ABSTRACT
Law has been a phenomenon of extreme importance in whatever social formation. What is true for previous eras obtains also for modernity. At the same time, that ODZKDVLWVRZQG\QDPLFDQGVSHFL¿FIHDWXUHVDQGLWDOVRH[SUHVVHVDQGOHQGVD particular form to other social phenomena. On the other hand, law has been a cornerstone of modern universalism and a mainstay of both freedom and equality, the two outstanding spearheads of universalism in modernity. This chapter will develop an argument about a third phase of modernity and the possibilities of a new, richer form of universalism. Three steps will be taken for that. First we will examine the development of law in modernity, from its liberal origins to the present situation. Then we shall proceed to tackle some underlying processes, bringing up an increased level of complexity in modernity. Finally, the possibility and the face of universalism in this changed modern landscape will be assessed, positively as well as in confrontation with a number of alternative perspectives. %HIRUHWKDWKRZHYHUOHWPHEULHÀ\H[SORUHWKHSHUPDQHQFHRIPRGHUQLW\DQG
the reason therefore for my retention of the concept. I take modernity here not as a particular project or as a cultural formation, although to some extent these elements DUHSDUWRIDPRUHJHQHUDOGH¿QLWLRQ,QP\YLHZPRGHUQLW\LVEHWWHUGH¿QHGDV a global civilization (Domingues 2009a). That is how most sociologists, from Marx, Weber and Durkheim to Parsons and others implicitly, and more recently Eisenstadt and Arnason explicitly, understood the matter-although I want here VSHFL¿FDOO\WRVWUHVVLWVJOREDOFKDUDFWHU$VZLWKDQ\RWKHUFLYLOL]DWLRQPRGHUQLW\ is multidimensional, and must be so understood. Researchers coming from the humanities and cultural analysis often used to be prone to propose postmodernity as an alternative standpoint, which basically implies that the main elements of the modern project are exhausted. Surely the project-or the projects, to be more precise-of modernity have been to a great extent brought down to earth and thus incompletely institutionalized in modern societies. But even the cultural elements of modernity seem to remain important. Individualism, the struggle for and the axiological stronghold of freedom and equality remain with us; individualism and the multiple modern forms of the construction of the self have not left this world either; the same happens with a myriad of other hermeneutic aspects of the modern imaginary. They have changed and modernity is by no means the same thing it once was, but I do not see any sort of rupture here. Moreover, from a sociological
perspective we can detect even more continuity: capitalism, the modern state, (hyper) industrialism, and henceforth. Of course, much has changed and this is why I think it is necessary to qualify modernity and introduce an interpretation of its different phases. This will be more productive once those several steps are previously taken, though. The idea of modernity developing in three phases will also be of crucial importance in what follows, law working to a great extent as a yardstick and a pacemaker of its development (Wagner 1994; Domingues 2002a, 2006, 2008, 2012).1
