general interest
Saved for a Purpose A Journey from Private Virtues to Public Values james a . joseph The son of a minister, James A. Joseph grew up in Louisiana’s Cajun country, where his parents taught him the value of education and the importance of serving others. These lessons inspired him to follow a career path that came to include working in senior executive or advisory positions for four U.S. presidents and with the legendary Nelson Mandela to build a new democracy
S AV E D F O R A PUR POSE A Journey from Private Virtues to Public Values
j a m e s a. j o s e p h
in South Africa. Saved for a Purpose is Joseph’s ethical autobiography, in which he shares his moral philosophy and his insights on leadership.
James A. Joseph is Professor Emeritus of the Practice of Public Policy at Duke University. Joseph served as the U.S. ambassador to South Africa from 1996 to 2000, and as the Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior from 1977 to 1981. He was the President and CEO of the Council on Foundations, Vice President of the Cummins Engine Company, and served as Chaplain of the Claremont Colleges. He is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the Order of Good Hope, South Africa’s highest award to a citizen of a foreign country. Joseph is also the author of Leadership as a Way of Being; Remaking America: How the Benevolent Traditions of Many Cultures Are Transforming Our National Life; and The Charitable Impulse: Wealth and Social Conscience in Communities and Cultures Outside the United States.
In an engaging and personal style, Joseph shows how his commitment to applying moral and ethical principles to large groups and institutions played out in his work in the civil rights move-
“I am so grateful that James A. Joseph has chosen to
ment in Alabama and as a college chaplain in California in the turbulent 1960s.
share lessons learned from a lifetime of service in this
His time later as vice president of the Cummins Engine Company provided
fine book.”—MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN , President,
an opportunity to promote corporate ethics, and his tenure as Under Secretary
Children’s Defense Fund
of the Interior in the Carter administration underscored the difficulty and weight of making the right decisions while balancing good policy analysis with transcendent moral principles. In 1996 President Bill Clinton selected Joseph to become the U.S. ambassador to South Africa. His recollections of working with Nelson Mandela, whom he describes as a noble and practical politician, and his observations about what
“James A. Joseph has had a remarkable career. I have enjoyed working with him and watching him implement the values and ideals of Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. He has written a book that I hope will be widely read.”—ANDREW YOUNG , former Congressman, United Nations ambassador, and Mayor of Atlanta
he learned from Desmond Tutu and others about reconciliation contain some of the book’s most poignant passages. Saved for a Purpose is unique, as Joseph combines his insights from working to integrate values into America’s public and private sectors with his long engagement with ethics as an
“Ambassador James A. Joseph brings a new approach to the question of why ethics matters by offering a compelling case for ethical decision making drawn from his wide and distinguished service in the real worlds
academic discipline and as a practical guide for social behavior. Ultimately,
of church, business, charitable foundations, politics,
it reflects Joseph’s passionate search for values that go beyond the personal
diplomacy, and higher education. The moral reasoning
to include the ethical imperatives that should be applied to the communal.
in Saved for a Purpose is incredibly clear, and it is written from an ethical perspective that is at once deeply rooted in religious conviction and informed by careful
All royalties from this book will be donated to the Association of Black Foundation
attention to the moral dimensions of decisions about
Executives (ABFE) and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, Florida.
major social, economic, and political issues.”—JOSEPH
C. HOUGH JR. , President Emeritus of Union Theological Seminary in New York and author of Black Power and White Protestants
M E M O I R /A F R I C A N A M E R I C A N S T U D I E S
September 336 pages, 27 illustrations cloth, 978–0–8223–5896–1, $29.95tr/£20.99
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