Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>From a Realist Point of View combines new essays with revised versions of the most important recent work of preeminent legal realist Brian Leiter. This collection offers a systematic and philosophically ambitious account of legal realism and links it, for the first time, to political realism. The new introductory essay offers a systematic reconstruction of legal and political realism, contrasting it with “moralist” approaches to law and politics. Part I, “Realism about Law and Legal Reasoning,” examines the problem of theoretical disagreement, the relation between legal positivism and realism, and the realist theory of precedent, concluding with a penetrating critique of the recent metaphysical inflation of general jurisprudence. Part II, “Realism about Courts, Politics, and Morality,” brings the realistic perspective to bear on courts and democracy, as well as on morality (understood as a culturally variably human artifact) and moral philosophy (treated as ethnographic data, irrelevant to political practice).</jats:p>