Beyond Feelings

CHAPTER 5 How Good Are Your Opinions?
Kinds of Errors
Opinion can be corrupted by any one of four broad kinds of errors.* These
classifications, with examples added for clarification, are the following:
1. Errors or tendencies to error common among all people by virtue of
their being human (for example, the tendency to perceive selectively
or rush to judgment or oversimplify complex realities)
2. Errors or tendencies to error associated with one’s individual habits
of mind or personal attitudes, beliefs, or theories (for example, the
habit of thinking the worst of members of a race or religion against
which one harbors prejudice)
3. Errors that come from human communication and the limitations of
language (for example, the practice of expressing a thought or feeling
inadequately and leading others to form a mistaken impression)
4. Errors in the general fashion of an age (for example, the tendency in
our grandparents’ day to accept authority unquestioningly or the
tendency in ours to recognize no authority but oneself)
Some people, of course, are more prone to errors than others. English
philosopher John Locke observed that these people fall into three groups:
Those who seldom reason at all, but think and act as those around them
do—parents, neighbors, the clergy, or anyone else they admire and
respect. Such people want to avoid the difficulty that accompanies
thinking for themselves.
Those who are determined to let passion rather than reason govern
their lives. Those people are influenced only by reasoning that supports
their prejudices.
Those who sincerely follow reason, but lack sound, overall good
sense, and so do not look at all sides of an issue. They tend to talk with
one type of person, read one type of book, and so are exposed to only
one viewpoint. 13
To Locke’s list we should add one more type: those who never bother
to reexamine an opinion once it has been formed. These people are often the
most error prone of all, for they forfeit all opportunity to correct mistaken
opinions when new evidence arises.
Informed Versus Uninformed Opinion
If experts can, like the rest of us, be wrong, why are their opinions more
highly valued than those of nonexperts? In light of the examples we have considered,
we might conclude that it is a waste of time to consult the experts.
Let’s look at some situations and see if this conclusion is reasonable.
*The classifications noted here are adaptations of Francis Bacon’s well-known “Idols,”
Novum Organum, Book I (1620).
65