The
Ethics of Creativity: Beauty, Morality, and Nature in a Processive Cosmos
(University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005)
2007 winner
of the Metaphysical Society of America's Findlay Book Prize
Book Description
A central concern of nearly every environmental ethic is its desire to
extend the scope of direct moral concern beyond human beings to plants,
nonhuman animals, and the systems of which they are a part. Although
nearly all environmental philosophies have long since rejected
modernity's conception of individuals as isolated and independent
substances, few have replaced this worldview with an alternative that is
adequate to the organic, processive world in which we find ourselves. In
this context, Brian G. Henning argues that the often overlooked work of
Alfred North Whitehead has the potential to make a significant
contribution to environmental ethics. Additionally inspired by classical
American philosophers such as William James, John Dewey and Charles
Sanders Pierce and environmental philosophers such as Aldo Leopold,
Peter Singer, Albert Schweitzer, and Arne Naess, Henning develops an
ethical theory of which the seminal insight is called "The Ethics of
Creativity."
By systematically examining and
developing a conception of individuality that is equally at home with
the microscopic world of subatomic events and the macroscopic world of
ecosystems, The Ethics of Creativity correctly emphasizes the well-being
of wholes, while not losing sight of the importance of the unique
centers of value that constitute these wholes. In this way, The Ethics
of Creativity has the potential to be a unique voice in contemporary
moral philosophy.
From the Back Cover
"This book provides a remarkably
clear and attractive foundation for an ethic that seamlessly binds
human social justice to a wider moral engagement with the natural
environment. Enhancing intrinsic beauty everywhere is shown to be
our deepest obligation and our highest joy."
--Frederick Ferré, University of Georgia
"With his focus on creativity, Henning throws
into a new light all the classical concerns of ethics-persons,
pleasures, pains, life, death, rights, utilities, virtues, the
beautiful, the ugly, the good, the evil. He exemplifies the creative
process he so much celebrates. Often demanding, this is always a
most illuminating analysis: ethics taken at the pitch."
--Holmes Rolston III, Colorado State University
Reviews
Brian Henning has produced a veritable vade mecum of
reflections upon the intertwining and implications of metaphysical,
aesthetic, and ethical issues in the work of Whitehead. He forcefully
and insightfully places creativity at the very heart of Whitehead's
philosophical project. This category of the ultimate, meant to specify
the most fundamental feature of cosmic process, is rotated in resolute
and perspicuous fashion by Henning in a set of chapters that mix, in
appropriate, but not fully separated, measures, exposition,
argumentation, and application.
—Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy
Henning has given us a rigorous work of ethical
philosophy for the new millennium. If there are details still to be
worked out, such is true with all visionary works. The Ethics of
Creativity deserves to be read more than once and could be used in a
graduate, or upper level undergraduate, environmental ethics course, or
as an interesting addition to any course on Whitehead's philosophy. If
we are to contribute to the further development of a beautiful world,
more work should be done to bring process philosophy into the service of
producing creative solutions to current world problems. The Ethics of
Creativity is a bold and positive step in exactly the right
direction.
- Process Studies
Articles and Chapters
Anthology chapter in progress: “Re-centering Process Thought: Recovering
Beauty in A. N. Whitehead’s Late Thought” in Beyond Metaphysics?
Explorations in Alfred North Whitehead’s Late Thought (under contract,
Editions Rodopi)
Current project: “From Exception to Exemplification: Understanding the
Debate Over Darwin” in Genesis and Darwin, Ed.
Leslie Ortiz (under contract St. Mary’s Press).
“Swarms, Schools, Flocks, and Colonies: Exploring the
Ontology of Collective Individuals” The Global Spiral 10:3 (2009). (html)
“Trusting in the ‘Efficacy of Beauty’: A Kalocentric Approach to Moral
Philosophy,” Ethics and the
Environment 14:1 (2009). (pdf
version)
“From Despot to Steward: The Greening of Catholic Social
Teaching,” in The Heart of Catholic Social teaching: It's Origin and
Contemporary Significance, Ed. David M. McCarthy (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009).
(pdf
version)
“Process and Morality,” in Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought,
Ed. Michel Weber
(Frankfurt, Germany: Ontos Verlag, 2008). (pdf
version)
“Is There an Ethics of Creativity?” in Whiteheadian Ethics, Ed.
Theodore Walker (forthcoming from Cambridge Scholars Publishing). (pdf
version)
“Is There an Ethics of Creativity?” in Chromatikon II: Yearbook of
Philosophy in Process, Eds. Michel Weber and Diane D'Epremesnil
(Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2006). (pdf
version)
“Morality in the Making,” Science and Theology News 6.10 (June 2006):
31-33. (pdf
version)
“Saving Whitehead’s Universe of Value: An ‘Ecstatic’ Challenge to the
Classical Interpretation,” International Philosophical Quarterly 45
(2005): 447-466. (pdf
version)
“Getting Substance to Go All the Way: Norris Clarke’s Neo-Thomism and the
Process Turn,” The Modern Schoolman 81 (2004): 215-225. (pdf
version)
“On the Possibility of a Whiteheadian Aesthetics of Morals,” Process
Studies 31 (2002): 97-114. (pdf
version)
“On the Way to an Ethics of Creativity,” International Journal for
Field-Being 2 (2002) Article No. 3.
Current
Monograph Project
Henning is currently working on a book that defends a
kalocentric or beauty-centered approach to one of the most pressing moral
issues of our time: global climate change. This account holds that the complex legal, economic, political, and
technological factors contributing to global warming are ultimately the
result of inadequate or attenuated conceptions of nature and value. Building
on my earlier work in The Ethics of Creativity, this project defends
a novel kalocentric approach to global warming that takes as our most basic
duty the obligation to act in such a way as to bring about the greatest
possible universe of beauty and value that in each situation is possible.
This approach is particularly well suited to address the multifaceted issues
involved in the ethics of global warming in that first, it adopts a model of
speculative philosophy that insists on the fallibilistic and open-ended
nature of all inquiry; second, in defending a multidimensional continuum of
beauty and value, this approach appropriately recognizes not only the
intrinsic value of both individual organisms and the systems of which they
are a part, it also recognizes the potentially morally significant
differences between the different types of individuals; third, it presents a
model of moral decision-making that helps provide guidance as to how we
ought to begin to respond to the challenge of global climate change.
Other projects:
Executive Editor, New Whitehead Edition - first critical
edition of A. N.
Whitehead’s complete works, in collaboration with the scholars of the
Whitehead Research Project.
Co-authored project: with Mary Katherine Birge, Rodica Stoicoiu, and Ryan
Taylor, Genesis and Darwin, Ed. Leslie Ortiz (under contract, St. Mary’s Press)
Co-edited project: with Roland Faber and Clinton Combs Beyond Metaphysics? Explorations in Alfred North Whitehead’s Late Work
(under contract, Editions Rodopi)
Co-edited project: with William Collinge, anthology on Christian conceptions
of environmental stewardship
