Part 3: Inseparable subjectivity
In this post (https://benstowell.blogspot.com/2025/10/inseparable-subjectivity-part-2.html) I said the following:
“Person(2a) = The pure subjectivity (of a particular person) by which all first-person properties (of that particular person) are unified.
E.g. The experiences of being stung by a wasp, jumping into cold water, and biting into a chocolate chip cookie all have something in common: the fact that these experiences are happening to you. There is a youness, a subjectivity, that these experiences have in common.
Person(2b) = The other properties of first-person properties that accompany the pure subjectivity by which all first-person properties are unified.
E.g. The experiences of being stung by a wasp, jumping into cold water, and biting into a chocolate chip cookie have differences between them. That which distinguishes one experience from the other—the pain of venom in your veins versus the pain of the initial shock of cold water versus the happiness of the taste of melted chocolate—these differences show that these experiences cannot be the same, despite having a sameness to them, specifically the same subjectivity.
You(2a) is the ‘you’ referred to in the following sentence: You do not choose to be what you are. You do not choose to have the intelligence, rationality, or knowledge that you have. So you do not choose for your decision-making process to be what it is. So you do not choose for your choices to come out as they do. The badness (or goodness) of your choices reflects the badness (or goodness) of your inputs, but not the badness (or goodness) of you.
But you(2b) is the 'you' referred to in the following sentence: The choices you made were good / bad / praiseworthy / critique-worthy. I.e. the causal properties accompanying the pure subjectivity of first-person properties had good / bad / praiseworthy / critique-worthy effects.”
E.g. The experiences of being stung by a wasp, jumping into cold water, and biting into a chocolate chip cookie all have something in common: the fact that these experiences are happening to you. There is a youness, a subjectivity, that these experiences have in common.
Person(2b) = The other properties of first-person properties that accompany the pure subjectivity by which all first-person properties are unified.
E.g. The experiences of being stung by a wasp, jumping into cold water, and biting into a chocolate chip cookie have differences between them. That which distinguishes one experience from the other—the pain of venom in your veins versus the pain of the initial shock of cold water versus the happiness of the taste of melted chocolate—these differences show that these experiences cannot be the same, despite having a sameness to them, specifically the same subjectivity.
You(2a) is the ‘you’ referred to in the following sentence: You do not choose to be what you are. You do not choose to have the intelligence, rationality, or knowledge that you have. So you do not choose for your decision-making process to be what it is. So you do not choose for your choices to come out as they do. The badness (or goodness) of your choices reflects the badness (or goodness) of your inputs, but not the badness (or goodness) of you.
But you(2b) is the 'you' referred to in the following sentence: The choices you made were good / bad / praiseworthy / critique-worthy. I.e. the causal properties accompanying the pure subjectivity of first-person properties had good / bad / praiseworthy / critique-worthy effects.”
Two thoughts:
One, even if we allow a distinction between Person(2a) and Person(2b), it’s not clear that 2a is as non-causal as I claimed. If I have stressful experiences, and those stressful first-person properties cause my body to produce stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, then the “pure subjectivity” of being on the receiving end of experience actually does play a role in causal relationships. Plus, presumably pure experiences cause me to remember having those experiences. So pure subjectivity causes memory. Furthermore, memories reveal patterns that affect future actions. By remembering the pain of touching a hot stove, I avoid touching hot stoves in the future. So by causing memories, not only does pure subjectivity play a causal role, but a causal role with respect to our actions.
Two, it’s not clear that the distinction between 2a and 2b makes sense. If I treat subjectivity as a consistent property that survives through time (to explain how a person survives through time), then it sounds like I’m sneaking in the idea of a mental substance, of a subjectivity that exists independently from everything else and is subject to qualia. That’s a problem for bundle theory, which says that there are no substances, only properties. If instead I say that wherever there is a subjective property, there is personhood, and paint this picture that there is no stable, persistent, substantial, mysterious self – and that instead there is a succession of subjective properties and a directly observable, unmysterious self – then it seems like I must consider subjectivity not something separate from the subjective properties. If your subjective properties are you, then your subjective properties pertaining to your choices and feelings are you. So the pure subjectivity of 2a cannot be separated from the other properties, 2b, that accompany 2a.
By abstracting out my subjectivity in common with all my subjective properties, I am beholding my subjective property not as something particular and concrete, but universal and abstract. But persons are concrete, not abstract! The self is as particular and concrete as it gets. So to avoid the mistake of talking about a universal self when I should be talking about a particular self, then I must avoid abstracting out subjectivity.
It seems that I have been assuming that the subjectivity of a property can be separated from ugly (or admirable) aspects of that property. For example, if someone makes the conscious, unconstrained decision to kill someone out of spite, there’s a subjectivity to that choice. But this subjectivity is replete throughout the property such that the entire property is subjective. We cannot separate the subjectivity from the rest of the property. So the ugliness of the subjectivity just is the ugliness of the entire subjective property, and thus the person.
Imagine the feeling of being judged. It's a sharp pain, which makes it vivid and easy to imagine. Is it possible to separate the feeling of being judged from the subjectivity? No. The experience is necessarily experiential. There is no pain floating around out there without a person to feel it. Pain is by its essence felt. Likewise, there is no subjectivity floating around out there without other properties characterizing that experience. Subjectivity is by its essence a particular kind of experience. So for a painful feeling, like being judged, you can't have the pain without the subjectivity, and you can't have the subjectivity without the pain. The subjectivity is replete and inseparable.
But if a person per se is identical to their subjective properties (the person per se of the moment is identical to the subjective property of that moment), then any criticism or praise directed to the ugly or admirable aspects of the subjective property are directed to the person per se (at the moment of that property).
If this is right, and if our choices come with a subjective property (the quale of making a choice), then we are our choices, just as we are our pains and pleasures and any other subjective property. If by ‘person’ we mean a collection of subjective properties that all have the same subjectivity in common, then our experiences (including experiences of making choices) are straightforwardly part of us.
Far from eliminating free will, this might provide the very resources to build an account of how free will works! Namely, that because a) our choices accompany phenomenal choice, and because b) wherever there is phenomenology there is a person per se, therefore c) to criticize or praise a choice just is to criticize or praise the phenomenology, which just is to criticize or praise the person per se.