David Pearce (philosopher)

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Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:Main otherScript error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image David Pearce (born April 1959)[1] is a British transhumanist philosopher.[2][3][4] He is the co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, currently rebranded and incorporated as Humanity+.[5][6] Pearce approaches ethical issues from a negative utilitarian perspective.[7]

Based in Brighton, England, 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.[8][9] 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 "information-sensitive gradients of bliss".[10][11] Pearce calls this the "abolitionist project".[12]

Early life and education

Pearce grew up in Burpham, Surrey. His parents, grandparents and three of his great-grandparents were all vegetarian and his father was a Quaker. From a young age, Pearce was concerned with death and aging, and later the problem of suffering. He became a secular scientific rationalist around the age of 10 or 11.[13]

Pearce received a scholarship to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Oxford, but never finished his degree.[13]

Hedonistic transhumanism

In 1995, Pearce set up BLTC Research, a network of websites publishing texts about transhumanism and related topics in pharmacology and biopsychiatry.[14] He published The Hedonistic Imperative that year, arguing that "[o]ur post-human successors will rewrite the vertebrate genome, redesign the global ecosystem, and abolish suffering throughout the living world."[15]

Pearce's ideas inspired an abolitionist school of transhumanism, or "hedonistic transhumanism", based on his idea of "paradise engineering" and his argument that the abolition of suffering—which he calls the "abolitionist project"—is a moral imperative.[12][16][17] He defends a version of negative utilitarianism.

He outlines how drugs and technologies, including intracranial self-stimulation ("wireheading"), designer drugs and genetic engineering could end suffering for all sentient life.[12] Mental suffering will be a relic of the past, just as physical suffering during surgery was eliminated by anaesthesia.[8] The function of pain will be provided by some other signal, without the unpleasant experience.[12]

A vegan, Pearce argues that humans have a responsibility not only to avoid cruelty to animals within human society but also to redesign the global ecosystem so that animals do not suffer in the wild.[18] He has argued in favour of a "cross-species global analogue of the welfare state",[19] suggesting that humanity might eventually "reprogram predators" to limit predation, reducing the suffering of animals who are predated.[20] Fertility regulation could maintain herbivore populations at sustainable levels, "a more civilised and compassionate policy option than famine, predation, and disease".[21] The increasing number of vegans and vegetarians in the transhumanism movement has been attributed in part to Pearce's influence.[22]

Humanity+ and other roles

In 1998, Pearce co-founded the World Transhumanist Association, known from 2008 as Humanity+, with Nick Bostrom.[10] Pearce is a member of the board of advisors.[23]

Currently, Pearce is a fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies,[24] and sits on the futurist advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation.[25] He is also the director of bioethics of Invincible Wellbeing[26] and is on the advisory boards of the Center on Long-Term Risk,[27] the Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering[28] and since 2021 the Qualia Research Institute.[29]

Until 2013, Pearce was on the editorial advisory board of the controversial and non-peer-reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses.[30] He has been interviewed by Vanity Fair (Germany) and on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze, among others.[31][32]

Pearce currently serves as an advisory board member for Herbivorize Predators,[33] an organization whose mission is to discover how to transform carnivorous animals into herbivorous ones in order to minimize suffering across all species.[34]

Books

See also

References

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External links

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  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  6. ↑ Brey, Philip; Søraker, Johnny Hartz (2009). "Philosophy of Computing and Information Technology", in Anthonie Meijers (ed.). Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences. Elsevier, 1389.
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ Hauskeller, Michael (January 2010). "Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman: A Reply to Stefan Sorgner". Journal of Evolution and Technology. 21(1), 5–8.
  10. ↑ a b Bostrom (2005), 15.
  11. ↑ Pearce, David (2012). "The Biointelligence Explosion", in Amnon H. Eden, et al. (eds.). Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 199–236.
  12. ↑ a b c d Thweatt-Bates, Jeanine (2016). Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of the Posthuman. London: Routledge, 50–51 (first published 2012).
  13. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ Adams, Nathan A. IV (2004). "An Unnatural Assault on Natural Law" in Colson, Charles W. and Nigel M. de S. Cameron (eds.). Human Dignity in the Biotech Century: A Christian Vision for Public Policy. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 167. Template:ISBN
  16. ↑ Hughes, James J. (2007). "The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future" Template:Webarchive, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 20.
  17. ↑ Bostrom (2005), 16.
  18. ↑ Thweatt-Bates (2016), 100–101.
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  22. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ "Advisors" Template:Webarchive, Humanity+.
  24. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  25. ↑ Advisory boards, Lifeboat Foundation.
  26. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  27. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  28. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  29. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  30. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  31. ↑ Template:Cite magazine
  32. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  33. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  34. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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