Burden Of Proof

[Felix]

I have read repeatedly on this forum that "the burden of proof is on the person making the positive claim" and I have a problem with that idea.

Here's an example:

Let's say that I hold that animals should have rights. That would be a positive claim and the burden of proof would be on me.

But isn't the idea that I can kill any animal as I wish yet another positive claim? It's the claim that rights are based on the possession of a conceptual faculty and that only man has one.

So instead of one claim against no claim, you actually have one claim against another.

[D'kian]

But isn't the idea that I can kill any animal as I wish yet another positive claim? It's the claim that rights are based on the possession of a conceptual faculty and that only man has one.

Yes it is. But this is no mere claim. There is ample proof demonstrated in Objectivism (and possibly in this forum as well). Both for the nature of rights, and for man's possesion of a conceptual faculty.

So instead of one claim against no claim, you actually have one claim against another.

More like an unsubstantiated claim against a substantiated one.

[aequalsa]

I have read repeatedly on this forum that "the burden of proof is on the person making the positive claim" and I have a problem with that idea.

Here's an example:

Let's say that I hold that animals should have rights. That would be a positive claim and the burden of proof would be on me.

But isn't the idea that I can kill any animal as I wish yet another positive claim? It's the claim that rights are based on the possession of a conceptual faculty and that only man has one.

So instead of one claim against no claim, you actually have one claim against another.

Hi Felix,

The positive claim is that something exists, since you cannot prove that something does not exist. So if I were to say that elves existed and they made cookies, I would have to provide you with the elf. I could not properly banter back that you have to prove that they do not exist, since that would require a simultaneous check of every nook and cranny in the universe where the little buggers might be hiding.

The problem I see in the above example is that it is not broken down enough. When you say animals ought to have rights what you are actually saying is that animals possess conciousness and rationality capable of understanding and respecting the rights of others and as such, have the ability to conciously choose to enter into a social contract with other volitional entities. So the positive claim inherent in your statement is that animals possess the necessary level of rationality. I don't know about everyone else, but if you proved that, I would throw my T-bone on the floor without another bite(to self:"please god, dont let him prove it, please god don't let him prove it....")

Best Regards,

Gordon

[DavidOdden]

Gordon identifies the distinction very well. This is why I dislike slogans ike "you can't prove a negative", since they are almost always improperly analyzed. You cannot prove the non-existence of X over an infinite domain. In your first claim, you're claiming that animal rights exist -- so you have to prove it. In your second claim, you assumed that which had to be proven, namely that animal rights exist. What is primary is proving that something exists.

[Spano]

But isn't the idea that I can kill any animal as I wish yet another positive claim? It's the claim that rights are based on the possession of a conceptual faculty and that only man has one.

So instead of one claim against no claim, you actually have one claim against another.

This implies that you are assuming that a pair of competing claims must be one negative, one positive. This isn't true, because two competing claims can be positive, e.g. "Apples are red" versus "Apples are green". In this case, both assertions have the burden of proof.

To add to what others have said, the burden of proof rests on the person identifying a fact of reality. It does not rest on the person asserting a non-fact, because a non-fact cannot be identified; I can say God exists and then point to God, but I cannot say God doesn't exist then point to his non-existence.

So to determine whether the burden of proof rests upon this or that claim, we need to analyze which claim is attempting to state something postive about existence. The statement "I can kill animals if I want to", as another poster said, is too broad or vague a statement. If it means "Animals do not possess rights", this seems to me to be a negative statement, and the burden of proof would rest on the person asserting animals DO have rights.

[hunterrose]

But all this would mean that things like "every action has a cause" or "there is a physical world" are positive claims, and thus have the burden of proof? What would constitute acceptable proof/evidence of such claims?

[Maarten]

They're axioms, and they underlie the basis of the concept of proof You have to accept them to have any meaningful discourse, and besides that you can point to reality and show that they are true that way.

Axioms can't be proved in the normal sense, though...

[Bold Standard]

Axioms can't be proved, but they can (and must) be validated (see chapter one of OPAR for a concise validation). But, of course, proof is not applicable to them, since they are the foundation for proof.

[JMeganSnow]

"there is a physical world"

This is not an axiomatic statement, btw, although it can be proven fairly well by pointing to some physical objects, just like you could prove the statement "tables exist" by pointing out a table.

[Maarten]

But how would you prove something if there was no physical world? I think it's still one of the statements that would qualify for being axiomatic, because without it you can't very well lead statements back to their counterparts in reality; there wouldn't even be anyone around to make statements if the physical world didn't exist.

[DavidOdden]

But how would you prove something if there was no physical world?

That depends on what you mean by "physical world". If you simply mean that something exists, then of course that is the primary axiom. That axiom does not guarantee that you exist corporeally, as a mass-having existent, nor that anything else exists physically. You can prove something if you exist having consciousness -- that much is axiomatic.

[Bold Standard]

But how would you prove something if there was no physical world? I think it's still one of the statements that would qualify for being axiomatic, because without it you can't very well lead statements back to their counterparts in reality; there wouldn't even be anyone around to make statements if the physical world didn't exist.

It's not axiomatic, because it's not an irreducable primary. Knowledge of the "physical world" is derived from antecedent knowledge. There's a whole section on this in the appendix to ITOE.

Prof. K: Some philosophers treat our knowledge that existence exists as equivalent to our knowledge that there is a physical world. They hold that to know that existence exists, and is what it is independently of our perceiving it, is to know that it is different in kind from consciousness—to know that things exist which possess characteristics which no consciousness could possess—for example, spatial extension or weight. Then they claim that the propositions "existence exists" and "there is a physical world" are, if not synonymous, two perspectives on the same fact, such that if the first is an axiom, then so is the second. Is any variant of this position consistent with the Objectivist view of axioms and axiomatic concepts?

AR: The answer is: no, emphatically. Not consistent in any way whatever. Now let me elaborate.

When you say "existence exists," you are not saying that the physical world exists, because the literal meaning of the term "physical world" involves a very sophisticated piece of <ioe2_246> scientific knowledge at which logically and chronologically you would have to arrive much later.

As to the chronological aspect, the construct that you describe here is totally impossible psychologically. You say that to grasp that something exists is to know that things exist which possess characteristics which no consciousness could possibly possess, such as extension and weight. You are talking about an enormously sophisticated level of knowledge. And you are assuming that first a man grasps that he's conscious, à la Descartes, and then he decides, "But there are certain things which have properties which consciousness doesn't have." Nothing could be further from the truth.

[...]

[pg 247]

But now what's the difference between saying "existence exists" and "the physical world exists"? "Existence exists" does not specify what exists. It is a formula which would cover the first sensation of an infant or the most complex knowledge of a scientist. It applies equally to both. It is only the fact of recognizing: there is something. This comes before you grasp that you are performing an act of consciousness. It's only the recognition that something exists. By the time you say that it's a world, and it's a physical world, you need to know much more. Because you can't say "physical world" before you have grasped, self-consciously, the process of awareness and have said, "Well, there are such existents as mental events, like thinking or memories or emotions, which are not physical; they are existents, but of a different kind: they are certain states or processes of my consciousness, my faculty of grasping the existence of that outside world." And the next step is: "What is that outside world made of?"

The concept "matter," which we all take for granted, is an enormously complex scientific concept. And I think it was probably one of the greatest achievements of thinkers ever to arrive at the concept "matter," and to recognize that that is what the physical world outside is composed of, and that's what we mean by the term "physical."

[...]

[pg 248]

So you see the axiom "existence exists" embraces all those stages of knowledge, implicit or explicit. Whereas the concept "the physical world exists" is a very sophisticated scientific statement.

(There's more, too. I recommend (re-)reading that whole section, to anyone who's interested in this.)

[Bold Standard]

But all this would mean that things like "every action has a cause" or "there is a physical world" are positive claims, and thus have the burden of proof? What would constitute acceptable proof/evidence of such claims?

Causality can be proven through induction (observing that entities act) and through deduction from the axioms. Since I already have ITOE open, here's a line from Dr. Peikoff's essay:

Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific identity, nothing in reality can occur causelessly or by chance. The nature of an entity determines <ioe2_109> what it can do and, in any given set of circumstances, dictates what it will do. The Law of Causality is entailed by the Law of Identity. Entities follow certain laws of action in consequence of their identity, and have no alternative to doing so.

The existence of causality and of the physical world are positive claims, and it is very important that one knows how to prove them, to defend them against the Hume's and Berkeley's of the world who deny their existence.

[Maarten]

I think the proper term regarding axioms is validate rather than prove. It's simply impossible to prove something that is the basis of proof itself. However, you can validate them by pointing to reality

[DavidOdden]

I think the proper term regarding axioms is validate rather than prove. It's simply impossible to prove something that is the basis of proof itself. However, you can validate them by pointing to reality

This is a widespread point of confusion, because of the great similarity between the concepts. "Validation" is the general term, referring to the process of 'showing to be real'. "Proof" is one kind of validation, but it is a hierarchically complex one because it involves combining existing knowledge to create new knowledge. Sense data is not a proof, so when you perceive a person, you don't prove that there is a person, rather, it is perceptually self-evident that there is a person. I find that confusion very common, and insidious, because if we should only consider "provable" claims, then sensory data would play no role in knowledge (and this is really the root of skeptical epistemology). As we know, without "unprovable" sensory data, we would have to resort to arbitrary assumptions and simply see what the consequences of those assumptions are.