reasonable belief
Grounded logical conclusion
Reasonable belief is a legal and practical standard for justified conviction—what a sensible person would conclude given available evidence.
It sits between mere suspicion and absolute certainty.
Police need reasonable belief to make arrests; employers cite it when taking disciplinary action.
She had reasonable belief that her safety was threatened.
The standard acknowledges that people must sometimes act on incomplete information.
- moral justificationRationale for ethical permissibility
- probable causeLegal threshold for searches
- burden of proofDuty to prove allegations
- cognitive biasSystematic deviation from rationality
- rationalitySound judgment quality
foundationalism · good faith · acting in good faith · honest mistake · fairness · perception · due diligence · sound judgment · common sense · prima facie · inference · presumption of innocence · benefit of the doubt · standard of care · heuristics · mens rea · attribution theory · skepticism
- legal defensesself-defense, alibi, affirmative defense, insanity defense, insanity
- self-defenseself-defense, martial arts, self-protection, karate, pepper spray
- legal ignoranceignorance of law
- legal proofburden of proof, standard of proof, clear and convincing, onus, preponderance
reasonable beliefblind faith
Trust without requiring proof
superstition · wishful thinking · delusion · dogma · prejudice
reasonable beliefknee-jerk reaction
Instinctive, unconsidered response
gullibility · snap judgment · magical thinking · confirmation bias · motivated reasoning
reasonable, belief, reason, believe, reasonably, unreasonable, unreasonably, reasoned, reasoning