Against Biological Relativism: the Cases of Race and Sex

The conceptualization, use, and support of categories in science are highly debated topics in philosophy. When it comes to the utilisation of norms, in support of empirical evidence, to justify classification claims about the nature of scientific categories, the “anything goes” objection is often brought forward by critics of empirical pragmatism. Critics argue that the use of norms cannot constitute objective support of categories and will inevitably lead to relativist classificatory chaos where researchers are left unrestrained to contingently “pick and choose” their relevant criteria. In this thesis, “race” and “sex” will be presented and analysed as examples of categories in which the use of norms did settle classificatory debates surrounding their application to the human species. The diversity of the two cases, the opposition of the resulting classificatory assessments, the rational discourse surrounding them despite their controversial nature, and the widespread support they hold, give reason to object to the "anything goes” concern against the use of norms in scientific classification, to reject a relativist view of biological concepts and finally to believe in an empiric, although still anti-realist, view of biology as a whole.