Additionally, it is important to note that the perceptual nature of truth, even as it is unexamined does not in itself make truth genuine -- and that all is not relative. Instead:
Bhaskar contrasts a relative and developing ethical naturalism with a rational moral realism. Ethical naturalism is at the level of moral rules designed to guide actions, and these change over time with changes in our ethical concepts (for example, "slave," "person"). Underlying these is a moral realism which grounds our ethics and which can be rationally discovered via analysis of the changing nature of ourselves, our needs and our society. Bhaskar speaks of "ethical alethia, ultimately grounded in conceptions of human nature" (DPF 211). It is moral realism that prevents ethical naturalism from being an arbitrary matter internal to a culture (Irwin, 1997).
If then, there is a way to view the "facts" or events according to this moral realism, then how is it that these facts are constructed as true? For example, of key -- or perhaps, in many eyes outside of the conflict, or of paramount importance in the Kashmir controversy is the fact that people are suffering and dying as a result of the discord there. Further, even more suffering, perhaps globally is likely to result from the continued clashes between India and Pakistan over the issue (remember, both sides have nuclear capabilities). Is this suffering a crucial "fact" that must be taken into account?
Again, according to Lewis Irwin in his interpretation of critical realism, "...Critical realism conceptualizes events and situations in relation to the real mechanisms which generate them, rather than conceiving them as atoms that determine our knowledge of them without any kind of mediation." Thus, the individual observes events, and interprets those events into facts. Further, the degree to which each individual understands the social mechanisms that lead them to their factual conclusions, the more critically "real" they will be. Again, this is the key that guards against "willy-nilly" relativism -- for according to Bhaskar, "...perspectives are real and are parts of totalities in which agents are embedded (Irwin). The challenge here is being able to get some kind of grasp upon that totality.
Critical Realism: The Kashmir Solution
Given the perspectives of each side in the Kashmir conflict, it is clear that the "real events" are war, conflict and violence that "result" in poverty, injury, starvation, economic hardship and death. We know that these are real and they are the issues at hand. Further, we also know that these states are socially undesirable as agreed upon by virtually every societal system on earth. Of course, it is obvious that by removing the dispute from the land of Kashmir these effects can be eliminated, but which side is closer to the answer?
If on a cursory examination one examines the rational explained by both sides above, especially...
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