AIM Framework glossary
Presumption Against Scapegoating
Canonical definition
The Presumption Against Scapegoating is the default normative rule that Grievance Beliefs (whether at the individual level (when a person feels drawn to blame a particular agent or group for felt deficits) or at the population level (when a society converges on a designated enemy)) must trigger increased scepticism rather than increased confidence, such that in contexts of diffuse harm, system strain, or chronic A/I deficits, institutional and individual responses must begin from the assumption that apparent culprits are more likely to be targets of Confabulation and structural stress than true causal sources, and that no agent is held to be the author of the harm unless a higher evidential bar is met that survives the Information Gap Principle, passes the Grievance Gateway (Origin Check, A-Check, I-Check) and, for grievances passing the Grievance Gateway, the Three-Test Battery (Immediacy, Mechanism, Authorship), and, before any consequence is directed at the agent rather than at the structure, demonstrates that structural remedies have been considered and found inadequate. Rebuttal of the Presumption establishes authorship and licenses action on the gate the author holds. It never licenses punishment, which is excluded whether the Presumption holds or is rebutted.
Explanation
This principle operates at both individual and population levels and plays the role here that the presumption of innocence plays in criminal law: it forces demands for justice to work harder before targeting a person. At the individual level, when a person finds themselves strongly drawn to blame a particular agent or group for felt deficits, the Presumption requires applying the diagnostic question to their own attribution: "Did this target literally and immediately cause the harm I'm experiencing, through identifiable causal mechanisms and actions I can specify without reference to their inherent qualities?" At the population level, when a society converges on a designated enemy, that convergence itself constitutes evidence of mimetic dynamics rather than evidence of the designated enemy's culpability. Convergence on a scapegoat feels like evidence of the scapegoat's guilt ("surely everyone wouldn't agree unless it were true?"), but the AIM Framework predicts exactly this pattern: mimetic contagion produces convergence that has nothing to do with accuracy and everything to do with the Information Gap and Confabulation dynamics. The Presumption does not claim designated enemies are never culpable, it establishes that both individual certainty and collective convergence should increase scepticism rather than confidence. In high-strain contexts (economic crisis, social unrest, institutional failure), Confabulation and the Information Gap make agent-based blame the easiest story for brains to generate and believe. Before directing any consequence, exclusion, or moral condemnation at individuals or small groups, individuals and institutions must first pass the Grievance Gateway: confirm that the grievance originates from personal experience rather than copied social narrative, and that the Individual's body needs the thing being denied or that the Individual would still care if nobody knew. Grievances passing the Gateway then proceed to the Three-Test Battery: (1) test whether the alleged cause is temporally and mechanistically capable of producing the harm (Immediacy Test), (2) show a plausible, evidence-backed causal mechanism that connects the target's actions to the A/I deficits or M-escalation (Mechanism Test), (3) demonstrate that the target had real authorship rather than acting as a replaceable node in a structural process (Authorship Test), and (4) document why structural and institutional reforms (buffering, visibility governance, A-floors, I-infrastructure) are insufficient without consequences directed at the agent. Vague essential-nature attributions ("they are trying to destroy our nation") fail the tests; specific causal claims ("they voted for Policy X producing Outcome Y") can be evaluated on their merits. Failing these, the norm is to redirect attention from persons to systems, consistent with the Core Principles' insistence that crisis and stratification are structurally generated rather than traceable to a few villains. A rebutted Presumption does not reopen punishment. It establishes who authored the harm, which fixes where reparation and prevention of recurrence are directed, and the Practical Redirect governs what follows in both cases. The principle thus complements the Two-Question Diagnostic by providing a parallel tool for agent-attribution that works analogously across individual and collective scales.
Epistemic status
Normative Principle (derived from Framework-Specific Principles).
Derivation
Chapter 11, Section 11.18; the exclusion of punishment on rebuttal at Chapter 11, Section 11.22 and Chapter 16, Section 16.9.