Since its appearance on the Western landscape three centuries ago, modern capitalism has given rise to a mythology that, unlike previous socio-economic orders, is so powerful that it can function without an ethical embedding – or simply create one in its own image. This essay argues that this end-of-ethics talk is premature, and only obscures the fact that capitalism is plural in its political and ethical forms, and equally varied in its social organizations and relation to the state. Rather than capitalism everywhere creating a homogeneous ethical landscape by bulldozing intermediary institutions and extra-market value spheres, capitalist societies have given rise to an agonistic plurality of political and moral embeddings and contentions. The essay explores this diversity through a comparison of modern capitalisms in Western, East Asian, and Islamic world areas.

This introduction to the edited volume considers the complex and myriad interactions between Buddhism and constitutional law in Asia. It summarizes the main themes of the volume.

One of the best known distinctions among the precepts of Judaism is that between the precepts that apply “between man and God” and those that apply “between man and his fellow.” It is generally assumed that this distinction has been a matter of consensus since the time of the talmudic sages.

The present article examines this assumption by means of a close reading of the earliest sources that draw the distinction between the two categories. The discussion of the tannaitic sources will reveal disagreements about this categorization. We will review this disagreement in the context of a hidden debate between the talmudic sages and early Christian literature.

In this context, we will also address the question of the enumeration of the Ten Commandments and their division on the tablets into two sets of five precepts. We will propose that the talmudic sages’ position on this question is also a polemic response to the approach that emerged in early Christianity.

Family law is often overlooked in transnational law scholarship, partly because it is still seen as a domestic field of inquiry, while transnational law is perceived as related to market regulation. This chapter argues instead that family law is an excellent example of a field that is deeply shaped by the transnational legal dynamics, that transnational law scholars seek to capture and critically examine. To show that, the chapter analyzes a set of contemporary case studies, such as the application of religious law, same-sex marriage, and transnational surrogacy, by focusing on different actors, norms and process that take place below, beyond and across states. Likewise, the chapter argues that globalization dynamics that are at the heart of transnational law analysis, such as the flow of power and the transformation of the state, cannot be fully understood without paying attention to the evolution of family law. To show this, the chapter examines how questions of legal pluralism, the contestation of the private/public distinction and the advent of the neoliberal state, cannot be fully understood without taking into account family law.

This chapter focuses on the relationship between the state, attitudes to warfare as enshrined in Christian theory, and the practice of warfare as exemplified in medieval eastern Roman, or Byzantine, relations with its various enemies, with a short introductory section on violence in non-warfare contexts. While nominally opposed to violent means to achieve its ends, the Christian Byzantine state found ways to justify engaging in warfare against its enemies, primarily based on the notion that it was involved in a perpetual defensive struggle with those who threatened its territorial integrity as well as its moral existence. All warfare could thus be understood by definition as a defensive struggle against those who threatened the empire’s existence. This applied likewise to overtly offensive warfare, which was legitimated within a Christian eschatology as a divinely-approved effort to recover lost territories and restore them to the Christian community. Hence, no theory of ‘holy war’ or ‘crusade’ evolved, because such was irrelevant. Such an ideology offered a constant theoretical basis for fighting the empire’s foes; and it also served the needs of the imperial elite and the court on an opportunistic basis, to justify offensive warfare whenever the empire was in a position to undertake such action. Such an ideology legitimating warfare could also deployed against Christian neighbours, when it suited the interests of the imperial state or its elite.