This chapter builds on Chapter 2 by explaining the etymologies of the complainant parents’ vernacular normative convictions – centring on Ubu-Ntu – that were woefully misunderstood and dismissed by the court in Komape. Thus, using language to uncover the self-conception and values of pre-colonial southern Africans, such as relational personhood and social organization, it explores how decolonising ‘the common law’ by recognising the Komape family’s world-sense requires focusing on the indigenous intellectual roots of the Ntu. It argues that these offer alter-Native ways of understanding concepts, challenging dominant European frameworks and (il)legalities. The analysis draws from ethnographic constitutional research and the sociolinguistic record, aiming to recover neglected histories of indigenous peoples’ identities and normative frameworks, often oversimplified as ‘customary law’, that still influence contemporary legal norms and social orders. Reclaiming indigenous ways of being and knowing, it highlights the often-muted gendered aspects of indigenous intellectual histories that would contribute to a more holistic understanding of social justice. Ultimately, the chapter calls for rethinking South African constitutionalism beyond Euro-American conceptions thereof, focusing on Ntu legalities and intellectual traditions. This offers a pathway to justice rooted in vernacular perspectives, which remain critical to addressing contemporary socio-legal challenges, as exemplified by the Komape case.

This chapter examines the career of Tristram (Jimmy) Betts, a former civil servant in Nigeria, Oxfam’s first Field Director in Southern Africa and the brother of the Labour Party’s first Minister for Overseas Development, Barbara Castle. Figures such as Betts ensured that charities were important intermediaries in the shift from the colonial to the postcolonial world. Through their extensive connections, they were the conduit through which late-colonial states invited in charities to play important roles in the delivery of social services. Through a case study of the three High Commission Territories of Basutoland (Lesotho), Bechuanaland (Botswana) and Swaziland (Eswatini), it argues charities were a key part of the new world of development through the international agencies. The United Nations’ Freedom From Hunger Committees enrolled the charities into the broader machinery of official aid and development in the 1960s. It meant they were transformed from organisations focused on emergency relief to ones funding long-term development.

Chapter 4 surveys modern Jewish thought in terms of realism and reference and charts the efforts of prominent Jewish thinkers to restrict or eliminate theological language.

This chapter reconstructs the argument of two essays, Of Suicide’ and ‘Of the Immortality of the Soul’, which were published posthumously. In these essays Hume defends that in specific circumstances suicide is morally acceptable and shows himself critical about the doctrine of a ‘future state’. Comparing the two essays with Part 12 of the Dialogues, I elucidate how Hume left us posthumously a testimony of his ambition to counter the religious spirit of his age. In the Dialogues Philo’s challenges Cleanthes’ view that religion forms a necessary support of morality. In ‘Of Suicide’ and ‘Of the Immortality of the Soul’, Hume attacks in a more openly provocative way the Christian morality of his age. As I show in a second part of this chapter, Hume’s views were in the eighteenth century still controversial. It is no coincidence that one of the first editions of the two polemic essays contained a translation of two letters of Rousseau’s Héloïse which offered a more nuanced view on the moral acceptability of suicide and the sacredness of human life. Apparently, some contemporaries were convinced Hume could learn from Rousseau: whether today this view would still prevail, I leave to the reader to decide.

This chapter advances three arguments about the politics of company creation regulation in Saudi Arabia in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. First, the liberalization of these regulations was rent-conditional. The formation and implementation of these policies occurred during periods of rising or high oil rents, but were absent during the downward trend in oil prices between June 2014 and January 2016. Second, relative to earlier periods, the ability of business and religious elites to veto economic reforms was diminished. Third, in light of this shift, the threat of popular unrest to regime stability had a non-trivial, causal effect upon the pursuit and pausing of company creation liberalization. Non-elite pressure on the Al Saud’s rule reached an unparalleled fever pitch during the Arab Spring. Record-breaking transfer payments to appease discontent were feasible in 2011, allowing regulatory liberalization to continue. However, when the fiscal realities of the 2014 oil price slump became apparent, liberalization and public munificence were sacrificed to inhibit the development of economic power outside the regime’s coalition and to maintain comparatively high military spending. Only once oil rents recovered would the reform agenda be revived.

This chapter turns to Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Swahili coast narratives, focusing on his novel Desertion (2005), which tells stories about interracial intimacies between Indian, Swahili, and European characters across multiple generations in colonial and postcolonial periods. In the nineteenth century, colonial debates on Indian emigration to Africa insisted on a clear racial separation between “native” Africans and Indian “settlers.” Late twentieth-century East African nationalist discourses reproduced this racialized indigeneity as national identity. Gurnah’s critique of this racial nationalism lies in the novel’s experimental aesthetics, which involve perspectival storytelling, nested stories, and inclusion of multiple genres. The novel’s layered narration gives expression to abject, repressed Indian Ocean intimacies, reconfiguring colonial models of racial encounter as part of the longer history of migration and exchange in Indian Ocean. The melancholic return of Indian Ocean affiliations troubles both the racial-dystopic conception of nationhood in postcolonial East Africa and the utopic imagining of a multiracial community of the past or future.

This chapter explores the connections of a species-exceeding neighbor love with self-love, love of God, and the imitation of Christ. By defining the neighbor in Works of Love beyond merely the human being, it provides an alternative to the entrenched dichotomy in ecological thought that sets loving the planet and self-love in opposition. Such a dichotomy suggests that the measures necessary to avert a planetary catastrophe include a radical change in the Western way of living – a change usually understood as unattractive asceticism. The interpretation of Kierkegaard’s exposition of Matthew 22:39, however, proposes that sacrificing the egocentric self leads to a flourishing of the neighbor as much as one’s "deeper self." Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates that such an understanding of neighbor love is compatible with recent arguments in eco-theology (e.g., Sallie McFague’s concept of a kenotic "universal self"). Finally, the chapter discusses the challenges of an ecological reading of Works of Love. It brings Works of Love into a constructive dialogue with Rosi Braidotti’s posthumanist ethics of zoe, pointing out the strong resonances with Braidotti’s non-religious eco-philosophy.

This chapter presents a case study of Canada, examining the intricate relationship between Indigenous peoples and the developments related to British, then Canadian, governance. It begins by exploring the historical and legal context within which Indigenous peoples exist in Canada, tracing the impact of colonization and the recognition of Indigenous rights. The chapter then investigates the potential for affirming these rights through treaties and trade agreements, highlighting the role of treaties in recognizing and protecting Indigenous rights and the opportunities and challenges presented by trade agreements for Indigenous economic development and self-determination. It further analyses the Canadian government’s efforts to domestically enforce the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the intersection of Canadian treaties with trade agreements. This chapter emphasizes the importance of ongoing dialogue, collaboration, and the implementation of measures aligned with UNDRIP principles to foster the recognition, empowerment, and well-being of Indigenous peoples within the Canadian context.

Raising substantial criticism of rational choice theories in economics is not only a phenomenon among early bachelor’s students like I was at some point; it is not confined to the classroom. During the second half of the twentieth century, substantial attacks have been raised from various sides against the way in which economists conceptualize human behavior. We learn about some of the main critical positions through the conversations in this book. At the same time, applying rational choice theories extensively even beyond the social and behavioral sciences reveals the strong conviction among social scientists that those theories are capable of solving a variety of conceptual, methodological, and epistemic problems. The conversations in this book present some of the arguments by which this commitment has been justified by economists. They furthermore highlight different ways in which rational choice theories have been put to use for the different problems arising in economics. They reveal how theory choice is often the result of weighing the discipline’s commitment to specific epistemic ambitions in light of a particular image of science on the one hand with attempts to properly but also pragmatically cope with the messiness and complexity of the social world on the other hand. Given that economics is a policy science, these consideration of putting economic theory to use is furthermore shaped by the urgency with which solutions are sought to ground policy.

Chapter 8 summarises and concludes the analysis presented in the previous chapters. As highlighted throughout the book, the power of the courts to effectively protect freedom of expression is limited in the face of global digital networks and powerful private technology companies. This makes it all the more important to recognise not only the individual but also the institutional dimension of fundamental rights as objective value judgements under constitutional law, the implementation of which falls under the state’s duty to protect. Given the enormous technical and social complexity of the digital revolution, this task can only be accomplished through legislation.

This chapter examines a wide range of rabbinic sources and demonstrates that the rabbis gave considerable attention to God’s independent existence and strongly affirmed our capacity to refer to and speak truthfully about God.