan of encyclopedias [Just Fat‐Ass Dictionaries]. I've said it before: “Who is Britannica to tell me George Washington had slaves?” If I want to say he didn't, that's my right.
– Stephen Colbert
The Colbert Report, July 31, 2006
Suppose you are arguing with Report‐Colbert about whether George Washington owned slaves. You present historical evidence and arguments that he did, but Colbert simply says, “Doesn't it feel like he wouldn't own slaves?” When you point out to Colbert that he is thinking with his gut, and explain why gut thinking is wrong, he will respond, “Well, I have a right to my opinion.” This is a common thing for people to say, so maybe the real Colbert believes it. But do people really have a right to their opinion? Before answering, we need to figure out what people like Report‐Colbert mean when they claim this alleged right.
Colbert might mean he has a legal right to his opinion. If this is what he means, he is correct. No one can haul him away for just thinking or speaking his opinion. But I doubt this is what he had in mind. Was he actually thinking you were about to call the cops to haul him off? No. Instead, Colbert might mean that he has an epistemic right to his opinion. “Epistemic” comes from “Epistemology,” which is the study of knowledge and how knowledge is justified (obviously Colbert missed that day of philosophy class). A belief to which one has an epistemic right is a belief that is justified by rational defense and argument. But, given that we have already established he is just thinking with his gut, it's obvious that he has no rational defense or argument. Thus, he is mistaken if he thinks he has an epistemic right to his opinion.
What Colbert probably means is that he has a moral right to his opinion. Moral rights create moral duties in others.37 For example, people's moral right to freedom gave Colbert the moral duty to free the Jews living under his desk on Birkat Hachama.38 So, if Colbert has a moral right to his opinion, then you have a corresponding moral duty to treat that opinion in a certain way. What way? In Crimes Against Logic,39 Jamie Whyte makes three suggestions.
Maybe Colbert thinks you have a moral duty to agree with his opinion. But if he has a right to his opinion, you have a right to yours, and that would mean that he is obligated to agree with you. Not only would Report‐Colbert never agree with anyone but himself, but given that the two of you disagree, that does not make any sense.
So maybe he thinks you have a duty to listen to his opinion. He may want that, but that cannot be right either. Everyone has a right to his/her opinion if Colbert does, so we would be obligated to listen to everyone's opinion, and that is impossible. There is just not enough time. And we cannot be obligated to do the impossible. (Besides, Colbert would also have that duty and to “hear” everyone's opinion would require a lot of reading – and Report‐Colbert was certainly no fan of reading.)
Given that Colbert is trying to end the discussion without changing his mind, what he probably means is that you have a duty to let him keep his opinion – you should stop arguing with him and looking stuff up in books and just let him think what he wants to think. He thinks he has a right to believe whatever he wants, and thus you have a duty to let him. But your possession of such a duty is far from obvious. Suppose Colbert is about to cross the street in Baghdad, to go to Saddam's Water Palace to do a week of shows in Iraq.40 He believes there are no insurgents around, poised to shoot him, but his escort corrects him, points out the insurgence, and tells him to wait until they are dealt with. Does his escort violate Colbert's right by curing Colbert of his ignorance? Of course not. And Colbert would agree; he would rather not be shot. “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.”41
This reveals what is at the heart of Report‐Colbert's claim that he has a right to his opinion. He does not care about believing what is true, but only believing what he wants to believe. Your presentation of arguments and evidence is keeping him from doing this, and so he sees it as an injury and thinks you have a moral duty to stop.
But, even though Colbert does not care about truth and even though you are “injuring him” by keeping him from believing what is most comfortable, you still do not have a duty to let him keep his belief. If there is a duty to let people believe what is most comfortable, then the