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Critical notice: Are Fincham & Shultz's findings empirical findings?
Author(s) -
Shotter John
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1981.tb00484.x
Subject(s) - notice , psychology , action (physics) , empirical research , test (biology) , social psychology , order (exchange) , epistemology , law , political science , paleontology , philosophy , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , economics , biology
Both common‐sense and legal concepts in specifying not what is but what ought to be the case are, like those in arithmetic and geometry, not amenable to empirical test. They specify the ground rules of right and proper action. Attempts to study them empirically ignore the institutional practices in daily life which, in respecting a society's moral order, establish the conditions under which certain ways of reasoning and judging are not only applicable but legitimate.