[p2p-research] [ME-09] [OK] Philosophical Underpinnings of the Importance of Collaboration

[Michel Bauwens]

are you familiar with critical realism .. the only tenable form of realism I
think .. worth investigating ...

my opinion is that a focus on the commonality of values around concrete
objectives is a sufficient condition for joint approaches, independently of
the full metaphysics of the persons involved ..

I would also like to choose to see moral realism and moral relativism as
polarities ... it's not difficult to see widely contradictory moral values
and opinions (gay marriage comes to mind as an example, or honour killings,
in some countries it's morally acceptable to attack unfaithful women with
acid, in thailand it's morally acceptable for females to cut male genitalia
of unfaithful husbands), while it is also possible to come to certain moral
agreements across cultures and civilisations; holding on to both the
universal and particular, to the common and to the individual, seems to be
the challenge.

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Suresh Fernando <
suresh at radical-inclusion.com> wrote:

> Hey Folks,
>
> In case you need some bed time reading ;-)
>
> When I say that I believe that we can make this world a better place, and
> that we should be sufficiently motivated to do so, I say this because I am
> what would be termed a moral realist.<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/>This is to say that I am of the opinion that there are certain actions that
> are *objectively *right and hence that we ought to do them. What those are
> exactly is another story ;-). This view is to be contrasted with moral
> relativism <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/>.
>
> The sense in which we can come to know that certain actions are *right* is
> a position grounded in a transcendentally idealistic<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_idealism>view on the structure of knowledge that contrasts with a scientifically
> realistic <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/>perspective,
> and is outlined in a paper that I wrote entitled The Visibility of Moral
> Facts <http://docs.google.com/View?id=dc4gbgsj_208cg9z5qc5>.
>
> I also believe that right action is intrinsically tied to the relationship
> between our reflexive (self conscious) nature and our *survival within
> communities*. I advance an argument to this effect in a paper entitled The
> Structure of Identity.<http://docs.google.com/View?id=dc4gbgsj_900fjd2xmcz>
>
> Hence, for me, there are certain things as rational thinking beings that we
> ought to do (even if we don't as a species know what they are) and there is
> a connection between what they are and community.
>
> If you can make the connection between community and collaboration, you can
> get a better idea for why developing collaborative frameworks and processes
> is vitally important for me.
>
>
> Unfortunately, my musings tell me nothing about what those right actions
> actually are...  ;-)
>
> --
> Suresh Fernando
> WEBSITE: http://radical-inclusion.com
> WEBSITE: http://wiki.openkollab.com
> BLOG: http://sureshfernando.wordpress.com
> TWITTER: http://twitter.com/sureshf
> FACEBOOK: facebook.com/suresh.fernando
> 604-889-8167
>
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-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

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