The Funnel of Righteousness

Peter Worley tells us how to be right, righter, rightest.

- Peter Worley

We enjoy being right. There are many ways to delight in this pleasure, some more noble than others. We might feel good when we’ve made a good argument, drawing on good evidence, cogently structured. Or we might only care about others believing us, no matter how that’s achieved. But there are few who derive no pleasure at all from being right, or being thought to be right. Indeed, the sense of being right really matters to us. You had an argument with a friend or family member and it has been playing through your mind ever since: Were you right to have said that? Did they understand the points you were making? Or you may feel that you were seen as wrong in a board meeting because of some group-think rather than because you hadn’t made a good case. And so on.

Here I’ll identify different aspects of being right. This is designed more as a life-guide than a piece of theoretical philosophy. It’s to help us assess what’s going on next time we relax into a sense of self-righteousness. Are we right to? When, if ever, is it right to feel righteous?

Consider this: A teacher asks a class, “What’s 2 + 2?” Alison says, “22”. Belinda says, “4”. Who’s right?

Now imagine that Alison’s reason for her answer is “Because if you add the digit ‘2’ to another digit ‘2’, you get ‘22’”, while Belinda’s reason is, “Because 4 is my favourite number.” How does this affect your assessment of who’s right? There are some who would say that Belinda is right, even though her reasoning is wrong. One thing I want to do in this article is to explain how Alison and Belinda are both right and wrong.

First I want to describe and distinguish between a whole series of weaker and stronger senses of ‘being right’. It’s a weaker sense if there’s a greater probability of being wrong; it’s a stronger sense when the probability of being wrong is less. Being right and wrong are, on this understanding, by