Antonio Sandu

The volume brings together a series of theoretical analysis and field studies in applied ethics. The philosophical perspectives concerned are the social-constructionist and the appreciative one (derived from appreciative inquiry). Are addressed themes of ethics, as autonomy and its social construction, contractualist ethics, and feminist ethics of care. The volume also examines some contemporary challenges that rise in front of ethics: transumanism and artificial improvement of species, protection of dignity of the human species, etc. Are also addressed both ethical counseling and supervision of ethics, presenting an unique approach. In the volume we propose a model of ethics as appreciative ethics of care, which proposes a synthesis between feminist ethics of care and appreciative inquiry, as a priority of the author.

Volume "Social-Constructionist Epistemology" brings into the readers' attention the most important developments that were made around the transmodernity paradigm. During its eight chapters we intend to emphasize the close connection between areas such as: communication and semiotics, transmodernity, scientific authorship, epistemology, social constructionism, philosophy, ethics, quantum metaphysics, and appreciative inquiry. This paper is based on identifying the cultural models and cognitive patterns that make possible the comprehensive opening, in the meaning of rethinking ethics in terms of transmodern paradigm. The base of this research is represented by a methodology that we called fractal constructionism. This concept is a paradigm taken from the sociology of communication, which tells us that reality is a construct "made by symbolic interacting of maps of the world of various individuals." In this sense, the idea of fractal implies a fundamental structural element and a generating law. The human being is "designed" to succeed and his success is produced thanks to the evolution of world, and most of all, thanks to development, creativity and understanding.

Within this article, we propose to treat the importance of establishing committees of ethics in social work organizations. We refer here to the ethical analysis of individualized service plans and intervention strategies that case managers apply to beneficiaries, the central ethical problem being represented by the analysis of conditions of ethical acceptability of social intervention. The ethical evaluation of services should consider the principles of beneficence, autonomy, non-maleficence and justice, as treated by Beauchamp and Childress, as a variant of the principles stipulated in the Belmont report. The paper has argumentative character, the central premise being that intervention in social work is a form of action research and thus it should be based on the same rules of research on human subjects. The second premise is that social intervention changes the quality of life of the beneficiary, and this change requires ethical evaluation in order to analyze the conditions in which ethics is perceived and accepted as defining part of the social intervention. Customizations will refer to informed consent as a tool of implementing autonomy of the beneficiary.

The characteristic of postmodernism as a cultural paradigm is deconstruction. The fact that “deconstruction” allows a hermeneutical adrift, centrifuge and without poles, shows the difficulty of understanding the ways of thinking, supreme tolerance, which accepts any text. No interpretation of Deconstruction, in Derrida's way as the sense of universality of language, it is not possible, because any interpretation goes in same direction as deconstruction. From the deconstructive-reconstructive hermeneutic methodology we can analyze the existential meaning of historical or social phenomena in terms of understanding the socio-historical reality as a construct that was generated by a "reframed" interpretation. Philosophical issue is "a pretext" of the hermeneutical process of creating the significance. Constructionist epistemology is a structure close to postmodernism perspective in manner of the vision of Lyotard, under which our image of reality is a narrative one, a consensus of speech. The legal discourse is a particular form of speech and can be analyzed in constructionist manner as a textual analysis. The analysis of the legal system must take into account the collective character of interpretive construction. Radically changing the interpretation or the context we modify the interpretation of the representation of reality which consciousness substitute for reality itself. In Foucault's view, Power is internal and constitutive to the discourse.

In this paper we aim to outline a protocol for the implementation of favorable social group, aiming to highlight a number of specific factors such as number of persons, type of group, which features the most important steps such as introduction, conduct etc. group. It will also enhance the models and techniques for applying the basic methods appreciative of this group. To achieve this subchapter shall follow the defining characteristics of a group as they are presented in the literature. Besides theoretical directions emphasis will be placed on how to implement in practice by mixing methodological relizat appreciative group socialization.

The volume Practicing Relational Ethics in Organizations having as authors Gitte Haslebo and Maja Loua Haslebo issued by Taos Institute Publications Ohio USA, discusses relational ethics and ethical practice in the organization. The problem of ethical practice in the organization besides being a necessity for business it overlaps with aspects of organizational culture, personnel management, leadership. Within the organizational ethics, the authors select the issue of relational ethics from a social, constructionist and appreciative perspective. The authors aim to inspire the readers through a complex approach of ethical relations within the organization that are fundamentally unpredictable and subject to continuous change.

Appreciative socialization group is the result of a strong collaboration between a NGO from Iasi, Romania, active volunteers and service users involved. In this paper we aim to offer the rules of implementation of this model. It is important to respect some rules in order to obtain the desired result - social integration of disabled persons in our case. Apprecitive socialization group is based on a number of elements taken from the literature that treats this subject, and a number of elements of appreciative inquiry, the process of socialization, the process of empowerment and also the partnership process.

Although the convergence between appreciative ideology and the ideologies derived from the need of preserving human dignity is not complete, they can be seen in a single paradigm of affirmative action. Although restorative justice principles are not inspired by appreciative inquiry methodology, are at least converging with it, both of them focusing on human potential positivity. Moving the accent from the offense and its due retribution, on the recovery of prior state offense, both for the victim and the offender, this can be interpreted as waiving the deficiency paradigm, and integrating positive experiences resulting from mediation offender-victim relationship in an appreciative paradigm. Application of appreciative inquiry in restorative justice and in probation systems is a unique area in the world, it being applied only on an experimental level in some restorative justice programs.

The present article aims to analyze from epistemological and methodological point of view, the most common practices in developing a scientific article, starting from the perspective of the editor of scientific journals. Understanding the mechanisms of peer review, usually determine authors to reformulate their articles so that reviewers are more inclined to accept the proposal for publication. In developing a scientific article, in order to be submitted for publication, a series of principles should be taken into consideration, principles to ensure the article a necessary audience and a better perception of the informational content. Scientific publication focuses on disseminating the results of the research that we achieved. Publication in specialized journals takes into account the audience offered by these journals.

By deconstruction of any reality, postmodernism suppresses itself the action space of values. In this way, postmodernism involves the entire scope of human beings: culture, theology, philosophy, art, politics, science and technology. The removing of transcendent in postmodernity gives rise to a new humanism "beyond the person" is void, nothingness. The existentialist humanism still kept the "the human being" as a metaphoric referential, which contrasts with the "nothingness". Postmodern humanism remains focused - on one hand - on the issue of freedom, taken from Sartre, but breaks it apart from any other form of transcendence, from any possibility of ontological focus. On the other hand, the postmodern humanism is centered on the distinction. Reality is multiple; there is not only one world, but a multitude of worlds, going to be so many worlds, as many thoughtful consciousnesses. In terms of epistemic the paradigm mutation of postmodernism has as referential the theory of relativity. As Albert Einstein excludes absolute referential in physics, postmodernity followers exclude him from culture. Methodology of postmodernism and post-structuralism starts from the idea of deconstruction. Reality is a flash, a cut of a set inter-looked to object-event system, which constitutes the way of appearing for the observer. Methodological debate in poststructuralism is centered on understanding rather than explaining reality. Semiotics and hermeneutic approach is more relevant in terms of methodology for poststructuralism as we operate with subjective realities, constructed through a process of creating meaning. There is no single reality capable of measuring, but a multitude of realities which could be understood and contained in a communication process.

In this article we want to present o new of form of group, which we consider as being important for the process of personal development. Groups are a form of gathering more people united by a common purpose. We believe that through their group, members can develop new skills and also can obtain the change in the direction they want. Socialization is the process that we “share” along with others, by communicating and also by having close views towards different things in life. Appreciative socialization involves placing emphasis on those elements that have value to us, which are positive. We consider appreciative group socialization as a model of good practice that aims the development among group members and increases empowerment process.

Philosophy, from its origins in ancient Greece was concerned about social order and statutory rules of social coexistence. Although autonomous in contemporary sciences, legal and social policy are still deeply linked to the major philosophical ideas, which continued certain impact. Change of paradigms in the sphere of knowledge, is usually followed by a new model of social action. Not all philosophical views have proved efficient on social practice, on the contrary some of them have gone when they are applied in the political conflict or social movement particularly those with serious implications for humanity. The case made by Nietzsche doctrine which was adopted as the ideological basis for Nazi propaganda, and in whose name millions were murdered by ethnic criteria just for beeing Hebrews or Romma population from considerations of belonging to an inferior race. Socialist and communist ideals of Karl Marx can be considerate as origin of the totalitarian communist ideology. We present below some of the thinkers who have influenced the evolution of society in the social-political and legal, philosophers who were concerned about the evolution of society, the state and the ideas about democracy, rule of law, equality before the law, human dignity and human rights, with no pretense of completeness.

The justice as an ethical value can be considered constitutive for contemporary administrative systems. These ones are asked to transpose into practice the ideal of justice in the community. The functioning of a modern state cannot be conceived without a series of institutions that would guarantee the achievement of justice. The legal system was established specifically to administer justice. Modern democratic systems felt the need for certain courts and extrajudicial procedures to create justice. The institutions required to implement the extrajudicial distribution of justice are part of the public administration, representing a central element of it. The model of a political system based on justice is a minimalist one; the role of the state is limited to making it possible for individuals to follow their own ideal of welfare. Opposed to justice, the ideal of welfare requests the state, and implicitly the administration, to ensure the individual the minimum conditions to live in that community. The minimal state centered on justice is the result of a modern paradigm with post-Kantian reverberations, which emphasize the rationality of human action. If the individual is rational, he only needs fair conditions in order to pursue his own welfare. The role of the administration is to ensure those conditions and to oversee the distribution of goods and services, as well as the distribution and redistribution of added value.

Transmodern ethics establishes moral norms on liberal, pluralist and pragmatic principles. We see a comeback of the negation morals, however not of ontology-anchored morals, as is the case of the God who picks favourites or of the jealous God paradigm, and not even of morals anchored in a contractualist perspective, as is the case in the modern period. The preferred focus is on the value of positivism, of cooperation as a source of efficiency, of personal enrichment, be it cultural, spiritual, or moral, derived from the access to alterity. Tolerance as an ethical value is legitimised by a new, utilitarian humanism. The ethical construction of identity revolves around the value of loyalty to a tradition, a dogma, a mentality, and by extension to any coherent system liable to generate a sense of belonging. Postindustrial ethics uses for instance the value of loyalty as a strategy in marketing, organisational development, political propaganda etc. The policies used in order to increase the loyalty of a shop's customers, the employee's loyalty for the company she works for, the supporter's loyalty to his team, are the translation in layman terms of the loyalty ethics that in spiritual terms was one of the foundations of orthodoxy as loyalty to the tradition of the holy fathers. The values of equality, liberty and fraternity have been more than that, as they have laid the foundations of the modern society