Against Baseless Skepticism: A Formal Framework for Evidence-Grounded Doubt and Epistemic Fairness

Skepticism is widely regarded as the immune system of rational inquiry. However, whenskepticism is unmoored from empirical grounding, logical rigor, or proportional standardsof evidence, it degenerates into "Baseless Skepticism"—a form of obstructionist cynicism.This paper argues that rational doubt must be treated as a claim requiring justification,specifically subject to the constraints of reality. Drawing on principles of Bayesian inference and virtue epistemology, we formalize the Principle of Demonstrated Competence,arguing that claims surviving adversarial, real-world constraints establish a high epistemicprior. We further propose the Law of Epistemic Symmetry, positing that the rejection ofa validated claim incurs a burden of proof identical to its acceptance. We conclude thatdismissing demonstrated competence without counter-data is not intellectual rigor, but aviolation of the ethics of belief.