Alison Assiter Quotes
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If someone says that they have to 'tolerate' cultural differences and cultural groupings different from themselves then that may make it difficult, at the same time, to condemn unjust practices within those cultures.
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From a political perspective, it is important to uphold certain universal principles so that, for example, you can condemn both Islamist forms of violence and injustice as well as forms of violence and injustice from other groups - some superpowers, for example, or the English Defence League, as other examples.
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I think that both pornography and the imposition (common in some areas of the world) of a dress code on women are problematic.
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The subject of feminism cannot be purely a fiction, as some postmodern writers suggest, produced by the discourses of power.
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Whatever the universal perspective one adopts, it is important to recognise that some form of universalism is politically and ethically necessary.
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If there are more than two sexes, then so be it and, of course, the assumption that there are two helps shape, as many have argued, the binary logic that underpins much of the history of western philosophy.
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Ethically and politically it is important to face up to the need for a universal perspective in our divided, multi-cultural, unequal and unjust world.
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When it comes to deep and difficult ethical matters - such as the relation of an individual to God, or, I think, an individual caught up in the sublimity of a revolution then things are very different and the Kantian ethic is shown to be limited in its value.
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I believe that a concept that may have some flaws is nonetheless important as a tool to critique abuses on all sides of the political spectrum. In the end, I think that a more useful 'universal' concept than that of a 'right', though, is a 'need'.
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If one really believes that the metaphysic one adopts has much to commend it, then one should obviously try to persuade others of its truth or acceptability!