The recent exchange between The Guilty Feminist’s Deborah Frances-White and the hosts of the TRIGGERnometry podcast offered more than a culture clash—it exposed a deeper philosophical fault line running through today’s public discourse. On one side, we find moral relativism, which treats values and identities as fluid and socially constructed. On the other, a more grounded essentialism, which insists that some categories—like biological sex or universal moral principles—matter.
This conversation is more than academic. It has real-world implications for how we treat one another, how we shape our laws and policies, and how we define justice. At its core lies a pressing concern: what happens when individual worth is subordinated to group identity? And can a society truly thrive if it loses sight of the stable reference points that allow us to act justly and live ethically?
The Promise—and Pitfall—of Moral Relativism
Deborah Frances-White articulates a worldview in which morality is contingent: shaped by culture, history, and social norms. In her view, categories such as gender or family structure are not fixed but fluid, evolving across time and context. This approach has the appeal of openness—it appears to accommodate diverse experiences and challenge traditional power structures.
But the promise of moral relativism quickly runs into its own limitations. If every moral claim is just a reflection of cultural conditioning, then what grounds do we have to object to harmful practices? If every identity category is infinitely negotiable, how can we make coherent laws, uphold rights, or protect the vulnerable?
More crucially, relativism begins to fracture the idea that there is any intrinsic value in the individual as such. Instead, people are increasingly seen through the lens of their group affiliations—defined not by character, conduct, or conscience, but by race, gender, sexuality, or perceived oppression. This is not a vision of liberation. It is a quiet return to determinism—only now it is cultural rather than biological.
The Case for Essentialism (Without Rigidity)
In contrast, the TRIGGERnometry hosts argue for the importance of empirical categories and universal standards. They do not deny that human experience is diverse, but they caution against losing all definitional clarity in the name of inclusivity. Their defence of biological sex, for example, is not a rejection of trans people—it is an attempt to maintain coherence in domains like medicine, sport, and law.
Essentialism, properly understood, is not about forcing people into narrow boxes. It is about recognising that some reference points—like the biological realities of sex, or the moral intuition that harming others is wrong—are necessary for a functioning, fair society. It is also about defending the value of the individual over the abstractions of group identity.
The dignity of the person cannot be grounded in fluid norms that change with the political wind. It must be rooted in something deeper: a recognition that each person is more than the sum of their social labels. A society that reduces people to their demographic traits may call itself inclusive, but it risks becoming dehumanising in practice.
The Tyranny of Group-Based Reasoning
A recurring theme in Frances-White’s argument is the authority of lived experience, especially the experience of marginalised groups. While experiential insight is valuable, its elevation to moral authority carries serious risks. Group identity is not a proxy for truth. Not all women think alike. Not all gay people share the same values. Not all trans people agree on gender ideology.
When moral authority is granted on the basis of group identity, disagreement becomes heresy. Reasoned debate is replaced with emotional appeals. And worse, individuals within those groups who hold different views are often silenced or discredited as traitors. This is not justice—it is ideological conformity dressed in the language of inclusion.
In this model, individual worth becomes secondary to group membership. The idea that a person might be judged by the content of their character, their personal integrity, or their unique contribution to society is quietly replaced by a system that weighs people according to their demographic “value.” That is not progress—it is a moral regression.
Disagreement as Dialogue, Not Propaganda
One of the more revealing moments in the TRIGGERnometry–Guilty Feminist conversation was the discussion about misinformation. Frances-White suggested that disagreement on these issues is often fuelled by propaganda. But this assumption—common among relativists—reflects a worrying disdain for public reasoning.
When dissenting views are treated as the product of manipulation or ignorance, the very conditions for democratic dialogue are undermined. Disagreement is not a threat to progress. It is how progress happens. A society that cannot accommodate genuine difference of opinion cannot claim to be inclusive, let alone just.
Rediscovering the Individual
Ultimately, the challenge of our time is not simply to be more tolerant or more inclusive. It is to reclaim a sense of human worth that is not dependent on mutable social categories. Essentialism, when tempered by empathy and openness, provides a framework for doing just that. It gives us shared standards and stable principles by which we can treat each person as a moral equal—not because of who they represent, but because of who they are.
Moral relativism, by contrast, struggles to protect the dignity of the individual. It risks turning people into mouthpieces for their groups, and public discourse into a performance of ideological allegiance. In the name of compassion, it can erase individuality altogether.
The future of justice, and indeed of freedom, lies not in abandoning structure, but in refining it. It lies not in flattening difference, but in recognising the irreducible value of each person—not as a representative of a class, but as a human being.
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