Ma.

Guadalupe Niklison

If there can be no absolute laws governing social behavior what is the

point of any social science? Explain you answer.
Disagreement on how to study and explain facts and events in the social world is the result of,
among other reasons, the dispute between advocates of the unity of scientific method (naturalism) and
those who believe that the differences between the social world and the natural world make this unity
not only impossible, but also illogical (interpretivism, critical theory and postmodernism). Comte,
father of sociology, believed that the aim of social science should be to discover the natural laws that
determine social stability and change, and use that knowledge in order to create a better society. For a
law to be considered so, it needs to be universal to not be bound to time or place. Laws of nature are
the principles which govern the natural phenomena of the world (Swartz, 2001, para. 2). This kind
of laws are causal, and are the ones that are of most importance for natural science because of their
predictive power. Only laws that let us predict results are useful for manipulating the present and the
future. Now, if this kind of laws cannot be found in the social world, then what is the point of studying
it?
Naturalists hold that the aim of both science and philosophy of science to gain knowledge about the
world, in particular, knowledge of causal mechanisms and laws, and do this by comparing theories with
data (Papineau, 2008, Philosophy and Science, para. 5). They look for empirical evidence supporting
hypothesis. Their objective in studying social science is to discover causal connections between an
individuals thoughts and his actions that could be used in covering-law explanation of human
behavior. For them, the main difference between natural sciences and social sciences is not their aims
and methods, but the question they are interested in. They adjudicate the lack of general laws not to its
impossibility, but to the early stage of the development of this kind of method. Taking in account this
view of social science, it is understandable that the suggestion that laws are not fundamental in social
study is rejected by them.
Another thing to take in account is that unity of scientific method implies that consensus must be
reach regards the meaning of the data obtained in order to prove a theory. It is something usual in the
natural sciences to have this univocal interpretation, mostly because meaning of the natural world
doesnt work in the same way as in the social world. Naturalists wish to reach this consensus as it
means that objectivity can be obtained. They also argue that social science explanations dont need to
be bound to peoples beliefs or thoughts; advocates of interpretivism and other anti-naturalists often
point that an important part of social explanations is based in how people see and understand
themselves and the relationships between them, but naturalists focus in explanations for phenomena
that transcends self-understanding.
Nevertheless, many anti-naturalists believe that rather than uncovering law-like regularities, what
social science should and can do is discover patterns and mechanisms. Jon Elster (2007) defines
mechanisms as frequently occurring and easily recognizable causal patterns that are triggered under

Ma. Guadalupe Niklison

generally unknown conditions or with indeterminate consequences. (p. 36) He adds that these
mechanisms, although they allow us to explain it, they cannot predict social behavior. Elster argues that
these explanations aim to demonstrate the rational cause for an action. As Jim Bogen (2004) states,
causality is one thing, and regularity, another. (p. 4) Mechanisms cant give us as accurate
explanations as laws, but they are useful, as they do shape our understanding of the society we live in.
For example, the law of supply and demand in economics is definitely tied to a certain context and is
bound to have exceptions; it does not have the characteristics to be an absolute law, but it does help in
the understanding of the relationship between price and supply or demand. It is a mechanism. What
anti-naturalists have also call into attention is the power that predictive laws give to authorities; they
point that it is frequent that thanks to social discoveries, those in power have the ability to manipulate
society for their own benefit.
Until now, social sciences have failed to uncover laws about how human behave and the
consequences of that behavior. One reason for this is the complexity of the social world: it is based on
human beings, and human actions depend not only in natural causes, but also psychological, moral,
social or economic reasons, among others. The flaw of many proposed laws (especially economic laws)
is that they are based on the rational choice theory the assumption that individuals always make
prudent and logical decisions that provide them with the greatest benefit or satisfaction and that are in
their highest self-interest and the fact is that humans dont always act rationally. Interpretivists believe
that it is misguided to try to find laws that rule social behavior and the focus should be in enhancing our
understanding of the causes and consequences it has. Yet another impediment to discovering general
laws is the impossibility or difficulty to conduct controlled experiments that faces social science in
contrast with natural sciences: in the social sciences, it is not ethical or even practical to manipulate
variables in a controlled environment in order to test hypothesis. The fact that there are so many
obstacles in obtaining universal laws is another argument that supports that social sciences shouldnt
seek to find them.
It is true that the social world has meaning in a way the natural world doesnt. Parting from this fact,
it is difficult to state that uncovering general laws should be the main aim of social sciences. The
scientific method can and should be applied in situations that allow it, but always taking in account that
social sciences object of study hasnt the same features as the natural sciences objects, so the same
differentiations should be made on how it is studied and in the aspired results. The essential point of
social science is not, therefore, to uncover laws, but rather these laws are another tool subordinated to
the major aim of social studies: to enhance our understanding of human condition and behavior. Social
science has predictive power up to some extent and this power is important, but its aim should not be
this prediction, but rather to have a better understanding of the world going from understanding of
interactions between individuals to interaction between different societies and cultures, and the
meaning behind all of this.

Ma. Guadalupe Niklison

Bibliography
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