LILITH CLAIRE ACADIA2025-07-102025-07-102025-04https://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/handle/123456789/730693Who writes the laws of ethics? What authority must those authors of ethics have to determine what is right or wrong? How far does that authority extend? Can a Bhuta-nese nun know what is best for social harmony amongst Western feminist academics? Does a Dutch lawyer have the authority to determine what medical practices should be permitted in Somalia? To answer, one might assume a universal stance, maintain-ing that ethical codes such as “do no harm” or “moral agents are entitled to rights” should apply to everyone, everywhere, always. According to universality, the prop-erly objective Dutch lawyer could determine universally applicable laws to protect the rights of all agents, regardless of the agent’s particular situation. Without univer-sality, ethicists cannot make claims about universal human rights. However, feminist epistemology levels a significant challenge: authorial objectivity is impossible, and universality serves to veil Eurocentric and androcentric perspectives under the guise of a God’s eye view. The predominant alternative to universality is particularity, which attends to singular propositions. Particularity is neither entirely distinct from nor opposite to universality, since it depends on a universal perspective to determine and assess particulars and their claims. A particularist stance suggests that ethical statements are temporally and geographically situated constructs that must take the individual agent’s position into account. According to particularity, a Somalian girl might have distinct needs, entitlements, and rights from a Dutch lawyer, making the latter ill-equipped to apply universal judgments to a particular situation.journal article10.1007/s11007-025-09678-2