Jerome Chan Memorial Lecture
Some Realism about the Law and Judging
Date: 10 November 2026
Time: 5:30-7:00 PM
Venue: Academic Conference Room, 11/F, Cheng Yu Tung Tower, HKU
Registration: click here
Abstract
Realism about law demands that we recognize that law is inevitably indeterminate in some measure (that is, it fails to supply a unique answer to a dispute), and thus that judges, especially on appellate courts, will inevitably have to render moral and political judgments in order to produce authoritative resolutions of disputes, one of the central functions of a legal system in any society. I begin by distinguishing the rational (or justificatory) indeterminacy of law from the causal (or explanatory) indeterminacy of law, although they are related. Two key sources of rational indeterminacy are considered: the “open texture” of language (as H.L.A. Hart called it) and the existence of legitimate but conflicting ways of interpreting the authoritative sources of law (central to American, Italian, and French legal realism). I offer illustrations of both kinds of indeterminacy from different jurisdictions, all of which illustrate that the moral and political views of judges play an inescapable role in their decisions. In appointing judges, then, it is a mistake not to consider those views. (This lecture will draw primarily on material from Chapters 1, 6, 12 and 13 of my From a Realist Point of View [OUP, 2026].)
Speaker
Professor Brian Leiter
Brian Leiter is Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence, Affiliated Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values at the University of Chicago. His books include From a Realist Point of View (Oxford, 2026), Marx (Routledge, 2025) (with Jaime Edwards), Nietzsche on Morality, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2015), Why Tolerate Religion? (Princeton, 2013), and Naturalizing Jurisprudence (Oxford, 2007). He is the editor of Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Law.
Chair
Professor Alec Stone Sweet
Sir Y.K. Pao Chair in Public Law
Faculty of Law
The University of Hong Kong
For inquiries, please contact Serene Chang at .
