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.

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.

I think that both pornography and the imposition (common in some areas of the world) of a dress code on women are problematic.

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!

Whatever the universal perspective one adopts, it is important to recognise that some form of universalism is politically and ethically necessary.

However, within the limits of the human, it is important to recognise our common humanity. I think that a perspective based on common human needs has the most chance of being accepted and this does not depend on any particular metaphysical outlook.

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.