Founder of Structural Philosophy—a research program in which every level of abstraction remains grounded in antecedent structure. Concepts are derived from the dynamics of systems, not stipulated to serve theoretical or political aims.
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Structural philosophy is a research program in which every level of abstraction remains grounded in antecedent structure. Concepts are derived from the dynamics of systems—resource flows, epistemic constraints, enforcement processes—not stipulated to serve theoretical or political aims. The method begins with meaningful experience, identifies the invariants that organize a domain, and builds upward without losing contact with the ground.
Definitions are discovered, not fabricated. Just as "water = H₂O" tracks a natural kind whose structure exists independently of our naming, structural philosophy recovers the architecture of concepts by attending to the phenomena they track. The contrast is not confusion versus clarity, but fabrication versus grounding.
Structural ethics examines moral possibility and obligation under resource constraints. Unlike traditional ethical theories that presuppose unlimited resources or ideal conditions, structural ethics reveals how the mathematics of finite resources determines what moral actions are possible, obligatory, or supererogatory.
The framework shows that classical ethical theories (utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics) become undefined at or below critical resource thresholds—what I call the Zero-Instantiation Constraint (ZIC). Below this threshold, moral solutions become mathematically impossible, regardless of intentions or principles.
Structural ethics models agents as systems with fundamental needs, decay rates, and finite buffers, unifying three key frameworks: feasibility (ZIC), sustainable duty (Enoughness), and measurable affection (Love) into a single resource-indexed moral ontology.
Structural gender theory applies the same methodology to sex and gender. The persistent confusion in contemporary debates arises because "woman" is asked to denote a position on two orthogonal axes simultaneously: biological type and expressive mode. These dimensions are independent; no single term can coherently track both.
The framework distinguishes three components: Type (T)—reproductive organization, biological and invariant; Expression (E)—behavioral presentation, individual and variable; and Gender (G)—the enforcement process by which normative expectations based on perceived type are applied to expression.
Gender is not a property one has but an operation exerted on persons. It exists because reproductive type is epistemically opaque to third parties: we know others have a type, but must infer which one. Gender is the socially constructed solution to this epistemic problem—a stabilization system that maintains the correlation between expression and type.
Establishes phase structures in moral space, proving that classical moral theories become undefined below critical resource thresholds. Shows where moral solutions are mathematically impossible.
A symmetrical principle of sustainable responsibility: care must satisfy the dependent's basic needs without violating the caregiver's own basic needs. Moral duties bounded by structural viability.
Quantifies affection through supererogatory resource allocation—measuring love by what we give beyond obligation, revealing the structure of care, sacrifice, and interdependence.
Models agents as systems embedded in resource flows with decay rates and finite buffers. Moral obligations emerge from viability gradients and existential necessity.
Reproductive organization—biological, fixed, and invariant. Defined functionally by role in the reproductive function f(+,−) = Z, not by anatomy or self-identification.
Behavioral presentation—individual, variable, and socially legible. Acts receive gendered valence through the context-dependent gendering function γ.
The enforcement process by which normative expectations based on perceived type are applied to expression. Gender is what is done to persons, not what they have.
The socially enforced expectations specifying which expressive valences are expected of each type in a given context. Invariant in structure, variable in content.
2025
A formal analysis distinguishing reproductive type, expressive mode, and gender as enforcement process. Demonstrates that the persistent contradictions in feminist philosophy of gender arise from collapsing orthogonal dimensions into one. Provides a coherent framework that respects trans persons without requiring denial of biological reality, and resolves the pronoun question through type-sensitive selection.
View on PhilPapers →November 2025
This paper presents the mathematical framework grounding structural ethics in viability theory and differential geometry. Agents are modeled as multi-dimensional systems with fundamental needs, decay rates, and finite buffers, yielding three qualitatively distinct regimes: Sufficiency, Zero-Instantiation Constraint (ZIC), and Scarcity. The framework introduces non-fungible, person-specific need dimensions explaining parental sacrifice, grief-induced decline, and rational self-sacrifice.
View on PhilArchive →October 2025
Develops the principle of Enoughness—a symmetrical framework where both dependent's and caregiver's basic needs determine moral bounds. Shows that the circumstantial limit is not external to morality but arises from applying the same basic-needs constraint to self and other.
View on PhilArchive →2025
Programmatic overview unifying the three core frameworks: feasibility (ZIC), sustainable duty (Enoughness), and measurable affection (Love) into a single resource-indexed moral ontology. Demonstrates that morality has structure—boundaries, dynamics, and limits expressible in formal, testable terms.
View on PhilArchive →