David Pearce (philosopher)

Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person David Pearce (born April 1959)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> is a British transhumanist philosopher.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He is the co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, currently rebranded and incorporated as Humanity+.<ref name=Bostrom2005pp15-16>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Brey, Philip; Søraker, Johnny Hartz (2009). "Philosophy of Computing and Information Technology", in Anthonie Meijers (ed.). Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences. Elsevier, 1389.</ref> Pearce approaches ethical issues from a negative utilitarian perspective.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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.<ref name="philosophy now"/><ref>Hauskeller, Michael (January 2010). "Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman: A Reply to Stefan Sorgner". Journal of Evolution and Technology. 21(1), 5–8.</ref> 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".<ref name=Bostrom2005p15>Bostrom (2005), 15.</ref><ref>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.</ref> Pearce calls this the "abolitionist project".<ref name=Thweatt-Bates2016pp50-51/>

Early life and educationEdit

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.<ref name=":0" />

Pearce received a scholarship to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Oxford, but never finished his degree.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hedonistic transhumanismEdit

In 1995, Pearce set up BLTC Research, a network of websites publishing texts about transhumanism and related topics in pharmacology and biopsychiatry.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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."<ref>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</ref>

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.<ref name=Thweatt-Bates2016pp50-51>Thweatt-Bates, Jeanine (2016). Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of the Posthuman. London: Routledge, 50–51 (first published 2012).</ref><ref>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.</ref><ref>Bostrom (2005), 16.</ref> 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.<ref name=Thweatt-Bates2016pp50-51/> Mental suffering will be a relic of the past, just as physical suffering during surgery was eliminated by anaesthesia.<ref name="philosophy now">Template:Cite news</ref> The function of pain will be provided by some other signal, without the unpleasant experience.<ref name=Thweatt-Bates2016pp50-51/>

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.<ref name=Thweatt-Bates2016pp100-101>Thweatt-Bates (2016), 100–101.</ref> He has argued in favour of a "cross-species global analogue of the welfare state",<ref>Template:Cite interview</ref> suggesting that humanity might eventually "reprogram predators" to limit predation, reducing the suffering of animals who are predated.<ref name=Verchot2014>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Fertility regulation could maintain herbivore populations at sustainable levels, "a more civilised and compassionate policy option than famine, predation, and disease".<ref name=Dvorsky2014>Template:Cite interview</ref> The increasing number of vegans and vegetarians in the transhumanism movement has been attributed in part to Pearce's influence.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Humanity+ and other rolesEdit

In 1998, Pearce co-founded the World Transhumanist Association, known from 2008 as Humanity+, with Nick Bostrom.<ref name=Bostrom2005p15/> Pearce is a member of the board of advisors.<ref>"Advisors" Template:Webarchive, Humanity+.</ref>

Currently, Pearce is a fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and sits on the futurist advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation.<ref>Advisory boards, Lifeboat Foundation.</ref> He is also the director of bioethics of Invincible Wellbeing<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and is on the advisory boards of the Center on Long-Term Risk,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and since 2021 the Qualia Research Institute.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Until 2013, Pearce was on the editorial advisory board of the controversial and non-peer-reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He has been interviewed by Vanity Fair (Germany) and on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze, among others.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Pearce currently serves as an advisory board member for Herbivorize Predators,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> an organization whose mission is to discover how to transform carnivorous animals into herbivorous ones in order to minimize suffering across all species.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>