Freedom to Be Wrong

“In the past, philosophers have worked from the assumption that humans are rational beings” (Reading Room, May 15). Really? I thought those were economists (also wrong, of course).

Sarah Conly ’75 is not alone; she is advancing the currently mainstream political agenda. Perhaps she would benefit from reading another book, Breakfast with Socrates, by Robert Rowland Smith. Here’s the money quote: “Although her disobedience is tragic, Eve’s innocence is not all bad. Certainly that innocence leads her to make a poor choice — the very worst — but the fact that she makes a choice at all, the fact that she engages the Devil in a debate that could go either way, the fact that she acts without God breathing down her neck, all speak to her free will or, what amounts to the same thing, her margin for error. It is from this margin for error that freedom springs, because you can’t be free to be right unless you can be free to be wrong.”

I prefer to remain free to be wrong, thanks ever so much.