TITLE: Is there a categorification of the integers in terms of "graded sets"?
QUESTION [11 upvotes]: One way to categorify the non-negative integers is to consider the category FinSet whose objects are finite sets and whose morphisms are functions.  The isomorphism classes of objects in FinSet can be labeled "sets of cardinality 0, sets of cardinality 1," and so forth, so are a natural way of talking about the non-negative integers.  
What I want is a good definition of a category FinSSet (where SSet stands for "super set") whose isomorphism classes can be thought of as "sets of cardinality k" for all integers k in a natural way.  A natural candidate for the set of objects is the set of "Z2-graded sets," i.e. pairs of sets (S0, S1).  What we want is to define the cardinality of such a set as card(S0) - card(S1), so we want the isomorphism classes of objects to only depend on this number.
Unfortunately, I can't find a definition of the morphisms that actually accomplishes this.  What should it be?  For what it's worth, I've read "From Finite Sets to Feynman Diagrams" and I think John Baez gives up a little too early on the integers.

REPLY [3 votes]: For many years I am planning to try the following construction but never had enough time/energy to look at it carefully.
Take the object classifier $\mathscr E:=Set^{set_{fin}}$, and let $I$ be the generic object (the embedding of finite sets into sets). There is a triple of adjoint endofunctors $I\times(\_)\dashv(\_)^I\dashv\nabla_I(\_)$, induced by $(\_)+1:set_{fin}\to set_{fin}$; in particular these give an essential geometric endomorphism $E:\mathscr E\to\mathscr E$.
We now can either look at the $E$-completion or at the $E$-localization of $\mathscr E$, i. e. either at the colimit or at the limit of
$$
\cdots\to\mathscr E\xrightarrow[]{E}\mathscr E\xrightarrow[]{E}\mathscr E\to\cdots;
$$ 
what we get must contain an additive inverse of $(\_)+1$ in one sense or other...