Why should I value everyone's opinion?

Question

or, rather, *should* I value everyone's opinion equally? or should i look to the well informed in whatever area i'm dealing with to evaluate?
for instance, given an odd situation of a televised operation... if i want to stop a patient on an operating table from bleeding to death and asked everyone in the television audience for their opinion, this would be a pretty dumb thing to do... but if i ask the other doctors in the room and ignore the television audience, i think we could agree that this would be more reasonable...

but everyone just loves to insist that "all opinions are valid"... I'm of the opinion that they certainly are not!

Similarly, with ethical questions, should I ask my friend who is a steel-welder who has studied welding all of his life and never read about or discussed ethics what the right thing to do is in a tough situation? or would I be better off going to a theological enthusiast or philosopher?

ps -
with regard to the surgery analogy -- that is an analogy *only* to accepting different people's opinions in different situations -- in this case, a doctor asking the opinion of other doctors or asking the opinion of untrained observers.
note: this is not an ethical analogy. the second example, however, is an ethical analogy.

(and if you're going to disagree with the analogy of techical expertise in medicine as it relates to accepting opinions, take it up with plato!)

I would like to add that the "welder", i was trying to show, was someone who had trained all of their life in that area, and had not spent time considering ethics. I was not saying anything about someone's "job" -- but rather, his "life's pursuit".
His life-training has put him in a position of knowing certain things, by my view -- and, for the purposes of this example, what he knows is "how to weld things". We wouldn't ask a sea captain about welding.
The reference to the philosopher being a better person to talk to was only to point to whatever person one would take to be someone who has trained in thinking about that area of expertise. You may substitute whomever you think has considered ethics for their life's training.

the point of the question is this: does the life training in considering a particular expertise (ethical or non- that's not the point) make a person's opinion more valid in questions regarding that field of expertise than those who have not trained in that area.

Answer 1

I think that the concepts of "value" and discernment are being superimposed here.

Opinions reflect, greatly, any given persons individual perspective. There is simply no reasonable way to validate or invalidate anothers stated perception of their world.
If we allow others to offer their perspectives, their opinions, often we are rewarded with fresh and innovative ideas that our own indoctrinations and learnings have made us blind to.

Ultimately, when faced with multiple opinions, all stated perspectives can have validity, but, through discernment and reason, we establish which opinions are the most valid and applicable to our own situations.

Answer 2

This analogy between ethics and surgery is at best, a sort of philosophical cliffhanging.
If ethics is something that only an 'educated' person can understand, then what good are they?
If you go to school for a philosophy degree, you are not being taught how to think about stuff-you are learning history, the jargon of the philosophy language, how to write a coherent sentence, etc,
Ethics is not something subject to deductive reasoning, or any kind of 'truth' or 'falsehood', despite the comical efforts of those philosophers such as Spinoza. You cant apply some 'scientific method' to ethics. Asking a steel welder about ethical questions is just the same sort of thing as asking him what music he likes. A 'steel welder' will probably give you some kind of steel welder answer, while some ivory tower philosopher will probably give you that kind of answer, while neither is going to help you figure anything out, unless you suffer from the typical human trait of thinkign you can acquire a peron's skills by imitating their character...
That said, ethics is a concept born from experience with suffering. Ask the steel welder.

Ok you edited your question enough that i will edit my answer haha. With regards to human craft, usually the more experience and knowledge a person has in a subject the less chance that they will make a mistake in that area. This is not always the case however, as there may be situations where a person's creativity has been stifled by their habit (observe medicine 2000 years ago), and there are also occasions where a person's unusual intelligence may more than compensate for their lack of experience. I would say, the most important thing to do is listen to everything, do not judge the statement by the person, and ask yourself 'does this make sense'? In this case of ethics which you mentioned, it is by the way, a subject where there is no such thing as an 'expert' and there is no way to 'train' your ethical ability. Therefore the nonexistance of an ethical expert precludes our ability to ever know that non existent opinion.

Answer 3

I don't know who "everyone" is, but of course not all opinions are valid except to say the only validity is that it is indeed an opinion. In addressing ethical questions, I'm sure you already know the answer if you know the difference in right or wrong. All people and their fancy titles and their opinions won't make it any more ethical than whatever already is. Your welder friend's opinion may be a better one than the educated philosophers'. What someone does for a living has nothing to do with what kind of person they are, or the morals they hold. The pedophile priest....

Answer 4

your question reeks of snobbery to me and assumes that those who are studied in a particular field have mastered their studies, which is often wrong. having sat in a classroom and passed an exam, doesn't automatically give a person the skill to appropriately utilize what they have studied.

as to your first scenario, yes, of course, you should ask a surgeon, but i have known many dumb, incompetent surgeons so, you would be remiss to rely upon any one of them without your own independent study.

as to the philosophy question, classroom time is not indicative of moral virtue or, mental capacity and there again, i know many who have been educated in the field who i would not allow to advise me on the proper treatment of anything.

furthermore, the arrogance of a closed mind such as the one you are advocating is, also, a mind that has seriously hampered their own ability to learn anything new or, expand upon anything they have already learned.

that being said, i know i -for one- have no objections to your choosing to indulge yourself in being an ignorant and stagnant snob.

Answer 5

Ask the welder. He has common sense and those book heads never live in the real world.

Answer 6

Plato was my favorite philosopher. I think that it wouldn't be intelligent to ask some random person what they think on the subject, however, when debating with an expert on one situation you should certainly hear their opinion before you explain your own. "Everyone's opinion is valued" is a missunderstanding, because it depends on who "everyone" is.

Answer 7

There are no stupid questions, but there are stupid people.
Depending on the situation, the very best thing that some people can do is be quiet.

Answer 8

Surely you've heard the old cliche about what opinions are like, and that everybody has one. But the fact that everybody has one doesn't necessarily mean you want to know more about it.

Answer 9

you need a magic eight ball

Answer 10

well you seem to have the best answer to your own question dude.