#482 David Pearce: Transhumanism, The Hedonistic Imperative, and Abolishing Suffering
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David Pearce is a prominent figure within the transhumanism movement and one of the co-founders of the World Transhumanist Association, currently rebranded and incorporated as Humanity+. He approaches ethical issues from a lexical negative utilitarian perspective. Pearce maintains a series of websites devoted to transhumanist topics and what he calls the “hedonistic imperative”, a moral obligation to work towards the abolition of suffering in all sentient life. His self-published internet manifesto, The Hedonistic Imperative (1995), outlines how pharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and neurosurgery could converge to eliminate all forms of unpleasant experience from human and non-human life, replacing suffering with “gradients of bliss”. Pearce calls this the “abolitionist projection”.
In this episode, we talk about transhumanism, the hedonistic imperative, and the abolitionist projection. We first get into concepts like negative utilitarianism, hedonism, and gradients of bliss. We discuss the goals of the abolitionist projection, and the living beings it would target. We talk about the different technological approaches to abolishing suffering, like pharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, neurosurgery, becoming cyborgs, Nozick’s experience machine, and immortality. We discuss to what extent these technologies are sufficiently well-developed, or if we would need to wait more time. We discuss why social, economic, and political reforms are not enough. We tackle questions regarding how our human experience would change. We discuss how we should deal with people who would prefer to opt out of the abolitionist projection. Finally, we ask if we have less suffering in the world nowadays.
Time Links:
00:00 Intro
00:52 Utilitarianism, hedonism, and gradients of bliss
07:44 Eliminating pain
22:48 Transhumanist approaches – pharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, neurosurgery
40:28 Becoming cyborgs
44:42 The experience machine
50:09 Social, political, and environmental reforms
57:10 Changes in our human experience
1:02:08 To whom this would apply
1:06:54 Buddhism
1:09:13 Do we have less suffering in the world?
1:18:01 Follow David’s work!
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