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Recognizing Conventionality: Reply to Shweder and Helwig et al
Author(s) -
Gabennesch Howard
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1990.tb03589.x
Subject(s) - denial , argument (complex analysis) , psychology , epistemology , phenomenon , social psychology , transparency (behavior) , perspective (graphical) , positive economics , philosophy , law , psychoanalysis , political science , biochemistry , chemistry , artificial intelligence , computer science , economics
Shweder and Helwig et al. attribute to my thesis a denial of objective moral law. This is a misinterpretation of the argument. On the other hand, the critics deny the implications of the social construction of reality, leading them to reject the concept of transparency. This commits them to the remarkable position that all social formations are equally transparent. Helwig et al. do not reconcile their perspective with the phenomenon of ethnocentrism. They imply that I ignore the consistent results of the majority of studies, when in fact my critique centers on the unwarranted theoretical generalizations drawn from these results. Helwig et al. also do not adequately explain the murky distinction between “marginal” and “conventional.”