I'm entitled to my opinion

I'm entitled to my opinion or I have a right to my opinion is a logical fallacy in which a person discredits any opposition by claiming that they are entitled to their opinion. The statement exemplifies a red herring or thought-terminating cliché. The logical fallacy is sometimes presented as "Let's agree to disagree". 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 a justification of that belief, or an argument against the validity of the objection. Such an assertion, however, can also be an assertion of one's own freedom or of a refusal to participate in the system of logic at hand.

Philosopher Patrick 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".

Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote in his 1930 book The Revolt of the Masses:

The Fascist and Syndicalist 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."

See also

• Begging the question
• Relativist fallacy

Further reading

• Godden, David (2014). "Teaching rational entitlement and responsibility: a Socratic exercise". Informal Logic. 34 (1): 124–151. doi:10.22329/il.v34i1.3882. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)