Right Action as Loss-Minimization Among Viable Options: A Structural Theory

What makes an action right? This paper develops a structural answer: an action is optimally right if and only if it minimizes aggregate loss among viable options, and permissible if it remains within the best attainable severity class. The framework takes loss—the diminution of action-capacity within responsibility structures—as its foundational primitive, drawing on an independently developed ontology of loss as temporal foreclosure. From this foundation, the paper derives: (1) a three-level verdict structure (optimal, permissible, wrong) grounded in severity thresholds, (2) lexicographic severity aggregation that captures categorical priorities without abandoning outcome-sensitivity, (3) a viability constraint that blocks demandingness objections by treating agency-destruction as catastrophic loss internal to the framework, and (4) a counterfactual structure of wrongness that explains why unavoidable harm is not wrong while easily avoidable harm is worse. The resulting view is a structurally constrained consequentialism that explains why deontological prohibitions have force, why special obligations emerge from relationships, and why predatory structures fail to qualify as moral systems. The framework preserves consequentialist outcome-sensitivity while explaining the categorical priorities emphasized by deontological theories in terms of the structure of loss.