In many discussions I'm pulled back to the distinction between not-guilty and innocent as a way to demonstrate how the burden of proof works and what the true default position should be in any given argument. A lot of people seem to not have any problem seeing the distinction, but many intelligent people for some reason don't see it.
In this article I explain why the distinction exists and why it matters, in particular why it matters in real-life scenarios, especially when people try to shift the burden of proof.
Essentially, in my view the universe we are talking about is {uncertain,guilty,innocent}, therefore not-guilty is guilty', which is {uncertain,innocent}. Therefore innocent ⇒ not-guilty, but not-guilty ⇏ innocent.
When O. J. Simpson was acquitted, that doesn’t mean he was found innocent, it means the prosecution could not prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. He was found not-guilty, which is not the same as innocent. It very well could be that the jury found the truth of the matter uncertain.
This notion has implications in many real-life scenarios when people want to shift the burden of proof if you reject a claim when it's not substantiated. They wrongly assume you claim their claim is false (equivalent to innocent), when in truth all you are doing is staying in the default position (uncertain).
Rejecting the claim that a god exists is not the same as claim a god doesn't exist: it doesn't require a burden of proof because it's the default position. Agnosticism is the default position. The burden of proof is on the people making the claim.
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Notes -
Should we be agnostic about Russel's Teapot?
E: Mostly focusing on continuing your thought about agnosticism. Your point about guiltiness is right.
Yes. Although I don't like to use the term "agnostic" because it relates to knowledge, and here we are dealing with belief. I prefer "skeptical".
The default position is
uncertain, so maybe there's a teapot, maybe not. That means we are questioning its existence, therefore we are skeptics. But this also means we don't believe its existence (not-guilty), which is different than believing it doesn't exist (innocent).Russel's Teapots seems bogus to me. I would absolutely not like to be "skeptical" (
not-guilty) about Russel's Teapot. I don't believe in such a teapot (innocent). Can it be proven?When I continued to think about this post, this is the reasoning that occurred to me: I am not completely ignorant. I know a few facts here from experience:
Teapots do not naturally form in outer space.
Humans do not normally send teapots to outer space.
Based on this line of thinking, I'm comfortable with believing it doesn't exist (
innocent).The one can come to me and say I haven't proven it
beyond a reasonable doubtbut now it feels like we're haggling over the standard of proof, not the burden of proof.Whereas your post gets the burden of proof right, it doesn't say much about standard of proof. Perhaps that is just a different topic?
Humans also don't normally send Tesla Roadsters to outer space. Until one abnormal one did.
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