The Book
The Geometry of the Good develops a structural ontology of ethics. It begins from a simple ontological claim: to be is to be in relation. Whenever directed relations obtain between agents, obligations arise.
Ethical obligation is not grounded in rules, contracts, preferences, or cultural consensus. It is a structural feature of relational life itself. Moral systems persist when relational coherence is maintained and collapse when contradiction accumulates without repair.
Ethics is reconceived as a geometric field rather than a normative code: obligations have direction, magnitude, persistence, and decay. Trust functions as infrastructure. Repair restores continuity.
The SimEthica Platform
SimEthica is an agent-based simulation platform developed alongside The Geometry of the Good to formally test, explore, and extend its core claims.
SimEthica models populations of interacting agents subject to enforceable constraints—such as norms, rules, expectations, or obligations—and tracks how violations, enforcement, and repair shape long-term systemic outcomes.
Rather than treating ethical failure as terminal, the platform represents repair as an ongoing structural process. Systems may absorb, resolve, or compound violations over time, producing measurable patterns of stability or rupture.
While The Geometry of the Good provides one fully articulated reference framework implemented within SimEthica, the platform itself is theory-agnostic by design. Researchers may explore competing assumptions about authority, pluralism, institutional structure, or normative coordination without presupposing any single ethical or legal theory.
Explore the platform: SimEthica — empirical ethics in silico →
Core Structural Principles
- Directedness
Obligation arises when one agent is oriented toward another. - Contradiction Debt
Unfulfilled obligations generate accumulating structural tension. - Trust as Infrastructure
Trust enables plural obligations to coexist coherently. - Repair
Repair restores relational coherence after failure. - Diachronic Sensitivity
Obligations evolve across time and institutions.
Formalization and Simulation
The Geometry of the Good is implemented in agent-based simulations. Agents emit obligation vectors, fulfill or deny obligations, accumulate contradiction debt, and engage in repair.
Positioning the Framework
The Geometry of the Good grounds obligation in relational structure rather than rules or outcomes.
Deontology requires universal maxims; utilitarianism requires outcome calculation; care ethics emphasizes responsiveness. This framework formalizes relational obligation itself.
Explorations
Directedness
Drag the agent to observe how directedness generates obligation vectors.
Conceptual Quizzes
Outlook
The Geometry of the Good treats ethics as an emergent relational field capable of explanation, comparison, and formal testing.
Ongoing work extends the framework into legal ontology, institutional repair, and computable normative systems.