Laws of Physical Laws

Statements about scientific laws, called metanomological statements, are examined. The following kinds are distinguished and illustrated: (1) factual metanomological statements like “Newton's laws of motion are invariant under time reversal“; (2) normative metanomological statements such as “The equations of motion are not to depend on any frame of reference”; and (3) methodological metanomological statements like “Law statements should not include egocentric particulars such as ‘now’.” It is claimed that metanomological statements are not laws of nature but a subclass of metastatements, and that they are justified in various ways, since some of them are analytic, others are snythetic, and finally others are in the nature of norms or rules. The status of wide-scope physical principles, such as those of covariance, gauge invariance, and parity, is studied in the light of the above distinctions. In particular, some metascientific problems posed by parity nonconservation and by the combined parity (CTP) theorem are dealt with. Finally, the occurrence of important ought-statements in the language of science is employed against the dichotomy between science and ethics.