I'm entitled to my opinion (orI have a right to my opinion) is aninformal fallacy in which someone dismisses arguments against their position by asserting that they have a right to hold their own particular viewpoint.[1][2] The statement exemplifies ared herring orthought-terminating cliché. The fallacy is sometimes presented as "let'sagree to disagree".[3] Whether one has a particular entitlement or right is irrelevant to whether one's assertion is true or false. Where an objection to a belief is made, the assertion of the right to an opinion side-steps the usual steps of discourse of either asserting ajustification of that belief, or an argument against the validity of the objection.[4] Such an assertion, however, can also be an assertion of one's own freedom from, or a refusal to participate in, the rules ofargumentation andlogic at hand.[5]
PhilosopherPatrick Stokes has described the expression as problematic because it is often used to defend factually indefensible positions or to imply "an equal right to be heard on a matter in which only one of the two parties has the relevant expertise".[6] Further elaborating on Stokes' argument, philosopher David Godden argued that the claim that one is entitled to a view gives rise to certain obligations, such as the obligation to provide reasons for the view and to submit those reasons to contestation; Godden called these the principles ofrational entitlement andrational responsibility, and he developed a classroom exercise for teaching these principles.[4]
PhilosopherJosé Ortega y Gasset wrote in his 1930 bookThe Revolt of the Masses:
TheFascist andSyndicalist species were characterized by the first appearance of a type of man who "did not care to give reasons or even to be right", but who was simply resolved to impose his opinions. That was the novelty: the right not to be right, not to be reasonable: "the reason of unreason."[7]
