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Do lawyers' references to ‘common sense’ have anything to do with what ordinary people think?
Author(s) -
LloydBostock Sally
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.tb00527.x
Subject(s) - fallacy , common sense , relevance (law) , argument (complex analysis) , epistemology , jurisprudence , psychology , social psychology , sociology , law , philosophy , political science , biochemistry , chemistry
Shotter's (1981) suggestion that psychology experiments have, and in principle can have, no relevance to lawyers' questions about common‐sense concepts is as oversimple and dangerous as the view he attacks. His argument takes no account of the contexts in which lawyers actually invoke ‘common sense’, and rests on ( a ) a view of jurisprudence most jurists would reject, and ( b ) the fallacy that where authoritative conclusions cannot be established, no more modest contribution can be made.