The Preference-Constraint Normative Collision Framework (PCNCF)

This paper proposes the Preference-Constraint Normative Collision Framework (PCNCF), an interdisciplinary research framework for analysing situations in which one person's preference is incompatible with another person's actual characteristics or effective capacity to satisfy the preference. The framework begins with a primary illustrative case: an individual prefers a romantic partner who is at least six feet two inches tall, while another individual, who has romantic feelings for the first person, is five feet ten inches tall and is assumed to be unable to change this characteristic through ordinary, acceptable, voluntary means.The case is not presented as evidence that the parties necessarily contradict one another. Rather, it is used to distinguish a preference from a reality state, controllability from feasibility, descriptive mismatch from normative collision, and individual choice from the moral evaluation of particular actions or institutional practices. The framework introduces the Preference-Constraint Divergence Mechanism (PCDM), the Height-Preference Uncontrollability Case (HPUC), and the Preference-Constraint Normative Adjudication Protocol (PCNA-14). Its proposed architecture comprises eighteen analytical layers and three interconnected branches: descriptive-structural, logical-normative, and contextual-adjudicative.The formal specification identifies agents, traits, preference sets, thresholds, constraint conditions, feasibility parameters, mismatch functions, and multidimensional evaluative outputs. It further proposes procedures for logical consistency analysis, classification of conflict types, cross-domain transfer, sensitivity analysis, counterexample testing, and empirical validation. Mathematical notation is used to make assumptions and descriptive relationships explicit; it is not used to manufacture a numerical measure of moral correctness.The research culminates in two deliberately unresolved foundational questions. The first concerns whether, and under what conditions, an uncontrollable characteristic should be retained as a preference criterion. The second concerns whether, and under what conditions, failure to satisfy a preference can justify exclusion, devaluation, or disrespect. The present work specifies a research architecture for investigating these questions; it does not claim to have established a universally valid law, completed empirical validation, or proved that all preference-constraint mismatches are genuine paradoxes.Keywords: preference; constraint; autonomy; controllability; feasibility; normative conflict; incompatibility; dilemma; social philosophy; formal modelling; research methodology.