Realism and Positivism
13(4) Jurisprudence: An International Journal of Legal and Political Thought 569-612
Monash University Faculty of Law Legal Studies Research Paper
73 Pages Posted: 17 Jun 2022 Last revised: 3 Oct 2023
Date Written: 2022
Abstract
Several scholars advance the ‘LR-LP thesis’: the claim that American Legal Realism presupposes Legal Positivism. Brian Leiter and Frederick Schauer, prominent scholars of Realism, delimit that thesis to a Razian version of Exclusive Legal Positivism (‘ELP’). This article nevertheless argues that Leiter and Schauer’s respective accounts of Legal Realism are difficult to square with Razian ELP. Indeed, the Realist hypotheses about alternative drivers of official decision, concerning ‘working’ rules, ‘real’ rules, and ‘situation-types’, if correct, actually threaten Razian ELP.
Problems arise for the LR-LP thesis (as delimited to Razian ELP) irrespective of whether those three Realist alternative drivers are classified as legal or non-legal norms. If they are non-legal, merits-based norms, then (a) those alternative drivers do much more work within official decision than ELP suggests is the case for those sorts of norms, and (b), Inclusive Legal Positivism may better, and might even be required, to explain them. Alternatively, if those Realist alternative drivers are better understood as legal, source-based norms, then they cannot fulfil (or even be claimed by the law to fulfil) certain core functions that ELP attributes to legal norms.
Keywords: jurisprudence, legal philosophy, legal realism, legal positivism, philosophy of law, judicial decision-making
JEL Classification: K10
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation