Antonio Sandu

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

In this article we aim to distinguish between the transhuman and posthuman condition, according to their anthropological, ontological, and ethical natures. We will show that the current historical moment can be considered the beginning of a transhuman civilisation, given that the characteristics of the transhuman are already present in today’s human being. We will show that a series of decisive limitations for belonging to the human condition are in the process of being transcended due to acquisition of attributes of divinity that human beings do not currently possess: omnipotence, omnipresence , ex nihilo creation – starting from the divine creative ideation – and immortality. Humans are increasingly taking on the attributes of divinity in the process of human enhancements. We will discuss the ways in which technology allows the human to overcome these limitations, elevating humans past their current condition, in a process in which they gain technological transcendence. Excepting immortality, all other limitations, once exceeded, generate a transhuman condition. Immortality generates a posthuman condition, since it can only be obtained by modifying the human ontological status from that of a biological being to that of a resident being in informatics networks. In order to clarify this process, we will discuss the concepts of everlastingness and artificial life prolongation

Charity, as a social construct, is considered in various interpretative contexts, in a subjectively manner, social progress. The meta-narration about charity as Christian duty, by passing through the secular interpretive and atomizer context of postmodernity, becomes a narrative about social responsibility and equity in ethical dimension, and is translated into restorative community practices in social action plan. We will pursue the constructive interpretive contexts that generated the idea of social policies and social work practice as a contemporary deconstruction of charity. The thesis of the article is that the process of deconstruction of charity, as a religious value which regulates in a Christian manner the reference to the other, is the foundation of restorative social policies and professionalized social work as a social action. We will analyze the deconstruction of Christian idea of charity from two perspectives, namely the secularization of charitable practices and constructive foundation of a particular meta-story of our times which we call secular society and/or knowledge society

Ethical dilemmas raised by the use of nanotechnology in medical practice can be viewed from several perspectives: religious spiritualist perspective, the perspective of human dignity (nanotechnologies can be thought of as an affront to human dignity), the issue of controversial choice. The article aims to expose some bioethical dilemmas in using synthetic biology and nanotechnologies. Nowadays is often brought into discussion the fact it is possible to appear in the future new human species resulted not via natural selection and evolution, but through the demiurgic effect of technology development in areas such as: synthetic biology, genetics, neurobiology and neurosciences, prosthesis technology and not least of artificial intelligence research. We will also refer into this paper at the possible raised challenges to ethicists who are oriented towards an ethics of species. Those challenges are raised right from the dawn of a consciousness of species, a social construction generated by changes of the meaning of belonging to humanity. During our article we argue that medical technology, especially genetics, medical assisted human reproduction and not least synthetic biology, require a rethinking ethical meanings of applying those technologies in everyday practices

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} This article aims to examine the phenomenon of social services in post-1989 Romania, underscoring the role of the religious factor in the establishment and operation of nongovernmental organisations active in the area of family and child protection/child welfare. The results are based on empirical data collected from interviews with representatives of NGO-s in Iaşi that correspond to the profile of faith-based organisations and which have been included in the list of accredited providers of social services. We used an assessment grid that allowed us to highlight a number of specific characteristics to the Romanian space, found among faith-based organisations involved in the development of social and medical services. One direction that Romanian organisation took was to dilute in time the religious message and to secularise their practices under the influence of the Orthodox majority, as well as following the requirements imposed by secular donors and especially by public ones. The channelling of private resources donated to religious cults predominantly towards building and restoring establishments (churches, monasteries) rather than towards the development of social faith-based programmes aimed at vulnerable populations has caused in faith-based organisations a high level of dependency on secular donors. The process in which the practices and the discourse are secularised is accompanied by a trend towards the fragmentation of the Christian-based civil society

Confidence in the church is, nowadays, extremely high opposed to trust in other institutions of the state, especially the political ones. A first explanation is that the church manages to manage best the feeling of trust as key element of individual coping towards the society at risk. Faith in post-existence as a straight world, governed by a benevolent deity deeply contrasts with the disappointment and frustration accumulated during the accelerated course of the process of development implied by the post-industrial society. The sociologist, and especially the social worker has the burden to reply, on the basis of the empirical data, to what is the place and role of religion in the processes of the current social development. The author Roxana Necula answers to this very question in the volume “Dinamica fenomenului religios si modernizarea rurala”, published in March 2015 at Lumen Publishing House in Iasi.

The purpose of this article is to bring contributions to the elaboration of a social-semiotic model of social constructionism, which will make a synthesis between the theory of communicative action and the theories of social-constructionist semiotic model?, based on the postulation of a social universe in a network of communicative interdependencies developed on levels of reality. The interpretative model we propose comes to conceptualize the particularities of the sociological analysis of the transmodern society, seen as a knowledge-based society, placed at the interference with the postmodern society; that of generalized permissiveness. The model proposed aims at a constructionist-fractalic analysis of the interpretative drift of social constructs, under the empire of different constructive instances.

Mediation is a particular type of communicative action that generates professional socialization and normative adherence. In this paper we are interested in communication strategies and how to obtain interpretative consensus in the process of mediation. The analysis of identified communicational strategies as mediation principles will allow us to develop a model of construction of a new communicational paradigm that places gaining mutual consent in the process of communication mediated by a third party – the mediator, whose function is to reconfigure the interpretative maps regarding the object of the conflict. This process takes the form of a partnership based on the symmetrisation of communicational relationships. In this paper we will discuss mediation as facilitative practice, transformational mediation, narrative mediation and appreciative mediation. Regarding the appreciative mediation, we will propose a creative model of solving conflicts starting from the elements of success of the parts in reframing conflicting elements into transformational elements. We build the appreciative mediation starting from the perspective of an appreciative social semiotics.

Maria Cristina Aboboaie’s volume called Sociologia terorismului and published in 2014 at Lumen Publishing House aims to pave the way to such approach with sociological specificity, of the terrorism phenomenon itself, and also of the profound speech generated by the phenomenon of counter-terrorism. The sociological perspective on terrorism comes to complete the one of national security, that will outline a vision on the dynamic of the phenomenon, both in its extension and intension. Due to many acceptations that this phenomenon presents, the author of the volume requires a terminology clarification to explain the reader on the complex meanings of the terrorist phenomenon in the current world.

In teaching the disciplines in the social-human field, we appealed to the constructionist model of education. In this model, the unity of competence represents a construct resulting from the communicative action as a deliberate act instituted by the stakeholders participating in the social construction of the professional identity. Therefore, such unity is not a given defining abstract itself for a professional activity. Each such unit of competence resulted in a process of negotiation of interpretations on the meaning of the term ‘good practice’ in a given professional activity. Experimental implementation of certain curricular innovations may constitute an element of added value only to the extent to which this pseudo-experiment takes the form of a process of co-learning and curricular co-construction both in the educational framework, and also for students to acknowledge the partnership in the educational act, and not the magisterial attitude specific to the educational model centred on the teacher. In this article we present a series of curricular innovations that targeted the expansion of the appreciative-constructionist model of learning as a basis for curricular projection and development. The method consists of using the appreciative inquiry in reformulating the experience of the subjects related to the social reality analysed, and the customisation of different contexts of the social experience.

In the order of beingness, duty is a state much closer to Dasein than any form of rationality could be. The true duty and the true respect for the golden rule can only come from the authenticity of one’s beingness. The same goes for what we call humility. This duty, as an existential state, is a movement of the spirit which seems to be overwhelmed by the care for the Other, towards the Other. Any duty which does not “move the being”, and which results, for example, from reason, is unauthentic and, viewed from a phenomenological perspective, it means the alienation of the appreciative capacity of the beingness - understood as Dasein. As such, appreciative ethics can only be placed at the crossroads between constructionism - as a theory on the agreed existence, and the phenomenology which enables the understanding of the subjective experience of the process of social construction of reality itself.

Reffering to the book „Symbolic communication and seduction”, published at Tritonic Publishing House by Professor Sandu Frunza, we observe that he has placed communication, and the symbolic function in general, in the center of the process of social construction of reality. In our opinion, the author’s main concern is to demonstrate the logocentrism of postmodern society. Although the term logos is not currently explicit in the volume „Symbolic communication and seduction”, reading it allowed me a logocentric semiotic on communicative construction of reality.

This paper represents an excellent overview of the censorship of the European collective imaginary, challenged as stranger of the one that is different, of the non-brother identified eventually as Satan. In the vision of the author Simona Maria Drelciuc, the Devil is the existential pole of the medieval imaginary, a fundamental cultural mark, “catalyst of the European civilization”. This bringing into attention of the image of the non-brother allows us to reflect on the European civilization, of religious nature, and of “cultural periphery placement” of the Christian moral values such as love, tolerance etc.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} The constructionist approach of philosophy includes an epistemic dimension and a pragmatic emphasis on the interdependence between knowledge and action in the social areas. Appreciative approach to philosophy is based on the work of David Cooperrider on “Appreciative Inquiry”, which is a form of pragmatic discourse that substitutes the focus on the problem with the focus on successful elements of previous experience of individuals, groups, organizations or communities. This experience can be integrated in the philosophical discourse starting from Plato's dialogues and maieutic method promoted by Socrates. Hermeneutic of the real seen as a philosophical reflection on the daily positive experiences falls into tradition of philosophical search of the ultimate meaning of reality. The appreciative speech starts from a postmodern view by a constructivist and constructionist approach, through which reality itself is a social construction generated by successive negotiations on accepted interpretations. Appreciative philosophy is centered on a semiotics grid that seeks positive qualities of existence and its strengths. Appreciative theology reveals a collaborative process between humanity and divine that catalyzes transformations in human being giving them life including eternal life. The communion human-Divinity is seen as a divine-human co-creation

Reading the volume “The Actual Problems of the Theory and Practice of Modern Pre-school Education in Poland, Romania and Ukraine” coordinated by Otilia CLIPA, Maria OLINEK and Malgorzata STAWIAK-OSOSINSK brought to my mind the issue of multidimensional education and the correlation between the shifts of paradigm which take place in the space of communicative processes, but also the need for a new educational approach that would be sensitive to the transmodern values of integrity and interdependence. This transmodern perspective is considered as benchmark in the development of the volume, who are questioning, in the introduction, the globalization and the crisis of the systems of volumes, showing the need for correlating educational systems with the social realities of the contemporary world. The education of pre-schoolers represents such a multidimensional topic which combines the new educational landmarks with the action research.

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.