Innocent Until Proven Guilty?

Since every public figure began accusing every other public figure of being a rapist, I’ve seen plenty of discussions about “innocent until proven guilty” versus “believing the accuser.”

Many people point out — correctly — that innocent until proven guilty is a legal standard, and isn’t necessarily binding on private people forming their own opinion.

That’s true. And yet, isn’t “innocent until proven guilty” also a private virtue?

We take for granted that a good person shouldn’t believe rumours; they shouldn’t spread idle gossip; they should treat everyone fairly; and they should give people the benefit of the doubt.

But how? One practical way of doing all of this is to disbelieve accusations until being given a credible reason to believe them.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is a legal standard. And it’s also how a good person in a civil society treats those around him.

“But,” you object, “this trivializes serious accusations and biases people against the accuser!”

What trivializes accusations is pretending we can reflexively believe them, then simply discard them when they are refuted, without incurring any consequence.

That treats accusations about as seriously as a fortune cookie or a horoscope — something we can believe or not believe as we please, without it making much of a difference to those around us.

We should not treat accusations that frivolously. An accusation can seriously damage someone’s reputation, their social standing, and often their livelihood. It’s irresponsible to gamble with someone else’s life that way.

Yet that is precisely what we do every time we choose to “believe the accuser”.

“But,” you object, “putting such a high burden of proof on an accuser isn’t fair, either. So we should be skeptical of both parties, remain neutral and take no side.”

No. Treating people fairly and treating them equally are not the same.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is not neutrality. It is a deliberate choice to side with the accused until we have credible evidence against them. A plausible story is not evidence.

The more an accusation “fits with what we know”, the more important it is to side with the accused. Our confirmation bias means we can easily accept a story as true because it *sounds* true. A story which fits our preconceived notions does not constitute credible evidence — but our brains tend to conflate them anyway.

So, in the end, neutrality is not fairness. Neutrality lets confirmation bias reign. Neutrality primes us to accept any accusation if it tells us a good enough story.

The only way to overcome this is to deliberately side with the accused.

We should not “believe the accusers.” And we should not “remain neutral”.

We should instead choose to always believe the accused, until given a compelling reason not to. That is the only fair way to act, in public as well as in private.