Denial of the Soul: Spiritual and Medical Perspectives on Euthanasia and Mortality

Morgan Scott Peck

Pocket, 1999 - Philosophy - 242 pages

Through a profound exploration of one of the most explosive issues of our age - euthanasia and the right to die - M. Scott Peck helps us determine the spiritual lessons that dying is meant to teach us. As a physician, psychiatrist and theologian, Dr Scott Peck is uniquely suited to address the complex issues that have resulted from medicine's ability to perpetuate the mechanisms of life - often without preserving life's essence. DENIAL OF THE SOUL grapples with the deeper meanings of life and death and asks whether we have the ethical right to kill ourselves even though we have the power. Through compelling stories from Dr Peck's own experiences as a physician as well as from other medical cases, he guides the readers through a disturbing emotional and philosophical terrain towards greater spiritual understanding.

Contents

• Chapter: 1
• Murder Suicide and Natural Death: 7
• PART II: 119

About the author

M. Scott Peck was born on May 22, 1936 in New York City. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and was attending Middlebury College before being expelled for refusing to attend mandatory R.O.T.C. sessions. He transferred to Harvard University, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1958, and then received a medical degree in 1963 from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He was a psychiatrist in the United States Army for nearly 10 years, was the director of the New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic, and worked in a private psychiatric practice in Connecticut. In 1984, he helped establish the Foundation for Community Encouragement, whose mission is to promote and teach the principles of Community. He was among the founding fathers of the self-help genre of books. His works include The Road Less Traveled, Further Along the Road Less Traveled, The Road Less Traveled and Beyond, People of the Lie, and The Different Drum. He also wrote a novel entitled A Bed by the Window. He received the 1984 Kaleidoscope Award for Peacemaking, the 1994 Temple International Peace Prize, and the Learning, Faith and Freedom Medal from Georgetown University in 1996. He died from complications of pancreatic and liver duct cancer on September 25, 2005 at the age of 69.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Denial of the Soul: Spiritual and Medical Perspectives on Euthanasia and Mortality; Spiritual and Medical Perspectives on Euthanasia and Mortali
• Author: Morgan Scott Peck
• Edition: reprint, revised
• Publisher: Pocket, 1999
• ISBN: 0671010476, 9780671010478
• Length: 242 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Religion / Spirituality; Social Science / Death & Dying