The Argument of this Essay is Just My Opinion, But by John Corvino* When debating ethics and other controversial

subjects, one frequently hears the claim Thats just your opinion! It is a pernicious claim, devoid of clear meaning, and it should be consigned to the flames. Thats my opinion, anyway, and I present my reasons for it here. The Fact/Opinion Distinction In calling something an opinion, one presumably wants to contrast it with something that is not an opinion, and the obvious candidate for the contrast class is fact. The idea herewhich I do not endorseis that beliefs fall into two categories, facts and opinions, and moral beliefs (for example) fall on the side of opinions. (By fact, I dont mean occurrence in the world, but rather a kind of belief about such occurrences what we sometimes call a factual belief.) Okay, but whats the difference between a fact and an opinion? That seems like it should be an easy question, but it actually tends to stump most people. Mind you, they have no trouble offering examples of either, or categorizing others examples. So for instance, given A (1a) There is beer in my refrigerator. (2a) The earth revolves around the sun. (3a) Genocide occurred in Darfur. B (1b) Wine tastes better than beer (2b) The earth was created by an omnipotent God. (3b) Genocide is wrong.

theyll say that the claims in column A are facts and the claims in column B are opinions. But when asked to explain the principle of distinction between facts and opinions the rule that tells us how to assign beliefs to one category or the otherthey typically start stammering: Well, facts areyou know, FACTS. Theyre true. This answer is not at all helpful, since opinions are typically put forth as true, and some factual claims turn out to be false. For example, most people would say that its true that genocide is wrong. Whats more, there may or may not be beer in my refrigerator. The fact/opinion distinction varies independently of the true/false distinction. Some people say that facts are concrete rather than abstract, but that answer would render all mathematical claims non-factual, since mathematics involves abstract concepts (e.g. numbers). Neither does it help, at least at first glance, to say that facts are objective (rather than subjective), since at least some claims that people usually put
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DRAFTNOT FOR CITATION. John Corvino 2008. Direct comments to j.corvino@wayne.edu.

in the opinion column involve matters that would be true (or false) regardless of what any particular subject believes. For example, whether or not God created the earth is an objective matter, albeit a controversial and difficult-to-prove one. If it happened, it happened whether anyone believes it or not. Ditto if it didnt happen. (Ill say more about the subjective/objective distinction later on.) Maybe the last example points to a better answer: the difference between facts and opinions is that facts are uncontroversial. But this doesnt seem right either, since it would make whether something is a fact audience-relative: for example, the earth revolves around the sun would be a fact for modern Americans but not for medieval Europeans; God created the earth would be a fact for believers but not for skeptics; The earth is flat would be a fact for Flat-Earthers but not for the rest of us. How useful would the fact/opinion distinction be if any claim could count as either one, depending on who hears it? If everyday observers are confused about the distinction, experts fare little better. Curious as to the standard explanation, I googled facts vs. opinions. (This is not how to conduct serious philosophical research, but it can be a useful way of gauging common thoughts on a subject.) Heres the first result I received, from a Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum Project website: Fact: statement of actuality or occurrence. A fact is based on direct evidence, actual experience, or observation. Opinion: statement of belief or feeling. It shows ones feelings about a subject. Solid opinions, while based on facts, are someones views on a subject and not facts themselves. This way of drawing the distinction makes The earth revolves around the sun an opinionor at least, not a factsince no one directly observes it happening, instead of concluding it from indirect evidence. It also jumbles together occurrences, statements about occurrences, and the evidence for those statements. Perhaps more confusing is its labeling opinions as statement(s) of belief. As weve been discussing the matter, all claims are statements of belief, and our task is to determine which of those are factual beliefs and which are opinions. So I looked further. Here are the second and third results from my quick internet search: A fact is a statement that can be proven true. An opinion expresses someones belief, feeling, view, idea, or judgment about something or someone.

and Facts are statements that can be shown to be true or can be proved, or something that really happened. You can look up facts in an encyclopedia or other reference, or see them for yourself. For example, it is a fact that broccoli is good for you (you can look this up in books about healthy diets). Opinions express how a person feels about somethingopinions do not have to be based upon logical reasoning. For example, it is an opinion that broccoli tastes good (or bad). Both of these connect fact with provability. But in common parlance, provability seems audience-relative: I might find Anselms ontological argument to be a sufficient proof for Gods existence (thus rendering God exists a fact for me); others may not. The second of my search results announces that An opinion expresses someones belief.about something. So if I believe that theres beer in my refrigerator, is that just an opinion? The third muddies the waters even further by claiming that you can look up facts in an encyclopedia (always? but then were there no facts before books?), and by including an evaluative notion (good for you) among examples of facts. If this is Critical Thinking, Id hate to see what Sloppy Thinking looks like. Let me offer a conjecture: the fact/opinion distinction is an ambiguous distinction. No one is terribly clear on what it means, and in trying to explain it, people typically conflate it with other distinctions in the vicinity. Distinctions in the Neighborhood Lets consider just three of those other distinctions. Take, first, the familiar philosophical distinction between belief and reality. In commonsense terms, theres a world (reality), and then there are our representations of that world (beliefs: sometimes accurate, sometimes not). I might believe that theres beer in the refrigerator, whether or not theres any there. I might believe that God created the earth, whether or not God didindeed, whether or not God exists at all. Generally, we strive to make our beliefs as accurate as possible in representing reality, but that doesnt remove the gap (some would say gulf) between belief and reality. The problem, as many philosophers have noted, is that attempts to bridge that gap always proceed via our own fallible cognitive capacities. Beliefs about reality are still beliefs, and some of them, despite our best efforts, turn out to be false. Thats true whether were talking about beliefs that usually show up in the fact column (Theres beer in the refrigerator) or in the opinion column (God created the earth). In other words, both facts and opinions can be either successful or unsuccessful in representing reality, and thus the fact/opinion distinction is not the same as the belief/reality distinction.

Second, consider the subjective/objective distinction. Something is subjective insofar as it is mind-dependent, objective insofar as it is mind-independent. Given that definition, all beliefs (qua beliefs) are subjective, since beliefs depend on minds. And since weve been treating facts and opinions as different kinds of beliefs, facts and opinions (in that sense) are all subjective. Of course, there are different kinds of beliefs. Some beliefs are about objective matters, such as whether there is beer in the refrigerator. If its there, its there whether we believe it or not; ditto if it isnt. Other beliefs are about subjective matters, such as whether I would enjoy a Guinness more than a Corona. Might the fact/opinion distinction track the distinction between beliefs about objective matters and beliefs about subjective matters? Perhaps it does. But if it does, we will need to revise what usually gets put in the opinion column. In particular, the belief that God created the earth will need to move over to the fact (i.e. factual belief) column, since whether God created the earth is an objective matterit happened (or not) independently of whether we believe it happened. Same for God existsnot an opinion, on this schema, but a factual belief (maybe true, maybe false). It is also by no means obvious that Genocide is wrong should remain in the opinion column. While some philosophers (namely moral relativists and moral skeptics) hold that moral beliefs are subjective, many do not. Moreover, there is a strong commonsense intuition that genocide would be wrong whether anyone believes its wrong, suggesting that the claim is objective, not subjective. So while the subjective/objective distinction might be useful in explaining the fact/opinion distinction, using it will require us to revise our common thinking about facts and opinions. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, sinceas we have seenour common thinking about facts and opinions seems rather confused. Finally, consider the descriptive/normative distinction. Some beliefs attempt merely to describe or represent the world; others to evaluate that world. For example, the claim that genocide occurred in Darfur is descriptive; the claim that it was wrong is normative. The descriptive/normative distinction is sometimes called the fact/value distinction, which might explain why its confused with the fact/opinion distinction. But its controversial whether all value judgments are matters of opinion, and also controversial whether only value judgments are matters of opinion. If only value judgments can be matters of opinion, then the claim God exists is not an opinion. Nor is the claim A Democrat will take the White House in 2016, since neither of these claims are value judgments. If the fact/opinion distinction were identical to the fact/value distinction, then once again we would need to revise our common thinking about facts and opinions. Looking back over the three website attempts to explain the fact/opinion distinction, my best guess is that the authors wanted something like the following:

Facts are beliefs about objective matters Opinions are beliefs about subjective matters but then got distracted by the other distinctions in the vicinity, namely the belief/reality distinction and the descriptive/normative (or fact/value) distinction. In any case, whatever explanation of the fact/opinion distinction we endorse will be revisionist: it will not capture everyday usage (since everyday usage is messy and confused), but instead will need to refine that usage. Who cares? Why worry about the fact/opinion distinction? One reason is that precise thinking is valuable for its own sake. But theres another, more pragmatic reason. Despite its unclear meaning, the claim Thats just your opinion has a clear use: its a conversation-stopper. Its a way of diminishing a claim, reducing it to a matter of mere taste that should not indeed, cannotbe disputed. (De gustibus non est disputandumtheres no disputing taste.) Indeed, its not only a way of diminishing others stances, but also a way of diminishing ones own. You have certain convictions, but then you recognize that others have rather different convictions, so you begin to think I guess thats just my opinionno better than anyone elses. While such conclusions may stem from an admirable humility, they can have pernicious effects. They lead to a kind of wishy-washiness where people refrain from standing up for things, for fear of imposing their mere opinions. Moreover, the conclusion conflicts with common sense: surely some opinions are more thoughtful, more informed, more coherent than others. This downward spiral is particularly troubling in moral debates. The debate will proceed for a while, until someone interjects, Thats just your opinionand then what? Should we take our marbles and go home? Give up on the issue? Simply shrug? Sometimes thats precisely what people do. Frustrated by this conversation-stopper, they mumble something about agreeing to disagree, and then they change the subject. But moral issues dont simply disappear as a result. Moral debates are practical debates theyre debates about what we should do in the world. Either we continue to maintain troops in Iraq or we dont. Either we allow same-sex marriage or we dont. Either we lie to Mom and Dad about what happened to the car or we dont. Categorizing the issues as matters of opinion doesnt make them any less important or any less pressing.

So heres my proposal: we should banish Thats just your opinion from our speech. Not only is it ambiguous, its pernicious, since it thwarts serious dialogue on important and pressing issues. Instead, let us seek the best reasons we can find for our own opinions and others, discuss them, and proceed from there. Thats my opinion, anyway. If you think yours is better, dont just say sosay why.