ABSTRACT
Religion has found its way to the digital space. Digital religion, worship and piety are becoming more conspicuous than ever in Christianity in Nigeria. This reality has raised a great deal of questions concerning the compatibility of religion and the cyberspace. The moral and community aspects of religion have also been somewhat thwarted and the academic study of religion became even more complex. This study interrogates the digital religion, worship and piety phenomenon in the light of Emile Durkheim's functional theory of religion and Jeremy Bentham's ethical theory, utilitarianism. This descriptive study garners data from focus group discussions, participant observation, interviews, and published literature, and adopts the inductive approach to research and analyzes data thematically. Findings show that the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions on physical contact heightened digital religion in Nigeria. A sociological and ethical analysis of the phenomenon of digital religion is instructive and reveals that digital religion is laced with a great deal of social and moral gains, as well as pitfalls. Digital religion also complicates the academic study of religion in contemporary times. To counter all these, this paper recommends, among other things, that caution should be taken in order not to make a total transition to digital religion, but rather use a hybridized form. Again, the paper recommends the deployment of rule utilitarianism in order to clearly define acceptable rules for digital religion, worship and piety, and scholars of religion should use the already available knowledge of digital methodologies to be able to better analyze the evolution of religion in contemporary times.
ABSTRACT
In the last decades, the influence of the economic approach to law has expanded constantly, sometimes alarmingly so, efficiency and utility considerations steeping deep into the fabric of all aspects pertaining to the creation and application of law. Following a brief overview of the economic analysis of law, with references to utilitarianism, the Chicago School and their modern spin-offs, this article will attempt to convey the limitations that such an approach inevitably presents and some of its the practical consequences in the legal field. The main tenant is that the economic analysis of law is neither applicable to all subject matters, nor is it ideologically-neutral. The methodological instruments used for this research include, inter alia, the comparative method and case studies of both legislation and jurisprudence. The Covid-19 crisis of 2020 will inevitably augment the importance of the economic factors in shaping future public policies and legislation. The tendency to prioritise the economic considerations will prove difficult to resist for governments confronted with receding economies, rising public debt and social pressures of various origins. Therefore, we consider that a realistic debate on the pitfalls of the economic approach to law is necessary and serves not merely theoretical purposes, but practical ones as well.