Coherence and the Ground of Morality
Abstract
Moral integrity and structural integrity are not analogically related but formally isomorphic — instantiations of the same topological primitive. This paper establishes consequence as an ontological primitive, shows that coherence emerges when consequence chains close, and demonstrates that the resulting framework resolves standing problems in moral philosophy — Kant's formalism, the is-ought gap, and the enforcement problem — while providing formal tools to diagnose and resist systemic consequence-severing in institutions, cognition, and AI systems, and opening ethics to empirical investigation through topological measurement of coherence.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Philosophical Ethics and Theory
Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Ethics in Business and Education
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Publication date
- 6 February 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Preprint