Programmable Identity: A Framework for Affective-Volitional Sovereignty

We introduce the Affective-Volitional State Vector (AVSV) as a formal model of selfhood in a future where identity, affect, and agency can be surgically modulated. Unlike traditional theories that anchor personhood in memory, narrative, or essence, the AVSV treats the self as a temporally extended vector in dispositional space—composed of affective weights, volitional constraints, and evaluative trajectories. We argue that this model enables a new ethical principle: the sovereignty of the self over its own configuration. Drawing from functional neurosurgery, psychopharmacology, and closed-loop stimulation systems, we demonstrate that AVSV modulation is no longer hypothetical—it is already underway. We define sovereignty in AVSV terms and defend its legitimacy against classical objections: authenticity collapse, continuity dilemmas, moral hazard, consent paradoxes, and distributive risk.We then extend the framework to legal and philosophical domains, proposing a redefinition of moral agency and legal personhood indexed to AVSV coherence. What emerges is a new kind of subject: programmable, plural, and self-declared. The AVSV does not eliminate ethics—it rearchitects its substrate. This paper is both an ontological revision and a blueprint for design in a post-essentialist future.