Most people that report harassment are taking a big career risk (and if they go public like Mrs. Fowler did, inviting abuse from Internet mobs) by doing so, so yes, I'm going to default to believing people that report harassment unless I can find credible evidence it didn't happen.
An example (from a case I was involved as a witness in only last week). A jury must be 100% confident that the evidence presented confirms their beliefs. The judge will say "do not decide based on if you believe it happened but instead on the evidence presented". There a world where the jury can believe it happened (and deliberate for 4.5 hours) but still come out with not guilty because the physical evidence is not there. In historical sexual abuse cases (of which this was one) - the CPS (Criminal Prosecution Service here in the UK) will not take on the case if they did not think there was a good chance of winning and yet the only real evidence here was witness testimony and no forensics. It didn't matter that the jury obviously believed it happened - they did their job and realised that was only an opinion and not backed by evidence.
"I believe you" can mean you believe what the person is saying WITHOUT it meaning you take it to be 100% factual.
In this circumstance, it can mean you believe them (as in, trust them) but you're not "convicting" anyone of anything. But you ARE giving them the comfort of "trust."
> it can mean you believe them (as in, trust them) but you're not "convicting" anyone of anything.
If they say "X touched me inappropriately" and you say "I believe you" meaning "I trust you", then that means "I trust that you are telling the truth".
(Actually, what I think you're really talking about is a kind of social nicety, what is in reality a white lie. Where people will say "I believe you" as like a kind of gesture of good faith towards a person. Like indicating that you're not going to be biased against them. But it's not actually a statement of belief. In other words, it does not have a meaning in terms of a type of belief).
well, as obstacle1 has explained below, then you're not actually talking about beliefs. (which was what the original discussion did concern).
E.g. in some of these situations you are actually lying to the person (in a mild way) and not actually expressing a belief at all.
An analogy. I might say "I went to the store", but actually I was at a friend's place, and I said this because I wanted to come across a certain way.
It is not that the statement "I went to the store" has these two interpretations. The notion of going to a friend's place isn't a different interpretation of that statement, it is just that I'm not telling the truth.
I don't think that's accurate. I can believe you without being absolutely convicted that you're accurate or correct. I can believe your testimony to me in good faith, but understand it may not be accurate.
> I can believe you without being absolutely convicted that you're accurate or correct.
Of course - and that means you still think (to some degree of conviction) it is true. The original context that spawned this discussion was implying some sort of interpretation that did not involve a belief of some sort in the truth of the statement.
> I can believe your testimony to me in good faith, but understand it may not be accurate.
If someone says "X touched me inappropriately", and you respond "I believe you" then this response means "I believe your statement" not "I believe your testimony was in good faith". (Or it is a kind of white lie, as discussed elsewhere in this thread).
> If someone says "X touched me inappropriately", and you respond "I believe you" then this response means "I believe your statement" not "I believe your testimony was in good faith".
That's true, but this is literally how 99% of human interaction works out.
My dad might say "Hey, can you help me with something on the house in two weeks?" and I don't even know what day yet, so I'll say "Of course, would love to!"
It's... not a 100% completely honest response, but it's the polite one. Rather than saying "I have no idea because I lack information, please tell me the date and I'll get back to you."
In reality, I say sure, I commit, and as more information is acquired we adjust the situation: just as would happen in the original scenario.
White lie or not, it would be inappropriate and needlessly damaging to reply to your colleague in such a way "I have no idea if what you're saying is true, sorry, but I'll look into it."
We're talking about the action of "believing" a colleague when they come to you with a complaint.
It would not be healthy for anyone involved to actively show skepticism towards them.
If you do not show some level of skepticism, you default to a state of belief. As in, you believe your colleague at face-value for the complaint brought to you.
We're _not_ talking about convicting someone of a crime. We're not talking about taking immediate action on that belief.
>If you do not show some level of skepticism, you default to a state of belief.
Well, no, you default to a neutral state of receiving information, sans judgment.
Also it is not true that if you do not show skepticism, you default to some specific state. You could hold any number of opinions without showing skepticism -- what you are showing the other party is irrelevant. "Showing" or expressing belief is not the same thing as believing.
>As in, you believe your colleague at face-value
If you are pretending that you believe your colleague while silently reserving judgment or judging disbelief, you do not believe them in any meaningful sense of the word. You are disguising your judgment of what they are saying so as to not cause further conflict -- i.e., acting. That is very different from believing what they say or even 'believing at face value'.
Of course you can. You can believe the victim while saying that the evidence doesn't meet whatever bar you set - in criminal matters that would be "beyond all reasonable doubt".
It's fine for people to say "I think he did it, but the prosecution didn't prove it, and so I found him not guilty."
If you believe someone, that means you think what they said is true.
In this mindset you've setup a guilty until proven innocent framework because in your mind you already believe to be true any accusations leveled at someone.
When someone levels an accusation, the only belief you should hold is that it's a serious accusation that needs further investigation because someone has risked a lot by leveling it.
Believing anything that comes out of someone's mouth to be true when there are massive consequences to their words is unethical.
>It's fine for people to say "I think he did it, but the prosecution didn't prove it, and so I found him not guilty."
You cannot believe someone to have done something and personally believe that the person is not guilty. They may not be guilty under the framework of the law, but you are still treating them as guilty in your mind. If you worked with the accused and you had a strong sense of ethics, you would never treat that person the same way again, even though the accusation may have been proven to be fabricated.
It is unethical to take accusations at face value that will ruin people's lives.
100% on-point, but I'd caution about bringing judgement into these matters.
Believing a colleague when they come to you with ANY complaint does not mean you're going to pass judgement, or you even have to. It means listening and doing that in a way that does not discourage future complaints.
> Believing a colleague when they come to you with ANY complaint does not mean you're going to pass judgement, or you even have to. It means listening and doing that in a way that does not discourage future complaints.
Your attitude towards them -- listening etc -- is a completely orthogonal matter to whether you believe in the truth of their claims.
There seems to be this wishy-washy notion of "belief" that's causing confusion in this thread, where "believing" is equated to "not being judgemental".
Saying "I believe you" means "I believe what you said is true". There are no interpretations that are contrary to that.
Yes, you can modulate the strength of your belief but they're all beliefs that the statement is true. The great-grandparent comment (the one whose meaning this discussion was about) was implying something other than belief in the truth of the statement.
Different standards should and do apply in criminal trials ("innocent until proven guilty", "beyond a reasonable doubt"), civil trials ("preponderance of the evidence"), and the workplace, where anything goes.
I am saying employment is at will (in most US tech contracts) and an employer can terminate your contract for any reason. "Anything goes" = there's no set standards of proof
IANAL but my understanding is that employer can terminate you for no reason (as in not giving a reason). But if an employer fires you for cause and that cause is unfounded they can be sued for wrongful termination.
This handy list suggests you have a claim if you report you were harassed and your company fires you (retaliation), but not if you are fired after someone falsely accuses you of harassment.
And trusting people to have free speech is definitely going to be abused by people who want to say controversial things. And trusting people to use encryption is definitely going to be abused by criminals who want to commit crimes. And trusting people to own kitchen knives is definitely going to be abused by people who want to stab others.
Yes, we can all make factually true, but totally irrelevant arguments that don't change anything.
You're talking about the rights of individuals. A person has the right to free speech and a person has the right not to be harassed.
A person does not have the right to be trusted, but can expect to be taken seriously on a claim of harassment if they have earned trust or if they provide evidence to back up the allegation.
This suggests that trust isn't or hasn't been abused by harassers at places like Uber. There, Uber HR trusted harassers when they said "I didn't do that," or they just didn't care.
I'm going to default to believing people that report harassment unless I can find credible evidence it didn't happen.
The UK police had to back off from a similar policy that the after high profile investigations that were dropped with no criminal charges being made. They now take complaints seriously and try to keep the confidence of the complainant but don't start off with unconditional belief from the outset whilst still proceeding, at first, on the basis that the allegation is truthful but testing the accuracy of the allegations and the evidence with an open mind.
in a criminal trial the most common form would be an alibi, which is proof that the accused was somewhere else and not in the place the crime occurred at the time the crime occurred.
