Bibliograph

Type

Label

Reflections on life, death, and the constitution, George Anastaplo

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 280-284) and index

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Reflections on life, death, and the constitution

Nature of contents

dictionariesbibliography

Oclc number

753968755

Responsibility statement

George Anastaplo

Summary

The role of law in government has been increasingly scrutinized as courts struggle with controversial topics such as assisted suicide, euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, and torture. Reflections on Life, Death, and the Constitution explores such issues by using classical standards of morality as a starting point for understanding them. Drawing on works of literature and philosophy, and on U.S. Supreme Court decisions, George Anastaplo examines the intimate relationship between human nature and constitutional law

Table Of Contents

On understanding others -- Life and not-life in Thucydides' Funeral oration -- Death and resurrection in Euripides' Bacchae -- Resurrection and death in Everyman -- John Milton and the limits of the Garden of Eden -- Human morality and the Declaration of Independence -- Time and the Constitution -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the modern project -- Public health and private consciences -- The Flag Salute Cases (1940, 1943) -- Conscientious objectors and military conscription -- Obliteration bombing, civilian casualties, and the laws of war -- Do all somehow aim at the good? -- Shakespeare's Hamlet and the elusiveness of the good -- Unconventional religious duties and the good life -- Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and the prevention of conception -- Roe v. Wade (1973) and the law of abortion -- Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) and the persistence of the abortion issue -- Capital punishment and the United States Supreme Court -- Capital punishment reconsidered -- Nancy Cruzan and "The right to die" -- Washington v. Glucksberg (1997) and assisted suicide -- The legislation of morality and the problem of pain -- Evolution and the law -- Life and death in Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address -- The unseemly fearfulness of our time

Classification