Although some elements of legal realism are still considered simplistic or outdated, most jurists will admit that realists have been successful in their fundamental goal of rejecting “formalistic” or “mechanical” legal ideas and logic. Today, it is generally accepted that law is not and cannot be an exact science and that it is important to identify what judges actually do when deciding cases, not just what they say they do. As current discussions on judicial independence and judicial discipline show, legal experts tend to question whether it is appropriate for judges to “create justice” rather than simply “execute” or “apply” established laws. But no one will dispute the central realist argument that judges (for better or worse) are always heavily motivated by their political views, moral interests, human attitudes, and other extra-legal considerations. Although many aspects of legal realism are now considered exaggerated or outdated, most legal theorists would agree that realists have succeeded in their central goal: to refute “formalistic” or “mechanical” notions of law and legal thought. It is now widely accepted that law is not and cannot be an exact science, and that it is important to look at what judges actually do when deciding cases, not just what they say they do. As evidenced by ongoing debates about legal activism and judicial deference, legal scholars continue to disagree on when it is legitimate for judges to “make laws” rather than simply “obey” or “apply” existing law. [20] But few would disagree with the realists` fundamental assertion that judges (for better or worse) are often heavily influenced by their political beliefs, personal values, individual personalities, and other extrajudicial factors. [21] Of course, it should be noted that the normative naturalist does not completely abandon conceptual analysis, quite the contrary. It is, for example, Goldman`s conceptual analyses of “knowledge” and “justification” that compel him to turn to empirical psychology to complement the real content of epistemic norms. Unlike the Quinean program, naturalization for the normativist occurs, so to speak, only in applied epistemology. What many philosophers might consider “pure” epistemology—a representation of knowledge—is still an a priori undertaking, even if it is an enterprise that evokes concepts (such as “reliability” and “causality”) that require retrospective inquiry.

62One of the hotly debated things about naturalized epistemology is its relationship to the anti-skeptic hypothesis, which critics have claimed to be more ambivalent and problematic than Quine and other supporters of the movement generally claim. Thus, Hilary Putnam ultimately accused the shift from prescriptive empirical epistemology to descriptive empirical epistemology as “attempting intellectual suicide”.50 As we shall see, Ross` model for discussing jurisprudential problems proves to be an ideal model for reformulating this objection. To begin with, it is important to distinguish two types of theory known as natural law. The first is a theory of morality, which is roughly characterized by the following theses. First, moral propositions have what is sometimes called objective, in the sense that such statements carry the value of objective truth; That is, moral statements can be objectively true or false. Although moral objectivism is sometimes equated with moral realism (see, for example, Moore 1992, 190: “The truth of any moral statement lies in its conformity with a moral reality independent of spirit and convention”), the relationship between the two theories is disputed. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (1988), for example, views moral objectivism as a kind of moral realism, but not as the only form; According to Sayre-McCord, moral subjectivism and moral intersubjectivism are also forms of moral realism. Strictly speaking, the moral theory of natural law is therefore engaged only in the objectivity of moral norms. 59As we have seen, the empirical turn implies a radical change in the way of conceiving the relationship between epistemology and science. In the Cartesian tradition, the central metaphor is “fundamental”. Empirical science must be placed a priori on an epistemological basis.

But after the empirical reversal, this image is abandoned.