Reflections on Life, Death, and the Constitution
Online ISBN:
9780813135243
Print ISBN:
9780813125336
Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky
Book
Reflections on Life, Death, and the Constitution
Published online:
14 September 2011
Published in print:
9 June 2009
Online ISBN:
9780813135243
Print ISBN:
9780813125336
Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky
Cite
Anastaplo, George, Reflections on Life, Death, and the Constitution (Lexington, KY , 2009; online edn, Kentucky Scholarship Online, 14 Sept. 2011), https://doi.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813125336.001.0001, accessed 19 Apr. 2025.
Abstract
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. This book 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, the book examines the intimate relationship between human nature and constitutional law.
Contents
-
Front Matter
-
Part One
-
1.
On Understanding the Others
-
2.
Life and Not-Life in Thucydides’ Funeral Oration
-
3.
Death and Resurrection in Euripides’ Bacchae
-
4.
Resurrection and Death in Everyman
-
5.
John Milton and the Limits of the Garden of Eden
-
6.
Human Mortality and the Declaration of Independence
-
7.
Time and the Constitution
-
8.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the Modern Project
-
9.
Public Health and Private Consciences
-
10.
The Flag Salute Cases (1940, 1943)
-
11.
Conscientious Objectors and Military Conscription
-
12.
Obliteration Bombing, Civilian Casualties, and the Laws of War
-
13.
Do All Somehow Aim at the Good?
-
1.
On Understanding the Others
-
Part Two
-
1.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the Elusiveness of the Good
-
2.
Unconventional Religious Duties and the Good Life
-
3.
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and the Prevention of Conception
-
4.
Roe v. Wade (1973) and the Law of Abortion
-
5
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) and the Persistence of the Abortion Issue
-
6.
Capital Punishment and the United States Supreme Court
-
7.
Capital Punishment Reconsidered
-
8
Nancy Cruzan and “The Right to Die”
-
9.
Washington v. Glucksberg (1997) and Assisted Suicide
-
10
The Legislation of Morality and the Problem of Pain
-
11.
Evolution and the Law
-
12.
Life and Death in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
-
13.
The Unseemly Fearfulness of Our Time
-
1.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the Elusiveness of the Good
-
End Matter
-
Appendix A
The Declaration of Independence (1776)
-
Appendix B
The United States Constitution (1787)
-
Appendix C
The Amendments to the United States Constitution (1791–1992)
- Appendix D Pericles, The Funeral Address (431 B.C.E.)
-
Appendix E
On Death and Dying: Ancient, Christian, and Modern
- Appendix F Patrick Henry, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death (1775)
- Appendix G Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address (1863)
- Appendix H George Anastaplo, on the Ultron and the Foundations of Things (1974)
- Appendix I Life, Death, and the Systematic Perversions of Law (2000)
-
Appendix J
Cases and Other Materials Drawn On
- Index
- About the Author
-
Appendix A
The Declaration of Independence (1776)
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