Qualitative haecceities

A haecceity H of x is a property of an entity such that necessarily x exists if and only if x instantiates H.

Haecceities are normally thought of as non-qualitative properties. But one could also have qualitative haecceities. Of course, if an entity has a qualitative haecceity then it cannot be duplicated, so one can only suppose that everything has a qualitative haecceity provided one is willing to agree with Leibniz’s Identity of Indiscernibles.

I am personally drawn to the idea that everything does have a qualitative haecceity, and specifically that the qualitative haecceity of x encapsulates x’s qualitative causal history: a complete qualitative description of x’s explanatorily initial state and of all of its causal antecedents. One might call such properties “qualitative origins”. The view that every entity has a qualitative origin is a haecceity is a particularly strong version of the essentiality of origins: everything in an entity’s causal history is essential to it, and the causal history is sufficient for the entity’s existence.

I suppose the main reason not to accept this view is that it implies that two distinct objects couldn’t have the same qualitative origin, but it seems possible that God could create two objects ex nihilo with the same qualitative initial state Q. I am not so sure, though. How would God do that? “Let there be two things satisfying Q?” But this is too indeterminate (I disagree with van Inwagen’s idea that God can issue indeterminate decrees). If there can be two, there can be three, so God would have to specify which two things satisfying Q to create. But that would require a way of securing numerical reference to specific individuals prior to their creation, and that in turn would require haecceities, in this case non-qualitative haecceities. So the objection to the view requires non-qualitative haecceities.

But what started us on this objection was the thought that God could say “Let there be two things satisfying Q.” But if God could say that, why couldn’t he say “Let there be two things satisfying H”, where H is a non-qualitative haecceity? I suppose one will say that this is nonsense, because it is nonsense to suppose two things share a non-qualitative haecceity. But isn’t there a double-standard here? If it is nonsense to suppose two things share a non-qualitative haecceity, why can’t it be nonsense to suppose two things share a qualitative haecceity? It seems that “what does the explaining” of why two things can’t share a non-qualitative haecceity is the obscurity of non-qualitative haecceities, and that’s not really an explanation.

So perhaps we can just say: Having a distinct qualitative origin is what it is to be a thing, and it is impossible for two things to share one. This does indeed restrict the space of possible worlds. No exactly similar iron spheres or anything like that. That’s admittedly a little counterintuitive. But on the other hand, we have a lovely explanation of intra- and inter-world identity of objects, as well as a reduction of de re modality to de dicto, all without the mystery of non-qualitative haecceities. Plus we have Leibniz’s zero/one picture of the world on which all of reality is described by zeroes and ones: we put a zero beside an uninstantiated qualitative haecceity and a one besides an initiated one, and then that tells us everything that exists. This is all very appealing to me.