Professors and students, scholars and the general public, the young and the less young, all of them attended this years’ World Philosophy Day which was celebrated at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 18 November 2010. The event was an opportunity to make philosophical reflection, thereby enlarging the opportunities and spaces for the stimulation of critical thinking and debate.
Ioanna Kuçuradi, member of the International Commission against the Death Penalty (ICDP), participated at the round table “Women philosophers and political correctness”, one of the many events that were held during the day. In one of her reflections on the concept of political correctness, Professor Kuçuradi pointed out that to act politically correct also means to carry out the implications of human rights. She illustrated her finding on the issue of the death penalty: “To abolish death penalty and to work for its abolition is politically correct, because it is a practical implication of the right to life.” Within this context, she informed about the establishment, the value and the work of the ICDP and then closed her intervention by retaking her thought: “It is politically correct for all philosophers, especially the philosophers in whose countries death penalty still exists, to think of what will be the most appropriate strategies to change the minds of those in power and of the public.”
To read the complete intervention by Ioanna Kuçuradi please click here.
