
Contents
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#BelieveWomen in Life and Law #BelieveWomen in Life and Law
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#BelieveWomen and the Call to Be Believed #BelieveWomen and the Call to Be Believed
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Non-Epistemic Accounts Non-Epistemic Accounts
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Epistemic Accounts I Epistemic Accounts I
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Epistemic Accounts II: Trust, Testimony, and Non-Reductionism Epistemic Accounts II: Trust, Testimony, and Non-Reductionism
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#BelieveWomen in Life #BelieveWomen in Life
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#BelieveWomen in Law #BelieveWomen in Law
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Trust, Credences, and Believing Women Trust, Credences, and Believing Women
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Legal Confusions Based on Bad Epistemology Legal Confusions Based on Bad Epistemology
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Epistemic Correctives, Standpoint Epistemology, and Burden Shifts Epistemic Correctives, Standpoint Epistemology, and Burden Shifts
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Epistemic Correctives Epistemic Correctives
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Standpoint Epistemology Standpoint Epistemology
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Reconsidering the Burden of Proof (Explicitly and Covertly) Reconsidering the Burden of Proof (Explicitly and Covertly)
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The Presumption of Innocence The Presumption of Innocence
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The Presumption in Law The Presumption in Law
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The Forum and the Standard The Forum and the Standard
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What Does It Mean to Presume Someone Innocent? What Does It Mean to Presume Someone Innocent?
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The Presumption in Life The Presumption in Life
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Conclusion Conclusion
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Notes Notes
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4 #BelieveWomen and the Presumption of Innocence: Clarifying the Questions for Law and Life
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Published:November 2021
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Abstract
In September 2018, Christine Blasey Ford accused Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of sexually assaulting her when the two were teenagers. Ford’s supporters told us to #BelieveWomen, while Kavanaugh’s supporters invoked the presumption of innocence. This chapter does not attempt to reconcile these two competing considerations but to engage in the inquiry that is prior to it. First, it unpacks different understandings of #BelieveWomen, ranging from standpoint epistemology to altering the burden of proof, and it devotes significant attention to a view that has received little attention in the literature, a view that conjoins the trust and respect that is owed with a non-reductionist approach to testimony—essentially, the position that sometimes, we can and should believe someone based on her say-so. it then explores the complexities of these various understandings in both ordinary life and the law. Finally, it turns to how the presumption of innocence is understood, how the presumption is difficult to export outside the legal context, but how the underlying idea that animates its invocation is the question of what we owe each other before we think ill of another.
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