Living and Value

Frederick Ferré is Professor Emeritus at The University of Georgia. He is the author of many books, including Being and Value and Knowing and Value, both published by SUNY Press.

• Preface Introduction to SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern ThoughtDavid Ray Griffin 1. How Should We Approach Ethics? As a Way if ThinkingAs a Way of JudgingAs a Way of Acting Part One: Ethics 2. How Did We Get Here? Early Pretheoretical DaysClassical Premodern Ethical TheoryChristian Premodern Ethical TheoryEarly Modern Ethical TheoryLate Modern Ethical Theory 3. Ethics and Knowing Ethical ExperiencingEthical ThinkingEthical KnowingCoda: Overcoming Disconnections 4. Ethics and Being The Locus of ValueFreedom, Obligation, and ResponsibilityPersons and Organisms Part Two: Ethics and Religion 5. Context of Contexts Religious World ModelsAssessing Religious World Models 6. Question of God Question of ProofsQuestion of PurposeQuestion of Pluralism 7. Ugliness and Evil Evil as UglinessTypes of UglinessCultural UglinessNatural UglinessHandling Ugliness Part Three: Ethics and Society 8. Natural Values Extraterrestrial ValuesEarthling ValuesHuman Values 9. Technological Values Technologies of the OrganicTechnologies of the Personal 10. Political Values CreativityHomeostasisMutuality Works CitedNote on CentersName IndexSubject Index

"Ferré finds much of contemporary moral philosophy unsatisfactory. A correct ethics needs a better foundation, and this Ferré finds in the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Ferré offers an unusual and valuable way of looking at the world, and his book is highly recommended." — Library Journal"A practical and theoretical guide to those perplexed about the major issues of our day, the book provides a comprehensive historical review of Western ethics as well as a valid and persuasive counterproposal to the twin contemporary choices of ethical skepticism and ethical irrealism. By providing such a clearly written and competently argued account of 'personalistic organicism,' Ferré provides the present day cultural debate with a comprehensive and concrete alternative to the negative polemics characterizing so much of contemporary postmodern philosophy." — Joseph Grange, author of The City: An Urban Cosmology"Postmodernism is dominated by those who, rightly or wrongly, give the impression that their ethics amounts to either a Derridean relativism or a Foucauldian hermeneutics of suspicion (often connected, as I see things, to a revitalized concern for Hobbesian power). It is extremely important that we have a constructive postmodern ethics, a la Ferré." — Daniel Dombrowski, author of Kazantzakis and God