ABSTRACT
Unlike “False Criteria,” “Procedural Rules” has never before been reprinted. Yet from the beginning it enjoyed a substantial underground popularity. Hirschi reports that it produced more fan mail than any other article he has written—and this after a journal referee had warned that its publication would damage his career. It is still occasionally rediscovered, and its tag line (“Avoid the fallacy fallacy. When a theorist or a methodologist tells you you cannot do something, do it anyway. Breaking rules can be fun.”) is much quoted. I asked Hirschi if this was a joke. He most emphatically denies humorous intent, and the similarity between the argument here and that found in “False Criteria” is too obvious to overlook. (Other examples of Hirschi's willingness to engage in fallacies may be found in his review essay of Elliott Currie's Confronting Crime [Criminal Justice Ethics 6, 1987: 66-71] and in the paper on the life course perspective [Chapter 14]). By the way, most of the procedural rules criticized in this article were mentioned at various points in Causes of Delinquency (1969; reissued by Transaction Publishers in 2001).—JHL/TH
