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PACEAbstract: Contemporary thinkers have not been hesitant to talk about the end of religion, the end of philosophy, or the end of morality. In such a context, our society is based on what Lipovetsky calls a minimal ethics. We live at the crossroads of two types of discourses:
one proclaiming moral decadence, and another that speaks about the revival of morality.
The fact that ethical maximalism quits the contemporary scene does not necessarily mean that it leaves a complete vacuum. The emptiness opens towards the manifestation of ethical creativity in the space of minimal ethics. In public space, and in administrative ethics, the secularization of ethics offers the possibility of feeling comfortable with promoting a form of moral relativism that does not alienate people from the sensation of ethical certainty that offers existential comfort through its firm values.
Key Words: minima moralia, minimal ethics, responsibility, global communication, administrative ethics, public policies, ethical management, Lipovetsky, Adorno, Pleşu
Sandu Frunză
Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Cluj, Romania.
Email: [email protected]
Minima Moralia and Individual Responsibility
Feeling the need to rethink tradition and sometimes the need for deliverance from the pressure of tyranny, contemporary thinkers have not been hesitant in talking about the end of religion, the end of philosophy, the end of public relations, the death of God, or the end of morality.1 Each of these claims regarding the end is accompanied by a sudden revival on the one side, and a lesser violent dimension than its previous manifestation form, but with sufficient consistency in ordering reality and life, on the other side. That is why the intention here is not to speak about the revival of what previously existed, each end proving in fact to be a new beginning. Beginning here, philosophical, political, and ethical reflections or considerations of a different nature can be developed in order to explain the new social, political, administrative, or simply human context, this simplicity being seen in the complexity of the manifestation of the human condition in the modern or postmodern world.
In such a context, Gilles Lipovetsky’s statement that “the twenty-first century will be ethical or it will not be at all”2 has a special meaning. This is all the more so as it becomes a reply to the statement “the twentieth century will be religious or it will not be at all” attributed to Malraux. In spite of the complex distinctions sometimes made between ethics and morality, with the particularities of what is right or wrong in the conduct of individuals,3 the terms are seen here as equivalent and are used accordingly. For those who see morality as a religious term, the two references to ethics and religion from Lipovetsky and Malraux may seem to say something very similar, all the more because Malraux does not say that the century will be Christian but religious, which relativizes the content of his religious projection. Whether one understands religion in a sense strongly connected to Christian morals or in a more general sense relating to the “sentiment of the sacred”4 or to the “diffuse religious sentiment”5 specific to contemporary religiosities, the affirmation of ethics is possible on the basis of placing religion on a secondary level or on the basis of stating new forms of pantheism in the context of God’s death6, or on the basis of what is today called, in generic terms, “the escape from religion.”7
In spite of the existence of discourse on the rebirth of interest in religion, the decrease of the impact that religion has in contemporary public space is still a significant topic of discussion. Developments in the area of social services are significant in this respect. Today, we are facing a situation in which religious organizations are increasingly dependent on funds that come from secular institutions. These funds are especially used for restoring the religious edifices or for building new ones. However,
behind the scenes there are also various types of social involvement and activities that assume participation in the construction of public space.8 Religious organizations are also diminishing their engagement in social ministries, or creating an alternative space for mutual help of the persons with a high degree of social exclusion.9
One of the ways that religious organizations maintain a presence in the public space is through the health care system. In this respect, there is both an institutional experience and a positive presence related to providing religious counseling. However, we note that experts affirm the need of ethical analysis in order to diagnose the ethical status of the public health care system.10 At the same time, the problem of an ethical reconstruction of the human condition is identified, especially in limit situations such as those that involve the limit between life and death, problems concerning the right to a dignified death, and the desire to prolong life as long as possible.11 The role that religious organizations once played in the educational system and in cultivating family values has diminished.12 The family, once modeled after the Holy Family, no longer functions as a significantly religions structure: family models and values are becoming more and more secularized.13
This form of a minimal presence of religious organizations is maintained even in the situation where one can note, to a certain extent, an openness toward recognizing the importance of the presence of religion and the religious as a significant resource in debates that take place in the public space.14
The lack of involvement in the public space could lead, eventually, to limit situations, such as were seen throughout the 20th century. In limit situations one can see that modernity brings indifference as the main argument for the necessity of an ethics of responsibility.15 This is a supplementary reason for affirming the necessity of ethics as a part of the public space. Thus, according to Lipovetsky, even today we are at the stage where
“the ethical effect is stronger and stronger, invading mass-media, stimulating philosophical, juridical and deontological reflection, giving birth to institutions, aspirations and ingenuous collective practices. Media charity, bioethics, humanitarian actions, saving the environment, imposing morality in business, politics and mass-media, debates concerning abortion and sexual harassment, erotic phone lines and the codes of ‘correct’ language, the crusades against drugs and tobacco, everywhere the revival of values and the spirit of responsibility are evoked as the number one imperative of the century: the sphere of ethics has become the
privileged mirror where the new spirit of the time is deciphered.”16
This society is based on what Lipovetsky calls a minimal ethics. It is meant to enact the person living in the decline of duty. It is characterized by abandoning of the gods and contemplation in the absence of duty. The strong sense of morality falls into the shadow of darkness and makes room for this border ethics where the construction of the ethical is in the hands of the individual freed from the great morally foundational narratives. We witness the instauration of a culture wherein that which is brought to the forefront is just “the cult of efficiency and quiet regulations, of success and moral protection.”17 Minimal ethics is no longer “an ethics of imperatives.”18
Lipovetsky begins by noticing that in contemporary society, we live at the crossroads of two types of discourses: one proclaiming the moral decadence illustrated by the increase of violence and antisocial attitudes, by poverty and financial fraud, and by economic, social, and administrative corruption, and another that speaks about the revival of morality, of the ethical reconstruction of the individual world, and of the redefinition of organizational life and public space in ethical terms. This duality, of decadence and moral rebirth, shows that we actually witness an escape from what Lipovetsky calls “the first cycle of modern morality,”
which “has functioned as a religion of secular duty,” in a cycle where the particularities of democratic cultures are defined by being placed beyond the principle of duty. They opt to assume a “weak and minimal ethics”
wherein the principle of authority is connected to individual resorts situated in the context of the avoidance of the universal landmarks that have suppressed “all values related to sacrifice, either required by the afterlife or by profane finalities;” “daily culture is no longer fed by the hyperbolic imperatives of duty, but by the wellbeing and dynamics of subjective rights, and we no longer recognize our obligation to grow attached to anything else but ourselves.”19
Such an ethical context implies a review of the classical moral perspective that associated personal preferences and individualism with immorality, identifying the individual’s right to autonomy, desire, happiness, to enjoying the privilege of giving credit only to “non-painful norms of ethical life.”20 This is the new context of the decline of duty that Lipovetsky describes as one of a minimal ethics that, leaving behind the integrating force of great ideologies, makes room for the type of action particular to minimal ethics.
Although he is a nuanced critic of Lipovetsky’s perspective on minimal ethics, Zygmund Bauman notices that what characterizes postmodern ethics is a week conscience that “can neither convince, nor compel.” Consequently, it “does not handle any of the weapons recognized
by the modern world as markers of authority. By the standards of the modern world, the conscience is weak.”21
What is important in Bauman’s statements is that there is no alternative source to rely on other than moral conscience, no matter how weak it is. It is the only one that can inspire the postmodern individual with the responsibility to decide on what is to be done, what is right, and to refuse the unacceptable in choosing not to do evil.22 From the perspective of a minimal ethics built on this weak conscience, “moral responsibility represents one of the most personal and unalienable human luxuries and the most valuable human right. It cannot be taken away, divided, given away, sold, or deposited for safe-keeping. Human responsibility is unconditional and infinite and it manifests through constant suffering that it does not manifest enough. It does not search for guarantees for its right to be, or for excuses for its right not to be. It is here before any guarantee or proof and after any excuse or forgiveness.”23 When he sets out to explain the particular topic from Minima Moralia, Theodor W. Adorno defines it as “the attempt to expose the elements of a common philosophy starting from subjective experience.”24 In constructing and explaining such ethics, he evokes Hegel with the purpose of placing himself in a position that implies a new valorization of the subject, of the individual in relation to the whole. Although the individual seems feeble before the pressure of the whole, it is individualist society that creates the situation wherein the totality is formed by the interaction of individuals, and the individual receives substance from the very manifestation of society. Thus, in contemporary society, when compared to the model suggested by Hegel, “the individual has won in plenitude, he has differentiated and become stronger to the same extent as, through the socialization of society, the individual has become fragile and empty of substance.”25
Andrei Pleșu has these characteristics in mind in the Romanian context when, assuming the idea of minimal ethics, he states that this is no longer based on major efforts, but on ethical detail, on the list of options that are no longer seen as fundamental, but may seem significant.
The type of discourse chosen as a starting point in the construction of minima moralia is the one of autobiography, daily life, and the need for mental consolidation and inner justification. The ethical no longer comes from grave options and painful decisions that imply morality, because the ethical in postmodern society does not establish itself as an element of reference. In the era of ethical minimalism, Pleșu notices, we usually see ethical order through the lens of conventional morality, through what creates a state of normality and a certain familiarity with “a certain ethical minimalism, understood as an analytics of moral mediocrity.”26
Such moral mediocrity can be considered a means of remaining in the framework of ethics in what Lipovetsky terms the “post-moral
society.” Here it is implied that moral maximalism, the great ethical narratives, the great ideologies, no longer answer immediate needs, and the solution to this comes from a reorientation towards the needs of the individual. Acting from the perspective of a minimal ethics, the individual becomes aware of duties towards self, others, and society. Thus, the decline of duty confronts us with a new moral understanding of the principle of duty: “it is not about returning to the heroic duty but about the reconciliation of heart with celebration, of virtue with interest, of the imperatives of the future with the present quality of life. Far from opposing the post-moral individualist culture, the ethical effect is one of its exemplary manifestations.”27 Concurrently: “administrative ethics assumes that individuals in organizations can make moral judgments and can be the objects of moral judgments.”28
Minimal Ethics in the Society Built on Communication
Along with postmodern culture, a double phenomenon has arisen due to global culture. On the one hand, cultural pluralism has brought a sort of revitalization of values that direct individuals on the path of the need to preserve self-identity and a type of rethinking of global standards according to personal expectations. The result of this is a concession of absolute values to certain principles of the new global context. On the other hand, the global context has generated the option for global ethics, which is manifest as weak ethics, in accordance with the integrating processes brought along by the process of globalization itself. The result of this is pressure on the strong principles of the traditional ethos and the local ethics built on this. This is followed by the creation of an ethical context wherein individual options are rebuilt in a double perspective: of personal and institutional needs on the one hand, and of needs resulting from society’s adaptation to the flux of global development on the other.
Only due to the existence of a minimal ethics is it possible to have a reconstruction of the ethical context, of inter-personal relations, inter- institutional relations, and professional media in general. The presence of professional ethics in various cultural contexts is facilitated by the fact that this minimal ethics is a privileged medium of manifestation of the phenomenon of generalized communication that accompanies all the processes of globalization. Hence, “if it is true that our era witnesses the rebirth of the thematic of values, it is even more so that it witnesses the triumph of communication that has managed to integrate the very ethical reference in itself.”29
The fact that ethical maximalism quits the contemporary scene does not mean that it leaves a completely empty landscape in its wake. The emptiness opens toward the manifestation of ethical creativity in the space of minimal ethics. As stated above, the basis of the creativity of a culture founded on minimal ethics is the double attitude that the
individual has toward values, preserving some of the ambivalence that individuals from earlier times had toward the sacred. On the one hand, humans have the tendency to invest meaning in each daily gesture and in each form of existence from the perspective of values. On the other hand, humans manifest a contradictory tendency to escape and liberate oneself from the power of the actions of values, to avoid their dominant action.
Minimal ethics places the human being at the crossroads of these two attitudes.30 When it comes to personal and institutional options, beginning with minimal ethics, a very important aspect is the way in which we manage to initiate an encoding process in the form of the deontological codes of various professions. The codes have the purpose of creating an ethical context beyond the continuous dispute between absolutism and relativism. This means that they are an instrument that is only possible due to the fact that ethical maximalism is minimized in postmodern society and, at the same time, becomes the real carrier of minimal ethics by filling the space left empty by the absolutism of values and their relativity, by ethical maximalism and the uncertainties of absolute ethical relativism.
It is important not to overlook the fact that even if a minimal ethics becomes possible and if we were to actually support the advent of minimal ethics, once it is assumed by the individual and the organization that they are part of, the deontological codes become manifest as regulations that work in the spirit of dominant values. Lipovetsky shows that the presence of codes of etiquette, of ethical control and ethical commissions, is correlated with institutional communication, the objective primarily being that of improving the image of the organization. Most often, the act of organizational communication takes place along with social and moral responsibility. The influence of ethics and of communication is mutual.
With the rebirth of interest in values, a new type of communication begins to develop, integrating ethics in the spirit of a minimal ethics which permits the development of professional ethics. Communication is what drives ethics, what makes it a strategic vector of organizations, an instrument for overcoming crises, transforming it into an instrument of efficient management, and ethics becomes “a strategic and communicational investment.”31
Somehow the need for regulation at the level of daily activity comes naturally from what Andrei Pleșu called “the need to live by delegation, to transfer the power over your own life to someone else.”32 This type of disempowerment could be a form of advent of relativism in the space of responsibility. This attitude may be correlated with the fact that post- moralist society “turns moral action into a recreational show and into communication at the level of enterprise.”33 And it is exactly here that the beneficial role of a minimal ethics intervenes: “the ethics of responsibility does not impose a norm with authority, but it makes it desirable as being conformable to each individual’s development, it emphasizes team spirit
only to the extent that it is the group that permits you to become yourself, simultaneously improving the efficiency of the enterprise.”34
Starting with this transformational force of ethics at the level of the individual and her/his organizational integration, at the level of public administration one must act
“for the benefit of an ethics based on dialogue, an ethics of responsibility directed towards searching for a balance between efficiency and equity, between profit and the interests of the employees, between respect for the individual and the collective welfare, between the present and the future, between freedom and solidarity.”35
Taking into consideration the importance of ethics in public space and its democratization, one must look toward society today, but especially toward the future, with the belief that
“there is the necessity for intelligent politics and strategy, more preparation, responsibility and professional competence, more science and technique. Instead of the imperative of the heart, we must support the imperative of mobilizing human intelligence, enhance our investment in knowledge and the permanent educational dimension.”36
Public values are an important topic in public administration, because public policies are the means for assigning values.37 The discussion on assigning values raises the issue of integrity, which, in its turn, implies the issue of trust. A government based on moral rules and efficiency will gain legitimacy due to the trust it inspires. Public opinion regarding the personal integrity of someone working in public administration is of vital importance.38 Any form of government wants to have a good image in the eyes of the citizens it governs. A widespread means of influencing the public perception of governmental policies and actions is establishing juridical regulations, anti-corruption laws, and ethical codes in order to avoid unethical conduct in the public system and in society as much as possible.39 Trust is a necessary condition here in order to gain legitimacy from the perspective of minimal ethics. It is important to understand that from the perspective of the need to elaborate and influence public policies, ethics “inflects with seduction and efficacy,” since of necessity it is preoccupied with personal, social, economic, political, and administrative issues.40
As Ari Salminen and Rinna Ikola-Norrbacka show, trust involves a number of aspects and has various shapes and dimensions: trust between
individuals, trust in the professional capacity and competence of those working in public administration, trust in politicians, trust in the quality of the services offered, trust between various organizations involved, trust inside a community and between communities, and so on. The factors that determine trust are also multiple. They may be connected to personal, family or community experience, personal history and individual or community values, or the ethical exigencies that are at stake. The image that citizens have regarding institutions is important because it influences a greater set of attitudes. For example, one may expect that “a person with a negative attitude towards the state government will most likely complain about taxes, about corruption or the ineffectiveness of administration.”41
An important distinction is between the trust placed in public institutions in comparison to that placed in private institutions. For public administration theorists, it seems natural to have different measuring units for the two types of institutions. Public institutions are associated with greater expectations regarding the necessity of ethical conduct, the necessity to use higher standards and greater exigency than the private sector. This comes from the assumption that this satisfaction is determined by the fact that: “Strict ethical standards are included in public trust … public sector ethics is different from private sector ethics because the citizens’ trust keeps democracy effective.”42 Moreover, it is considered natural that the degree of satisfaction regarding public services should be greater than that obtained when someone resorts to private services. The degree of trust is associated not only with the ethical dimension, but also with the fact that civil servants are usually associated with the idea of defense, enforcement, and respect for the law. Thus, in public action, the critical and the juridical elements should be mutually sustained:
“The legal basis of good governance is built on laws and regulations. The ethics of public organizations are safeguarded by legislation, either with general norms or specific regulation that specify the bases of ethical conduct in practice.
Another way is to strengthen ethical values in the organization, in the work place, in such a way that they are commonly accepted and meant to make staff committed to ethics without remunerations or sanctions.”43
Even if it is generally acknowledged that it is required of civil services to be more ethical and efficient, there are also authors who consider that it is more likely to expect a combination of ethics and efficacy accompanied by a maximum degree of satisfaction from a public-private
partnership. In this sense, in practical situations in the Romanian context, one may accept that
“in relation to central administration, private management has proven to be not only a more efficient administrator of capital, but also a better manager of public needs. Thus, the problems of the community may be partially solved by social partnerships between private businesses and local communities. It is necessary to find ways of cooperation between the public and the private sectors at the local level.”44
However, apart from the public/private distinction, what appears important from an ethical perspective is the awareness of the fact that the public sector needs not only a new understanding of the relationship between ethics and religion,45 but also profound reforms, both at a macro level, through constitutional reforms,46 and at an organizational level, including the managerial function,47 the idea of leadership as factor of change and professionalization,48 and correlation of these with ethical principles of management.49
One of the great acquisitions of today’s society is the secularization of ethics. It offers the possibility of feeling comfortable with promoting a form of moral relativism that does not alienate people from the ethical certainty that offered existential comfort through its firm values. Thus moral life, ethical conduct, becomes a common asset to all in the conditions of daily life or in the more complex conditions of professional life.
Notes:
1 This text is part of a more extended paper, elaborated in the framework of the program „Creşterea calităţii programelor de masterat în administraţia publică”
Contract POSDRU/86/1.2/S/60072. A version is being published as my personal contribution to the volume Ethics, by Liviu Radu, Alin Iuga, Sandu Frunză.
2 Gilles Lipovetsky, Amurgul datoriei. Etica nedureroasă a noilor timpuri democratice, Trans., Preface,Victor-Dinu Vlădulescu, (Bucureşti: Babel, 1996), 17. As one can see from other texts that I have published, the perspective proposed by Lipovetsky seems to be the most coherent ethical perspective on the modern world. As in religious studies my perspective resembles that of Emmanuel Levinas, similarly in my writings on ethics I find myself in consonance with the ethical discourse of Lipovetsky.
3 William Frankena, Ethics, 2nd ed., (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 1- 11; Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 1- 31; G. J. Warnock, The Object of Morality, (London: Methuen & Co., 1971), 1- 26.
4 Mircea Eliade, Tratat de istorie a religiilor, prefaţă de Georges Dumezil, Trans.
Mariana Noica, (Bucureşti: Humanitas, 1992).
5 Francoise Champion, „Spirit religios difuz, eclectism şi sincretisme” în Religiile lumii, Jean Delumeau (coord.), (Bucureşti: Humanitas, 1996).
6 Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz, (New York: The Bobs-Merrill Company, 1966).
7 Marcel Gauchet, Ieşirea din Religie, Trans. Mona Antohi, (Bucureşti: Humanitas, 2006).
8 Daniela Cojocaru, Ştefan Cojocaru, Antonio Sandu, “The role of religion in the system of social and medical services in post-communism Romania,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, Vol. 10, No. 28 (2011): 65-83.
9 Sorin Cace, Daniel Arpinte, Corina Cace, Ştefan Cojocaru, “The Social Economy.
An Integrating Approach,” Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, No. 33 E (2011) : 49-66.
10 Vasile Astărăstoae, “Is It Necessary an Ethical Analysis of the Romanian Healthcare System?” Revista Română de Bioetică, Vol. 8, No. 1, (January – March 2010): 114-115; Elena Abrudan, “Ethical Expertise and Bioethics”, Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, Vol. 10, No. 30 (2011): 397-402; See also Sandu Frunză, “On the Need for a Model of Social Responsibility and Public Action as an Ethical Base for Adequate, Ethical and Efficient Resource Allocation in the Public Health System of Romania,” Revista de cercetare şi intervenţie socială, vol. 33 (2011):
178-196.
11 Beatrice Ioan, “Decisions Regarding Medical Treatment in End of Life Situations - A Subject of Debate at European Level,” Revista Română de Bioetică, Vol. 9, No. 4, (October - December 2011): 63.
12 Ştefan Cojocaru, Daniela Cojocaru, “Naturalistic Evaluation of Programs.
Parents’ Voice in Parent Education Programs,” Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, No. 34 E (2011): 49-62.
13 Ioan Bolovan, “Transylvania until World War I Demographic Opportunities and Vulnerabilities,” Transylvanian Review, Vol. 19 Issue 1 (2010): 73-124. For using in comparative case studies is interesting the case presented in Ioan-Aurel Pop,
“Medieval Genealogies of Maramures. The Case of the Gorzo (Gurzau) Family of Ieud,” Transylvanian Review, Vol. XIX, Supplement No. 1 (2010): 127-141, and all the vol. XIX of Transylvanian Review published under the topic “Pursuing Diversity.
Demographic Realities and Ethno-Confessional Structures in Transylvania,” ed. by Ioan-Aurel Pop, Sorina Paula Bolovan and Ioan Bolovan.
14 Ioan Alexandru Tofan, “Secularization and Religious Pluralism Towards a Genealogy of Public Space”, European Journal of Science and Theology, Vol. 7, No. 2 (June 2011): 5-15. See also Sandu Frunză, „Does communication construct reality?
A New Perspective on the Crisis of Religion and the Dialectic of the Sacred,”
Revista de cercetare şi intervenţie socială, vol. 35 (2011): 180-193; Sandu Frunză, „The relational individual in a communication built society. Towards a new philosophy of communication,” Transylvanian Review, vol. XX, No. 3, (Autumn 2011): 140-152.
15 Cristina Gavriluță, and Romeo Asiminei, ”The problem of evil and responsibility in Elie Wiesel’s view. New perspectives on the Holocaust,” European Journal of Science and Theology, Vol. 7, No. 4, (2011): 75-82.
16 Lipovetsky, 17.
17 Lipovetsky, 17.
18 Gianni Vattimo, Etica interpretării, Trans. Ştefania Mincu, (Constanţa: Pontica, 2000),146.
19 Lipovetsky, 20.
20 Lipovetsky, 21.
21 Zygmunt Bauman, Etica postmodernă, Trans. Doina Lică, (Timişoara: Editura Amarcord, 2000), 270.
22 Bauman, 271.
23 Bauman, 271.
24 Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia. Reflecţii dintr-o viaţă mutilată, Trans., Preface, Andrei Corbea, (Bucureşti: Editura Univers, 1999), 9.
25 Adorno, 8-9.
26 Andrei Pleşu, Minima moralia. Elemente pentru o etică a intervalului, second edition, (Bucureşti: Humanitas, 1994), 145.
27 Lipovetsky, 21.
28 Dennis F. Thompson, “The Possibility of Administrative Ethics,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 45, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1985): 555.
29 Lipovetsky, 292. See also Sandu Frunză, „Does communication construct reality?
A New Perspective on the Crisis of Religion and the Dialectic of the Sacred,”
Revista de cercetare şi intervenţie socială, vol. 35 (2011): 180-193; Ana Elena Ranta,
“The Communication of Local Public Authorities with Mass-Media. Effects and Best Practices”, Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, No. 34 E (2011): 201- 216.
30 Sandu Frunză, Comunicare etică şi responsabilitate socială, (Bucureşti: Tritonic, 2011).
31 Lipovetsky, 291-294.
32 Pleşu, 144.
33 Lipovetsky, 21.
34 Lipovetsky, 308.
35 Lipovetsky, 27.
36 Lipovetsky, 313.
37 Gjalt de Graaf, Zeger van der Wal, “Managing Conflicting Public Values:
Governing With Integrity and Effectiveness,” The American Review of Public Administration , 40(6) (2010): 624.
38 Graaf, Wal, 626.
39 Ari Salminen, Rinna Ikola-Norrbacka, “Trust, good governance and unethical actions in Finnish public administration,” International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 23, No. 7, (2010): 647.
40 Lipovetsky, 313.
41 Salminen, Ikola-Norrbacka, 647.
42 Salminen, Ikola-Norrbacka, 649.
43 Salminen, Ikola-Norrbacka, 651.
44 Bogdan Diaconu, Etica societăţii instituţionalizate. Trei dimensiuni ale responsabilităţii sociale: legea, statul şi mediul de afaceri, (Bucureşti: Curtea Veche, 2009), 88.
45 Sandu Frunză, Mihaela Frunză, Claudiu Herţeliu, „Philosophy, Ideology, Religion. An Attempt to Understand what is Going on with Philosophy in the Romanian Educational System,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, Vol.
8, no. 22, (Spring 2009): 129-149.
46 Emil Boc, “The Revision of the Romanian Constitution: Current Issues,” Revista de cercetare şi intervenţie socială, vol. 35, (2011): 149-170.
47 Călin Emilian Hinţea, “Reform and Management in Romania. Strategy and structural change,” Revista de cercetare şi intervenţie socială, vol. 34, (2011): 177-196.
48 Andrei Ţigănaş, Tudor Ţiclău, Cristina Mora, Laura Bacali, “Use of Public Sector Marketing and Leadership, in Romania’s Local Public Administration,” Revista de cercetare şi intervenţie socială, vol. 34, (2011): 212-233.
49 Valentin Mureşan, „Managementul eticii în companii între realitate şi speranţă,” in Dumitru Borţun (coordonator), Responsabilitatea socială corporativă: de la relaţii publice la dezvoltare durabilă, (Bucureşti: SNSPA – 2010).
References:
Adorno, Theodor W.. Minima Moralia. Reflecţii dintr-o viaţă mutilată. Trans., Preface, Andrei Corbea. Bucureşti: Editura Univers, 1999.
Astărăstoae, Vasile. “Is It Necessary an Ethical Analysis of the Romanian Healthcare System?”. Revista Română de Bioetică. Vol. 8, No. 1, (January – March 2010): 114-115.
Abrudan, Elena. “Ethical Expertise and Bioethics”. Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies. Vol. 10, No. 30 (2011): 397-402.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Etica postmodernă. Trans. Doina Lică. Timişoara: Editura Amarcord, 2000.
Boc, Emil. “The Revision of the Romanian Constitution: Current Issues”.
Revista de cercetare şi intervenţie socială. vol. 35, (2011): 149-170.
Bolovan, Ioan. “Transylvania until World War I Demographic Opportunities and Vulnerabilities”. Transylvanian Review. Vol. 19 Issue 1 (2010): 73-124.
Cace, Sorin, Daniel Arpinte, Corina Cace, Ştefan Cojocaru. “The Social Economy. An Integrating Approach”. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences. No. 33 E (2011) : 49-66.
Champion, Francoise. „Spirit religios difuz, eclectism şi sincretisme”. in Religiile lumii. Jean Delumeau (coord.). Bucureşti: Humanitas, 1996.
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Cojocaru, Ştefan, Daniela Cojocaru. “Naturalistic Evaluation of Programs.
Parents’ Voice in Parent Education Programs”. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, No. 34 E (2011): 49-62.
Diaconu, Bogdan. Etica societăţii instituţionalizate. Trei dimensiuni ale responsabilităţii sociale: legea, statul şi mediul de afaceri. Bucureşti: Curtea Veche, 2009.
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