Creons Ghost Law Justice and the Humanities

This book examines the enduring problem of the relationship between man's law and a “higher” law from the perspective of core humanities texts and through.
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Search my Subject Specializations: Classical, Early, and Medieval Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval World History: Civil War American History: Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content. Bibliographic Information Print publication date: Authors Affiliations are at time of print publication.

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Subscriber Login Email Address. Today, such issues as intelligent design in school curricula, same-sex marriage, and faith-based government grants are all examples of the interaction between man's law and some other set of moral principles.

As these debates are considered in this book, the author uses texts such as Antigone and Plato's Republic and pairs them with the most important jurisprudence texts of the 20th century to explore different approaches to the contemporary conflict or court ruling under consideration. Creon's Ghost demonstrates that the humanities can both illuminate our understanding of contemporary problems and that "classic" texts can be read alongside jurisprudential texts, thus enriching our understanding of and appreciation for law.

It does so in a bracing and fresh way, using classic humanities texts, legal philosophy, and legal cases to illustrate how humans have engaged and are engaging in an ongoing struggle for justice.


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  6. Tomain is a subtle and sophisticated reader and an expert practitioner of interdisciplinary study. As a result, he is able to call our attention to continuities and discontinuities in the ways societies have confronted the tension between what the state asks of us and what our moral scruples demand from us. In doing so he makes a truly valuable contribution to the literature. It is a thrilling and fascinating ride the whole way through. Joseph Tomain has a rare gift for bringing high theory to the lowly and difficult cases to which it should apply.

    Creon's ghost : law, justice, and the humanities / Joseph P. Tomain - Details - Trove

    Creon's Ghost haunts these arguments because, like Creon in condemning Antigone, no legal system can ever fully satisfy--or fully silence--our deepest moral intuitions and passions. The book is rich with analysis and detail, providing a full curriculum of theories and cases.

    It leaves its readers not with a simplifying and purportedly final theory but with a welcome sense of the tragic incompleteness of all our efforts to do justice. Beginning with Antigone, Tomain asks where Creon went astray in his rageful reductionistic legal positivist approach.

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    This classical event sets the stage for the creative interplay of law, literature and political theory. Issues are developed historically from Plato, Aquinas, and Machiavelli on to Austin, Judge Holmes and into the twentieth century concluding with Stuart Hampshire's thoughtful account of reasoning and argument. A must read for everyone interested in transcending the pragmatic legal theory so common in contemporary legal education. These questions were first addressed in world literature by Sophocles in his Antigone, told through the story of Creon.

    In his own masterpiece, Creon's Ghost , Joseph Tomain reformulates and recreates the eternal conflict between law and justice.

    Creon's Ghost: Law, Justice, and the Humanities

    Within a deeply insightful process of exposition critically avoiding both orthodox legal and humanities analysis, Creon's Ghost reveals the truths of law and justice through a series of totally compelling and brilliantly interwoven conversations about texts taken from law, drama, literature, philosophy, theology, and poetry. Creon's Ghost is an indispensable contribution to the great conversation-- in law, in literature, and in the humanities--about what it means to be human.

    John's University School of Law. It challenges us to confront a central question of any legal system: What is the relation between the limits of human law and the desire for justice under higher law? The book explores the responses to this challenge given in law, philosophy, and literature, from Plato and Aquinas to Holmes and Martin Luther King. Lawyers, humanists, and all thoughtful citizens will be engaged by its narrative and analysis and pressed to examine their own beliefs about law and justice.