This paper contends that the is/ought problem is not a metaphysical chasm but a conceptual artifact of foundationalist epistemology. To reframe this enduring challenge, this paper develops Emergent Pragmatic Coherentism (EPC), a descriptive, systems-level model of moral knowledge that unifies descriptive and normative claims under a single evolutionary framework. Building upon Quinean holism, EPC models knowledge as an emergent hierarchy of shared “networks of predicates,” where truth is deflationarily defined as robust coherence within a pragmatically-tested network. This network-relativity is disciplined by an external, evolutionary selection process driven by the friction between a network and a system's constitutive Drive to Endure. The ultimate metric is pragmatic viability: a system's efficiency in sustaining itself with minimal coercion or wasted energy. High-cost networks exhibit normative brittleness, increasing their collapse probability. This model directly engages with recent evolutionary debunking arguments (Street 2006; Joyce 2001), reframing what they treat as a genealogical challenge into the very causal engine of procedural objectivity. This grounds procedural objectivity—networks are objectively ranked by long-term viability, culminating in the Apex Network as a real, mind-independent emergent object. EPC's central claim is that endurance is a transcendental condition for inquiry, providing a robust, testable account of moral progress rooted in humanity’s resilient social structures, without metaphysical fiat.
The perceived gap between claims of fact (“is”) and claims of value (“ought”) has long been treated as a fundamental chasm in our conceptual landscape. This paper argues that the problem is a symptom of a foundationalist epistemology that artificially segregates descriptive and normative claims into distinct magisteria. The solution proposed here is not to construct another speculative bridge between them, but rather to adopt an epistemology where no such gap arises—a unified system that adjudicates all claims in the same evolutionary court of pragmatic selection.
This paper defends such a framework: Emergent Pragmatic Coherentism (EPC). At its core, EPC is a systematic extrapolation of Quinean holism. It begins with the premise that individuals navigate reality using a fallible “web of belief” (Quine 1951). Because all agents face shared physical and social constraints, their individual webs are necessarily forced to overlap, giving rise to an emergent hierarchy of shared “networks of predicates.” Within this model, a claim is 'true' in a deflationary sense if it is coherent within a given network. This initial network-relativity is then disciplined by an evolutionary engine of pragmatic selection, grounding a form of procedural objectivity. Networks that generate high degrees of systemic friction prove less viable and are selected against over time, allowing for an objective ranking of networks based on their long-term pragmatic success.
The ambition of this project is to reframe the grounding problem of metaethics by identifying the de facto foundation we already presuppose. It does not provide a non-circular answer to “Why value survival?” but instead argues that endurance functions as a constitutive condition for inquiry itself. Like some constitutivist accounts (e.g., Korsgaard 2009), EPC locates normativity in what is constitutive of inquiry. But unlike agency-centered accounts, EPC transposes the constitutive condition to the system level: endurance is not a value an agent must choose, but the inescapable precondition for any evaluative project to exist at all. Said another way, any system engaged in evaluating claims is already, by necessity, engaged in the project of enduring.
While this project stands in the tradition of pragmatic naturalism, its distinct contribution is the formal, systems-level architecture it provides. It moves beyond a general appeal to "what works" by specifying a causal engine (the hierarchy of costs), a unit of selection (the informational network), and a standard of procedural objectivity (the Apex Network). The ambition is therefore not to bracket the grounding problem, but to solve it procedurally by providing a testable model of the court of pragmatic selection and justifying its jurisdiction by demonstrating its inescapable, transcendental nature. Its payoff is a rigorous explanatory framework and a diagnostic method for assessing the viability of social structures.
The paper proceeds in five stages. Section 2 explains how shared networks of predicates emerge from individual webs of belief. Section 3 introduces the evolutionary engine of pragmatic viability, detailing how systemic costs provide a falsifiable metric. Section 4 develops the concept of the Apex Network and its implications for objectivity. Section 5 addresses central objections, including stability of oppression and the grounding problem. Section 6 situates EPC within contemporary naturalistic metaethics. Together, these sections show how EPC dissolves the is/ought gap by embedding both into a unified process of evolutionary selection.
EPC extends Quinean holism from an individual, psychological model to a social epistemology. It begins with Quine’s famous metaphor of the “web of belief”—the coherent, holistic system of claims that constitutes an individual's knowledge (Quine 1951). For EPC, this web is not just a set of beliefs, but a functional network of interconnected predicates that an agent uses to navigate reality. The model rests on two premises: (1) Every agent navigates the world using their own web of belief, or network of predicates; (2) Every agent is subject to the pragmatic constraints of a shared physical and social reality.
From these premises, a third fact follows with structural necessity: wherever agents successfully coordinate their actions, their individual webs are forced to overlap. This intersection is not a top-down agreement but an automatic, bottom-up emergence. When two people decide to build a canoe, they begin with their own distinct webs of belief about wood, water, and tools. As they work, reality provides immediate feedback: a design choice either works or it fails. A failed attempt at a hull design generates pragmatic pushback, forcing both individuals to update the relevant predicates in their personal webs. Because they are working on the same problem under the same physical constraints, their individual updates will necessarily converge on solutions that work. The result is an emergent, shared sub-network: a set of interlocking predicates related to canoe-building (“this type of wood is strong,” “this shape is buoyant”) that now exists with the same structure in both of their webs. This shared sub-network is not a compromise; it is the convergent result of independent systems being shaped by the same external force. This process of convergence scales to all levels of social organization, from family units to scientific communities and nation-states. While the feedback for simple physical predicates is immediate, the feedback for complex social and normative predicates is far more diffuse—a crucial asymmetry the model accounts for (see Section 5.5). It echoes accounts of morality as an evolving “ethical project” (Kitcher 2011), but where such accounts focus on the function of morality, EPC specifies the structural selection mechanism that drives predicate convergence.
To analyze this phenomenon, EPC formally adopts the term “Network of Predicates” as the public, structural equivalent of the individual’s psychological “web of belief.” A network of predicates is a publicly shareable, role-functional structure composed of three elements. First, it contains a set of typed predicates—claims with both descriptive and normative roles, such as “…is wrong,” “…boils at 100°C,” or “…is a universal human right.” Second, it is organized by a set of inferential and operational links, including entailments, defeaters, decision rules, and measurement procedures. Third, it incorporates interface rules that specify how the network receives and processes feedback from tasks and environments, whether in the form of error signals or performance metrics.
Within such a structure, a predicate is true-in-the-network if it is stably integrated into the network’s inferential and operational profile under its interface rules. This is a deflationary, internal notion of truth, distinct from the stronger concept of viability introduced in Section 3. The contrast with Quine’s web of belief is instructive: whereas an individual web is a psychological realization, a network of predicates is the public, shareable structure onto which multiple individual webs converge through the pragmatic pressure of external feedback.
What prevents the emergent networks described in Section 2 from being arbitrary, relativistic constructs is the relentless engine of evolutionary pragmatic selection. This engine operates across scales, originating from the micro-level experience of pragmatic pushback: the immediate, frustrating feedback an agent receives when a predicate misaligns with reality. A poorly designed tool breaks; a flawed social strategy invites conflict or collapse. When aggregated across a population, these individual instances of friction become the macro-level Systemic Costs—such as widespread dissent or wasted resources—that drain a network’s viability. This section details the causal mechanism of this engine, showing how a minimal, biologically-grounded premise—the Drive to Endure—functions as the foundational filter that disciplines all networks and grounds a rigorous, empirically-based methodology.
The model is anchored not by a chosen value but by a constitutive drive to endure. This is not a thick, value-laden notion of flourishing, but a minimal, biologically grounded precondition: the persistence of a system’s structure and core information over time. The status of this drive is transcendental, not normative. It is not a goal we choose, but the inescapable condition that makes the evaluation of any goal possible. An architect need not normatively value gravity, but any design that ignores its constraints is not a viable alternative—it is simply a failure. Similarly, the Drive to Endure is the non-negotiable filter through which all informational blueprints must pass.