(This was removed from an atheist r/skepticism: The irony)
Online atheists often believe that being an atheist implies that they are inherently critical thinking skeptics, while the truth couldn’t be further than reality. However, being an atheist doesn’t magically impart to someone the ability to properly analyze an argument, understand logical rules of inference, or understand the fundamental concepts of what is often referred to as the “Burden of Proof”. One very common trope you often hear in atheist debates is something around the line of “Only the person making a positive claim has a burden of proof, which I find to be a profound misunderstanding of what is called “Epistemic Justification” in epistemology, and doesn’t capture the nuances involved in argumentation theory of claim-response to claim discussions. The term “Burden of Proof” comes from a Latin phrase “Onus Probandi” short for “Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat – the burden of proof lies with the one who speaks, not the one who denies. Atheists often use this misunderstanding of burden of proof to say that when a claim is offered to them, they have no burden of proof for not accepting the proposed as true.
This I argue is epistemological in error for multiple reasons. It is well established in epistemology that “to deny” in epistemology is understood as “to affirm negation” under Frege-Geach rejection ism. It isn’t merely “not to accept”, but that is somewhat of a quibble than a significant point that I wish to make. When someone makes a declarative statement under speech act theory their very locution of “I do not accept your claim.” is in fact a claim. It is claim that directly refers to the listeners self-referential or autobiographical assessment of their belief state.
They are stating they claim they do not accept the claim as true. This is a positive claim, and thus by their own reasoning requires a burden of proof. This may seem to also be a quibble to some, but it isn’t a mere attempt to argufy the dialectic. It directly address why we have the very concept of burden of proof in the first place, which is to justify why your position is the correct position to take given a claim. Not accepting a claim is a second order position with respect to the claim, and as such requires a burden of proof. This is where I see many atheist recoil as the thought of adopting a burden of proof, because they fail to understand that in epistemology having a “Burden of Proof” does not mean to “prove” something in any legal, or even logical sense. It means to have an epistemic justification to why you believe there was some insufficiency in the claim that lead to you either abstain from judgment of the claim, or to reject the claim as false. Chrislom has a very well known set of definitions which help to define what gives a person sufficient justification to withhold affirmation of a claim rationally…and that is what an epistemic burden of proof or burden of justification means in this sense. It is the reasons why you found the claim insufficient to accept.
Atheists often erroneously refer to this as they fallacy of “Burden Shifting”, but in this is not “Burden Shifting”, as it isn’t asking an interlocutor to disprove or demonstrate a claim is false, it is merely asking to give reasons why they belief the claim should not be accepted. There is a substantive difference to be had there.
Atheists also often use the “burden of proof” to say that when a claim is offered to them, they have no burden of proof for not accepting what is being proposed to them as being true. This I argue is epistemological in error for multiple reasons. It is well established in epistemology the term “to deny” is most understood as “to affirm negation” under Frege-Geach rejectionism. It is not merely “not to accept”, but to actually claim the proposed claim is false. When someone makes a declarative statement under speech act theory their very locution of “I do not accept your claim.” is in fact a claim. It is separate claim, but a claim never the less, that directly refers to the listeners self-referential or autobiographical assessment of their belief state.
This is where I see many atheist recoil as the thought of adopting a burden of proof, because they fail to understand that in epistemology having a “Burden of Proof” does not mean to “prove” something in any legal, or even logical sense. It means to have an epistemic justification to why you believe there was some insufficiency in the claim that lead to you either abstain from judgment of the claim, or to reject the claim as false. Chrislom has a very well known set of definitions which help to define what gives a person sufficient justification to withhold affirmation of a claim rational…and that is what an epistemic burden of proof or “burden of justification” means in this sense. It is the reason or reasons as to why you found the claim insufficient to accept. Atheists often erroneously refer to this as “Burden Shifting” from a mere cursory Google Search, but in this is not “Burden Shifting” as it isn’t asking an interlocutor to disprove or demonstrate a claim is false, it is merely asking to give reasons why they belief the claim should not be accepted. That is a substantive difference.
Example:
Suppose I claim that Ax(x=x) to someone, and they tell me they don’t accept my claim. I then ask them why they failed to affirm my claim which is called “The Law of Identity ”, as perhaps they don’t understand the symbology. Or worse, they are not a rational thinker, and are not convinced the law of identity is true. Holding such a position as rational would require a burden of justification, else I would not consider that person to be a critical thinker employing the use of healthy skepticism. It isn’t “burden shifting” either, as it isn’t asking the respondent to disprove Ax(x=x), but merely to justify why they failed to accept a fundamental axiom of logic which is a fundamental ingredient of rationality. In fact, if you deny x=x such that x<>x you can literally “prove ” anything due to the principle of explosion.
There are also many forms of burden of proof as it is more a term for a family different names of types such as:
The Burden of Production
The Burden of Persuasion
The Burden of Rejoinder
The Burden of Response
The Burden of Refutation
The Burden of Defense
The Burden of Explanation
The Burden of Justification
The Burden of Discussion
The Burden of Evidence
The Burden of Epistemic Justification
Example:
I frequently claim that .999… = 1 in real mathematics. This is mathematically provable by a variety of types of maths such as arithmetic, geometric progression, and caliculus. When I make that claim, the belief I hold that it is true enjoins an epistemic burden since I belief that claim is true. It is a burden that I owe to myself to hold that belief as rational. When I have a locution where I relate that belief to someone else, it doesn’t automatically incur a discurssory burden to explain why it is true. I may just be giving that person a descriptive statement of my self-referential or autobiographical assessment of my belief state. If I wish to persuade someone that my claim is true, then I incur a “burden of persuasion” and a “burden of explanation”. My respondent then has a burden of rejoinder to tell me if they failed to affirm my claim what they believe is an insufficiency of the argument. It doesn’t imply nor infer at all that they have to prove .999… = 1 is false as obviously that would be an impossible request. Therefore, it is not the fallacy of “Burden Shifting”
I offer this as my claim that all positions, including second order ones, have some type of burden of proof to be held rational for discussion purposes. This includes justifying acceptance, rejection, or suspending judgment on a proposition. After all claims are how we try to convince people that either our position on something is the correct position to take, or that our interlocutor’s position is not the correct position to take. We all should own our claims and own our burden of proof, and not try to avoid or dodge them by merely being a denialist…after all to just deny what may be true by unjustified reasons is antithetical to what “skepticism” stands for isn’t it?
-Steve McRae
