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For all its flaws, innocent until proven guilty is still the fairest justice system. Beyond a reasonable doubt is a high standard of proof. Because we use this

For all its flaws, innocent until proven guilty is still the fairest justice system. Beyond a reasonable doubt is a high standard of proof. Because we use this standard, it is natural for people to look for reasonable doubts when talking about accusations. That is how western society works. And for very good reasons.

Falling3 7y ago
> innocent until proven guilty is still the fairest justice system Justice system administered by a state where the repercussions include imprisonment and death - absolutely. But HR is not a judicial system and should not be viewed as one. I think I take your point to be just a descriptive observation of "our social discussion reflects a habit based on our exposure to judicial systems" and not a normative statement. Even if it's the former, I think it's naive and ignores a very real culture of doubt and victim-blaming exclusive to sexual violence.
- kps 7y ago
  Given the US's employer-based health care system, HR can sentence some people to death.
  - Falling3 7y ago
    That's a fair point. And we should rectify that by fixing our healthcare system, not by making it harder for assault survivors.
barneygale 7y ago
It's how the courts work, but not society in general. An individual can use whatever standard they wish to form an opinion. Would you insist that we all treat O.J. Simpson as innocent?
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  > Would you insist that we all treat O.J. Simpson as innocent? The fair way is to withhold judgment (while presuming innocence) when there's a charge against someone but it hasn't been investigated. That's fair whether we're talking about courts or society. Society pronounced its judgment on O.J. after evidence was presented and witnesses testified. The problem comes when people presume guilt based on a charge alone. Unfortunately, that's often what happens when high-emotion charges are leveled against someone.
  - cestith 7y ago
    We have a high standard for guilt in court because someone's freedom and perhaps life is on the line. You as a private citizen have a right to make decisions on less than a drawn-out court case and a sequestered jury. So, in the eyes of the criminal courts, yes, OJ is still innocent. But would you have him babysit your kids based only on a reasonable doubt he's a multiple murderer?
    - TimTheTinker 7y ago
      > You as a private citizen have a right to make decisions on less than a drawn-out court case and a sequestered jury. That's true, but it doesn't make my opinions morally justified. But my point wasn’t about the verdict--the court’s, mine, or the public’s. It was that it is wrong to presume guilt anywhere—in court or in personal opinion—on the basis of a charge alone. (In OJ's case, we're all far past that, so I think bringing it up is a bit moot.)
      - cestith 7y ago
        I literally didn't bring up OJ. I was using the example already in use in the thread when I replied. The question, in a generic sense, is if you have two equally qualified candidates one of whom is acquitted and one of whom nobody's accused of wrongdoing, would you flip a coin or hire the one never accused?
        TimTheTinker 7y ago
- airstrike 7y ago
  > An individual can use whatever standard they wish to form an opinion. I suppose we can all agree that any individual should at least first know the facts before forming their opinion.
tbabb 7y ago
That is different from prioritizing imagined, hypothetical injustice over real, actual injustice. Something obviously bad happens, and everyone falls over themselves to correct and defend not the bad thing that just happened, but a thing they just imagined might happen. It's a very peculiar (and fairly revealing) thought pattern.
CathedralBorrow 7y ago
> That is how western society works. No, that's how justice systems in western society (and many others) work. Because guilty/not-guilty is a binary choice, there's no in-between option. I don't have the same binary restrictions when I form an opinion based on the information available to me. As we all do.
didibus 7y ago
I agree with you, but there is no crime here, just bad work conduct, and as a professional, that makes you not as good at your job, and as an employer, it can justify letting you go. Call it a bad cultural fit if you prefer. Someone who cannot navigate the social work environment, and makes others feel uneasy and lowers their moral is not as good an employee as someone who'd have no issue doing so, and makes everyone else motivated and confident. As an employer, I'd probably quickly try and replace such an employee, with someone who's just as good technically, but also has better social work ethics and collaboration skills. This is totally fair to me. Being good at your job also involves being good with coworkers and promoting a healthy work environment which boosts everyone's productivity. If you have deficiencies there, try working on it. It'll be good for your career. Now I know what's going to happen... But what if someone totally fabricated a case against you and brought it up to your employer and now your employer falsely believes that you're a big bully and harasser and that you hurt the work environment and they fire you over that? And I think that's a bit of a fallacy counter-argument honestly. Some kind of reification fallacy. Yes in the abstract hypothetical, this would be unjust, and you can deduce that it was in fact the accuser who was being unprofessional and fabricating an environment of blackmail. But give us any concrete case, and we can now observe the facts of that case and see if employers did an unreasonable assesement or not. For example, we might see in real cases, there is always more than one complaint made, or there are recorded behaviors like emails, chat logs, naughty passwords, etc. Or there's repeated offense, or there was prior knowledge, etc. And again, no crime here. An employer for their business sake, might prefer to lean on better be careful rather than sorry. That makes total business sense to me.
apta 7y ago
> That is how western society works. And for very good reasons. Is the implication that non-Western societies don't work that way? Or that somehow it's only Western societies that came up and all of them practice this behavior?
- kbutler 7y ago
  Actually, yes. (Hopefully you were asking rather than woke-scolding). Presumption of innocence traces back to roman law (hence "occidental" from the latin, meaning the going down/setting of the sun, or "western", referring to European countries) . It has propagated at various rates through various cultures. Other cultures (including germanic, which could also be classified as "western") did not have the presumption of innocence centuries ago. China (latin "oriental", rising sun, or eastern) has been moving toward it in the last 50 years. This doesn't say that no other culture has independently developed the presumption of innocence principle, but that the idea of it in modern judicial systems around the world traces back to the roman culture, and is generally associated with a body of ideas collectively called "western culture". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326070104_Understanding_the_presumption_of_innocence_in_China_Institution_and_practice https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326070104_Understan...
  - kbutler 7y ago
    Always interesting when a statement is unpopular, but no counterarguments are presented. A bit more clarification from the researchgate link above, talking about the movement toward presumption of innocence (POI) in China (emphasis added to the statements that Western societies came up with this behavior and that at least one non-Western society doesn't work that way): "As POI is a legal principle originating in the West, its acceptance in the criminal justice context of China is a gradual and longstanding process. The CPL’s first revision, in 1996, adopts the clause ‘no person shall be found guilty without being judged as such by a People’s Court according to law’, but the protection guaranteed to criminal defendants under Article 12 of the CPL (2012) is different from the classic concept, which, according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), requires POI. Article 12 focuses on who has the power to issue a guilty verdict rather than on the presumption of the accused’s guilt or innocence during the investigation and trial."
cestith 7y ago
But where's the innocent until proven guilty for the sysadmin and the woman accused of falsely accusing the guy who was fired? HR doesn't fire on a whim. I'd default to saying this guy got due process.
ScottBurson 7y ago
I think there's more to it than that. If you have some time, give this a read: https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an-unbelievable-story https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an... Since it's quite long, I'll summarize. An 18-year-old woman, "Marie", whose had been in foster homes since the age of 6 or 7, reported having been raped. Her two previous foster mothers, both of whom she was still friends with and whom she told about the rape, suspected she was fabricating the report and, after discussing the matter with each other, said so to the police. Despite the significant forensic evidence, the police persuaded her to recant and ultimately charged her with filing a false report. A couple of years later, a serial rapist with a penchant for photographing his victims was caught. Among his effects was a photograph of Marie. What does this story tell us? First, that even someone who has just been raped may have difficulty relating the event in a coherent and consistent way, and may not seem to be feeling the emotions one would expect of someone to whom that had happened. (The implications for the Brett Kavanaugh affair are obvious.) Second, that even female friends of the victim might be led by such inconsistencies to doubt the veracity of the report — a sobering observation. And third, that the slogan "Believe Women", though it cannot be taken as an absolute, is still important to repeat, because it's still far more likely that a true report will be doubted than that a false one will be believed.
kelnos 7y ago
That's not how employment works, and (for better or worse) that's not how the court of public opinion works. "Innocent until proven guilty" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" are critically important for a government-run judicial system, because they ultimately have control over your freedom, life, and death. While a job is certainly important, the loss of one job will not ruin your life unless you are particularly unlucky. So the burden of proof is much less. Regardless of all that, it's just really saddening to me that the default seems to be that people assume that the victim is lying or overstating the harm done to them. This seems to be something very specific to sexual harassment cases that doesn't crop up as much or as universally with other accusations of wrongdoing. We clearly have a long way to go before we get rid of our knee-jerk biases about this sort of thing (and I'm no exception; I have them too).

Falling3 7y ago

> innocent until proven guilty is still the fairest justice system Justice system administered by a state where the repercussions include imprisonment and death - absolutely. But HR is not a judicial system and should not be viewed as one. I think I take your point to be just a descriptive observation of "our social discussion reflects a habit based on our exposure to judicial systems" and not a normative statement. Even if it's the former, I think it's naive and ignores a very real culture of doubt and victim-blaming exclusive to sexual violence.

kps 7y ago
Given the US's employer-based health care system, HR can sentence some people to death.
- Falling3 7y ago
  That's a fair point. And we should rectify that by fixing our healthcare system, not by making it harder for assault survivors.

barneygale 7y ago

It's how the courts work, but not society in general. An individual can use whatever standard they wish to form an opinion. Would you insist that we all treat O.J. Simpson as innocent?

TimTheTinker 7y ago
> Would you insist that we all treat O.J. Simpson as innocent? The fair way is to withhold judgment (while presuming innocence) when there's a charge against someone but it hasn't been investigated. That's fair whether we're talking about courts or society. Society pronounced its judgment on O.J. after evidence was presented and witnesses testified. The problem comes when people presume guilt based on a charge alone. Unfortunately, that's often what happens when high-emotion charges are leveled against someone.
- cestith 7y ago
  We have a high standard for guilt in court because someone's freedom and perhaps life is on the line. You as a private citizen have a right to make decisions on less than a drawn-out court case and a sequestered jury. So, in the eyes of the criminal courts, yes, OJ is still innocent. But would you have him babysit your kids based only on a reasonable doubt he's a multiple murderer?
  - TimTheTinker 7y ago
    > You as a private citizen have a right to make decisions on less than a drawn-out court case and a sequestered jury. That's true, but it doesn't make my opinions morally justified. But my point wasn’t about the verdict--the court’s, mine, or the public’s. It was that it is wrong to presume guilt anywhere—in court or in personal opinion—on the basis of a charge alone. (In OJ's case, we're all far past that, so I think bringing it up is a bit moot.)
    - cestith 7y ago
      I literally didn't bring up OJ. I was using the example already in use in the thread when I replied. The question, in a generic sense, is if you have two equally qualified candidates one of whom is acquitted and one of whom nobody's accused of wrongdoing, would you flip a coin or hire the one never accused?
      - TimTheTinker 7y ago
airstrike 7y ago
> An individual can use whatever standard they wish to form an opinion. I suppose we can all agree that any individual should at least first know the facts before forming their opinion.

tbabb 7y ago

That is different from prioritizing imagined, hypothetical injustice over real, actual injustice. Something obviously bad happens, and everyone falls over themselves to correct and defend not the bad thing that just happened, but a thing they just imagined might happen. It's a very peculiar (and fairly revealing) thought pattern.

CathedralBorrow 7y ago

> That is how western society works. No, that's how justice systems in western society (and many others) work. Because guilty/not-guilty is a binary choice, there's no in-between option. I don't have the same binary restrictions when I form an opinion based on the information available to me. As we all do.

didibus 7y ago

I agree with you, but there is no crime here, just bad work conduct, and as a professional, that makes you not as good at your job, and as an employer, it can justify letting you go. Call it a bad cultural fit if you prefer. Someone who cannot navigate the social work environment, and makes others feel uneasy and lowers their moral is not as good an employee as someone who'd have no issue doing so, and makes everyone else motivated and confident. As an employer, I'd probably quickly try and replace such an employee, with someone who's just as good technically, but also has better social work ethics and collaboration skills. This is totally fair to me. Being good at your job also involves being good with coworkers and promoting a healthy work environment which boosts everyone's productivity. If you have deficiencies there, try working on it. It'll be good for your career. Now I know what's going to happen... But what if someone totally fabricated a case against you and brought it up to your employer and now your employer falsely believes that you're a big bully and harasser and that you hurt the work environment and they fire you over that? And I think that's a bit of a fallacy counter-argument honestly. Some kind of reification fallacy. Yes in the abstract hypothetical, this would be unjust, and you can deduce that it was in fact the accuser who was being unprofessional and fabricating an environment of blackmail. But give us any concrete case, and we can now observe the facts of that case and see if employers did an unreasonable assesement or not. For example, we might see in real cases, there is always more than one complaint made, or there are recorded behaviors like emails, chat logs, naughty passwords, etc. Or there's repeated offense, or there was prior knowledge, etc. And again, no crime here. An employer for their business sake, might prefer to lean on better be careful rather than sorry. That makes total business sense to me.

apta 7y ago

> That is how western society works. And for very good reasons. Is the implication that non-Western societies don't work that way? Or that somehow it's only Western societies that came up and all of them practice this behavior?

kbutler 7y ago
Actually, yes. (Hopefully you were asking rather than woke-scolding). Presumption of innocence traces back to roman law (hence "occidental" from the latin, meaning the going down/setting of the sun, or "western", referring to European countries) . It has propagated at various rates through various cultures. Other cultures (including germanic, which could also be classified as "western") did not have the presumption of innocence centuries ago. China (latin "oriental", rising sun, or eastern) has been moving toward it in the last 50 years. This doesn't say that no other culture has independently developed the presumption of innocence principle, but that the idea of it in modern judicial systems around the world traces back to the roman culture, and is generally associated with a body of ideas collectively called "western culture". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326070104_Understanding_the_presumption_of_innocence_in_China_Institution_and_practice https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326070104_Understan...
- kbutler 7y ago
  Always interesting when a statement is unpopular, but no counterarguments are presented. A bit more clarification from the researchgate link above, talking about the movement toward presumption of innocence (POI) in China (emphasis added to the statements that Western societies came up with this behavior and that at least one non-Western society doesn't work that way): "As POI is a legal principle originating in the West, its acceptance in the criminal justice context of China is a gradual and longstanding process. The CPL’s first revision, in 1996, adopts the clause ‘no person shall be found guilty without being judged as such by a People’s Court according to law’, but the protection guaranteed to criminal defendants under Article 12 of the CPL (2012) is different from the classic concept, which, according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), requires POI. Article 12 focuses on who has the power to issue a guilty verdict rather than on the presumption of the accused’s guilt or innocence during the investigation and trial."

cestith 7y ago

But where's the innocent until proven guilty for the sysadmin and the woman accused of falsely accusing the guy who was fired? HR doesn't fire on a whim. I'd default to saying this guy got due process.

ScottBurson 7y ago

I think there's more to it than that. If you have some time, give this a read: https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an-unbelievable-story https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an... Since it's quite long, I'll summarize. An 18-year-old woman, "Marie", whose had been in foster homes since the age of 6 or 7, reported having been raped. Her two previous foster mothers, both of whom she was still friends with and whom she told about the rape, suspected she was fabricating the report and, after discussing the matter with each other, said so to the police. Despite the significant forensic evidence, the police persuaded her to recant and ultimately charged her with filing a false report. A couple of years later, a serial rapist with a penchant for photographing his victims was caught. Among his effects was a photograph of Marie. What does this story tell us? First, that even someone who has just been raped may have difficulty relating the event in a coherent and consistent way, and may not seem to be feeling the emotions one would expect of someone to whom that had happened. (The implications for the Brett Kavanaugh affair are obvious.) Second, that even female friends of the victim might be led by such inconsistencies to doubt the veracity of the report — a sobering observation. And third, that the slogan "Believe Women", though it cannot be taken as an absolute, is still important to repeat, because it's still far more likely that a true report will be doubted than that a false one will be believed.

kelnos 7y ago

That's not how employment works, and (for better or worse) that's not how the court of public opinion works. "Innocent until proven guilty" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" are critically important for a government-run judicial system, because they ultimately have control over your freedom, life, and death. While a job is certainly important, the loss of one job will not ruin your life unless you are particularly unlucky. So the burden of proof is much less. Regardless of all that, it's just really saddening to me that the default seems to be that people assume that the victim is lying or overstating the harm done to them. This seems to be something very specific to sexual harassment cases that doesn't crop up as much or as universally with other accusations of wrongdoing. We clearly have a long way to go before we get rid of our knee-jerk biases about this sort of thing (and I'm no exception; I have them too).