Research Catalog

Title

Freedom's law : the moral reading of the American Constitution / Ronald Dworkin.

Author

Dworkin, Ronald

Publication

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Rawls, John, 1921-2002

Description

viii, 404 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Dworkin argues that Americans have been systemically misled about what their Constitution is and how judges decide what it means. What does its abstract language mean when it is applied to the political controversies that divide Americans--about affirmative action, euthanasia, censorship, pornography, and homosexuality, for example? Is the moral reading of the Constitution--the only reading that really makes sense--really undemocratic? In this fascinating book, Dworkin discusses these and other aspects of the document.

Subject

• Constitutional law > Moral and ethical aspects > United States
• USA
• United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 349-389) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

I. Life, death, and race : 1. Roe in danger -- 2. Verdict postponed -- 3. What the Constitution says -- 4. Roe was saved -- 5. Do we have the right to die? -- 6. Gag rule and affirmative action -- II. Speech, conscience, and sex : 1. The press on trial -- 2. Why must speech be free? -- 3. Pornography and hate -- 4. MacKinnon’s Words -- 5. Why academic freedom? -- III. Judges : 1. Bork: the Senate’s responsibility -- 2. What Bork’s defeat meant -- 3. Bork’s own postmortem -- 4. The Thomas Nomination -- 5. Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas -- 6. Learned hands.

ISBN

• 0674319273 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 0674319281 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^^95042193^

OCLC

33243091

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library