''My opinion is not wrong. It's my opinion''. Discuss.?

[James]

''Opinion - A belief, a notion, a judgement, an evaluation, expert advice'' (English dictionary)

I recently had a conversation about this and believe that the word ''opinion'' has negative connotations and believe as a result that opinions CAN and HAVE been wrong. People say ''This is my opinion, opinions can't be wrong as they are opinions''. This is simply not true. Opinions are not facts and therefore they can be wrong.

An example of this is the current Iraq inquiry (which is how the conversation came about). ''It is my opinion that the Iraq war was legal'' says politician A. The fact is it wasn't and therefore that opinion is wrong.The Iraq war was not legal for the following reasons

(i) The people did not have a referendum on the war which is against our democratic and constitutional rights. Therefore it was illegal!

(ii) The Prime Minister was advised it was illegal by Lord Goldsmith eigth months prior to the Invasion of Iraq but he went ahead with it anyway. Therefore he knew it was illegal!

Therefore how can you say that this opinion is not wrong. What else can you describe a hypothesis that is incorrect? I would call it wrong.

The very definition in the English dictionary is contradictory. How is an opinion ''expert advice''? Anyone with this opinion is sadly mistaken and therefore wrong!

An opinion is not a fact - it is as said in the dictionary an ''evaluation'' but if that ''evaluation'' is proven to be incorrect. Is it an opinion or is it wrong?

For example, I could say that ''In my opinion, dogs don't exist''. I am simply wrong!

What do you guys think?

 

[Bonzo The Wonder Pig]

An opinion is not based on facts, it is a personal thing. In my opinion green is a nice colour, someone else's opinion may be that it looks like snot. The only fact here is that it is green.

An opinion may be ill founded but is still only an opinion , not an intent to declare a fact. The only thing factual about an opinion is that it belongs to a given person or group of people.

 

[bbg]

Well, if you are operating on the premise that an opinion that can be proven wrong by showing "facts" to the contrary...I will concede that an opinion can be wrong.

However, sometimes "facts" are wrong too. Something that might have been accepted as "fact" in the past ends up being wrong. The world ain't flat, ya know? (Or so we think.....lol.....)

So...before you write off someone's opinion as "wrong", just understand that whatever "facts" you are using to invalidate their point of view may be WRONG as well.