Abstract

A popular defence of the possibility of social laws is to interpret them as ceteris paribus statements along the same line as physical laws. It cannot be assumed, however, without further considerations regarding the role of initial conditions, that social laws may acquire the status of genuine laws. Two vexing problems need to be addressed: Exceptions should be compatible rather than incompatible with social regularities and social laws should not depend on initial conditions. The paper argues that neither of these conditions is satisfied in the case of social laws. Although social laws present practical constraints, they do not constitute genuine structural constraints as physical laws do.