In the Introduction, the need for an interdisciplinary approach to human well-being is presented, focusing on law and the social sciences, to elevate the interests of humanity amid rapid scientific and technological change.

In Chapter 1, human well-being is defined and compared globally as inherently relational and creative, based on current research, indicating that the impact of technology is causing societal and individual stress, particularly due to social isolation.

In Chapter 10, the book concludes with a review of the numerous means available in the law to support the well-being of humans in an age of rapid scientific and technological development, emphasizing the need to revisit what it is to be human.

In Chapter 2, the human is defined for the purpose of legally advocating for the needs of humanity. Biological considerations are made, including the history of Social Darwinism and the misuse of selective traits to legally discriminate.

Chapter 1 uses the picture of human creation to “rule” other creatures in Genesis 1 as an entry point for exploring how the category of “animal” most fundamentally identifies a nonhuman being that is a) exploitable if useful or b) expendable if not. At the same time, Genesis 1 provides an occasion to reflect on how agriculturally oriented humans created gods in their image, gods who exhibited both the power and the care of other beings characteristic of domesticators.

Introduction: Using “The Lord is my shepherd” as a point of entry, this chapter rethinks domestication as a shared condition forming both human and animal lives rather than a practice imposed only upon nonhuman creatures. By exposing how ancient, human-centered frameworks of subjugation obscure the mutual confinement of humans and animals within long-standing systems of power, it reveals domestication as a pervasive and largely unrecognized structure of social life.

This address calls for a return to the original mission of religion: to serve humanity. It emphasizes that all religions stem from one divine truth and were revealed to guide people toward justice, peace and unity. Religion’s decline into conflict occurs when it is co-opted for self-interest and power. True religion defends the vulnerable and opposes tyranny, aligning itself with the poor and oppressed.

The text urges unity among faiths to overcome division and serve human dignity. It criticizes modern civilization for sidelining faith and exploiting human energy through consumerism, inequality and the idolization of wealth. Religion, it argues, must restore balance, cultivate human potential and oppose injustice, lies and pride, which drain societal energy.

Human freedom, faith and moderation are essential for social harmony. The human being is central: the engine of history, bearer of divine qualities and the true wealth of Lebanon. Society must nurture every person’s potential, without marginalization or exclusion.

Sadr advocates for inclusive development, justice and unity in Lebanon, framing the country’s diversity and human capital as sacred trusts. Only through sincere commitment to human dignity and shared responsibility can Lebanon fulfill its moral, spiritual and national purpose.

The principle of popular sovereignty allows for only democracy as a form of government. But democracy produces the political factions that can corrupt government unless constrained. Beginning with the corrupting influence of factions in the state governments after the Revolution, the chapter discusses the Framers’ understanding of why human nature leads to factions.

Modern proponents of free speech maintain that the value of expression resides in its authenticity-making power, which generates political legitimacy. They simultaneously concede that the value of expression is not without abridgments, no matter how deeply felt or authentically fulfilling such expression may be. Given these commitments, how can free speech be valued for its authenticity-making power, and yet also conditionally regulated? This chapter explores a resolution based on an interpretation of Aquinas’s thought on speech and expression. First, Aquinas clarifies Aristotle’s distinction between vox (animal expression) and loquutio (logical discourse) as an irreducible relationship of explanandum and explanans: loquutio is uniquely disposed to comprehending what is just or unjust within what is pleasant or painful. Second, Thomistic loquutio is directed to truth while permitting false claims as logical-temporal constituents of discourse, requiring above all a “discursive situation” that avoids both contradiction and epistemically unjustified conviction. These characteristics of Thomistic loquutio are supported by his treatment of angelic communication, which is not revelatory so much as consultatory from a second-person perspective and clarificatory from a first-person perspective. Ultimately, this interpretive Thomistic account rejects the modern commitment of authenticity without absolutism, while affirming certain aspects of what makes speech politically valuable.

This chapter presents a historical survey of environmental fictions in Africa, considering the robust scholarly interests in ecocriticism. Of particular significance are the emergence of the environmental fiction genre, marked by the relocation of ecocritical concepts from North America to Africa, the transition of existing literary works to the domain of environmental fiction, an efflorescence of self-representing environmental narratives, the co-existence of fictive and non-fictive narratives, and the attendant ecocritical discourse in the present time. Considering these, African environmental fictions can be grouped into two. The first group are fictions that explicitly thematize environmental justice and declaim the eco-destructive culture of extractive industries and corporate capitalism. Writings under this category are mostly transgressive, with a sense of activism. The second group are fictions that come under revisionist ecocritical studies focused on the idea that certain narratives predating the emergence of ecocriticism lend themselves to an ecocritical reading, in that such fictions have represented human–nonhuman relations, interdependence, and multi-species presence. A further strand of this chapter pays attention to the local particularities of nations such as Nigeria and South Africa, with prominent voices in African environmental fiction, and the peculiar ecological realities represented by authors from these countries.

One of the key concepts of this book is “incentive bargaining.” We view the firm as an ongoing joint project, which requires both monetary and human capital. There are two main groups of indispensable capital providers to the joint project: (1) management and employees as the human capital providers; and (2) shareholders and creditors as the monetary capital providers. These two groups need to motivate other capital providers to provide their capital to maximize their own payoff. The bargaining among the indispensable capital providers that motivates each player to provide its capital to the joint project will be called “incentive bargaining.” Incentive bargaining among the four players in a stock corporation is made not as a multilateral bargaining but as a complex of three bilateral bargaining processes via management. The way of incentive bargaining, or incentive pattern, in each country can be categorized into either the balancing image, the monitoring image, or the bargaining image, based on the way of coalition among the four players.