Can a person really believe all opinions are equally valid?

Can hold the opinion that all opinions are equally valid? Person A will hold that all opinions are equal. Say Person X holds the opinion that all opinions are not equal. This would put Person A’s and Person X’s opinions in direct conflict. Thus Person A cannot hold that all opinions are equally valid. Is there a solution to this paradox?

I guess if you define an opinion as some stated belief without proof, and assigned all opinions the value zero for lack of proof, then all opinions are equal. Since the opinion that opinions aren’t equal has zero value in this system, whilst the the idea that opinions are equal is not an opinion since it is a truth due to the assignment of zero value to all opinions.

Narcissistically I think this thread was inspired by something I said in a Pit thread

(“I try to behave as if all opinions are equally valid”)
(I’m probably wrong on that score)
Anyway. Part of me does feel that any genuinelly held opinion by a sane human being has the potential to be as valid as any other. For instance I am reluctant to dismiss believers in astrology as holding inferior beliefs, I feel like if their belief is as strong as that of a theist then it is somehow just as valid.

Is “All opinions are equally valid.” an opinion?

To be more relevant to the point of the OP - ‘valid’ does not mean ‘true’ in this case. It means credible (in other words ‘that might be true’). If the believer in the credibilities of all opinions being equal hears the opinion that all opinions are not equal in credibility then he might say - that opinion is credible. Somehow I think that invalidates the paradox.

I don’t see the logic of that at all.

I want to say that not all opnions are equally valid, but I have no way to define why one opinion would be more valid than another.

I’ll read the OP next time. It’s a genuine paradox, and the easiest solution is a type system of sorts. There are level 0 opinions, like “butter is disgusting” or “John Cage is a hack”, then there are level 1 opinions like “all (level 0) opinions are equally valid”. Then you have level 2 opinions, and so on and so forth…

  1. Let A be the opinion, “I believe gravity is an illusion.”

  2. A has no validity. Proof by laws of physics.

  3. A is a member of the set “all opinions.” Proof by definition of the set “all opinions.”

By 2 and 3, “all opinions are equally valid” is false. QED. :wink:

I was taught this by my father at a young age:

“Everyone has the right to feel or believe anything they want, and you have no right to tell them that they are wrong. You are, however, free to disagree with them all you want. By the same token, you have the right to expect them to respect your beliefs or feelings, if they agree with them or not.”

So, yes, I believe that all opinions, in absence of direct facts to counter them, are equally valid. Hell, if I can show facts to directly contradict something someone believes, and they still don’t want to buy it, that is still their choice and I have to respect it.

Another distinction was expressed by the late Sen. Moynihan: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but everyone is not entitled to his own facts.”

Two things:

  1. The statement “I believe gravity is an illusion” is a statement of fact, not opinion. “gravity is an illusion” is the corresponding opinion.

  2. I think you need to be a little more explicit in step 2.