David Pearce (philosopher)

{{Infobox person

| name = David Pearce

| image = David Pearce (transhumanist).jpg

| caption = Pearce in 2013

| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1959|04}}

| birth_place =

| alma_mater = Brasenose College, Oxford{{Cite web|url=https://www.bnc.ox.ac.uk/alumni/notable-alumni|title=Notable Alumni - Brasenose College, Oxford|website=Brasenose College, Oxford|access-date=2019-10-22}}

| organisation = Humanity+

| known_for = The Hedonistic Imperative (1995)

| movement = Transhumanism, veganism

| website = {{URL|https://www.hedweb.com}}

}}

David Pearce (born April 1959){{Cite web|title=David PEARCE|url=https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/J3yv3O9mp9ERK5Ovmfb296NQVHc/appointments|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-15|website=Companies House|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210729144537/https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/J3yv3O9mp9ERK5Ovmfb296NQVHc/appointments |archive-date=29 July 2021 }} is a British transhumanist philosopher.{{cite journal |last1=Keulartz |first1=Jozef |title=Should the Lion Eat Straw Like the Ox? Animal Ethics and the Predation Problem |journal=Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics |year=2016 |volume=29 |issue=5 |pages=813–834 |publisher=SpringerLink|doi=10.1007/s10806-016-9637-4 |s2cid=5918938 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2016JAEE...29..813K |hdl=2066/161423 |hdl-access=free }}{{cite web |last1=Schneider |first1=Susan |title=Future Minds: Transhumanism, Cognitive Enhancement and the Nature of Persons |url=https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1037&context=neuroethics_pubs |access-date=29 September 2022 |website=Penn Libraries |publisher=University of Pennsylvania}}{{cite journal |last1=Dobrodum |first1=Olga |last2=Kyvliuk |first2=Olga |date=2021-01-29 |title=Transhumanism and Posthumanism: Reflection of the Human Civilization Future |url=http://ispcjournal.org/journals/2021/01/PhC_26_DobrodumKyvliuk.pdf |journal=Philosophy and Cosmology |volume=26 |pages=77–89 |doi=10.29202/phil-cosm/26/6 |s2cid=234292838 |access-date=29 September 2022}} He is the co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, currently rebranded and incorporated as Humanity+.{{cite journal| last=Bostrom | first=Nick | author-link = Nick Bostrom |title = A history of transhumanist thought|journal = Journal of Evolution and Technology |date = April 2005 | volume=14| issue=1| url = http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/history.pdf|at=15–16}}Brey, Philip; Søraker, Johnny Hartz (2009). "Philosophy of Computing and Information Technology", in Anthonie Meijers (ed.). Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences. Elsevier, [https://books.google.com/books?id=prvCTW4V7jEC&pg=PA1389 1389]. Pearce approaches ethical issues from a negative utilitarian perspective.{{Cite web|url=https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/nufaq.html|title=Negative Utilitarianism FAQ|website=www.utilitarianism.com|access-date=2019-09-14}}

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.Hauskeller, Michael (January 2010). [http://jetpress.org/v21/hauskeller.htm "Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman: A Reply to Stefan Sorgner"]. Journal of Evolution and Technology. 21(1), 5–8. 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".[http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/history.pdf Bostrom (2005)], 15.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. Pearce calls this the "abolitionist project".

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.

Pearce received a scholarship to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Oxford, but never finished his degree.{{Cite web |last=Sosis |first=Cliff |date=2022-10-11 |title=David Pearce |url=https://whatisitliketobeaphilosopher.com/#/david-pearce/ |access-date=2022-11-11 |website=What Is It Like to Be a Philosopher? |language=en-US}}

Hedonistic transhumanism

In 1995, Pearce set up BLTC Research, a network of websites publishing texts about transhumanism and related topics in pharmacology and biopsychiatry.{{cite book|last=DeMars|first=William Emile|title=NGOs and Transnational Networks: Wild Cards in World Politics|url=https://archive.org/details/ngostransnationa00dema|url-access=limited|publisher=Pluto Press|year=2005|at=[https://archive.org/details/ngostransnationa00dema/page/n175 171]|isbn=074531905X}} 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."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. {{ISBN|0830827838}}

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.Thweatt-Bates, Jeanine (2016). Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of the Posthuman. London: Routledge, 50–51 (first published 2012).Hughes, James J. (2007). [http://ieet.org/archive/20070326-Hughes-ASU-H+Religion.pdf "The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200530005520/https://ieet.org/archive/20070326-Hughes-ASU-H+Religion.pdf |date=30 May 2020 }}, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 20.[http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/history.pdf Bostrom (2005)], 16. 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. Mental suffering will be a relic of the past, just as physical suffering during surgery was eliminated by anaesthesia.{{cite news|author=Power, Katherine|title=The End of Suffering |work=Philosophy Now |year=2006|url=http://philosophynow.org/issues/56/The_End_of_Suffering}} The function of pain will be provided by some other signal, without the unpleasant experience.

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.Thweatt-Bates (2016), 100–101. He has argued in favour of a "cross-species global analogue of the welfare state",{{Cite interview|last=Pearce|first=David|interviewer=James Kent|title=The Genomic Bodhisattva|url=http://hplusmagazine.com/2009/09/16/genomic-bodhisattva/|work=H+ Magazine|date=16 September 2009|access-date=4 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180304210132/http://hplusmagazine.com/2009/09/16/genomic-bodhisattva/|archive-date=4 March 2018|url-status=live|quote={{pb}}Jewish Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer described life for factory-farmed animals as 'an eternal Treblinka': a world of concentration camps extermination camps and industrialized mass-killing. Strip away our ingrained anthropocentric bias, and what we do to other sentient beings is barbaric. Combating great evil justifies heroic personal sacrifice; going vegan entails mild personal inconvenience. The non-human animals we factory-farm and kill are functionally akin to human babies and toddlers. Babies and toddlers need looking after, not liberating. As the master species we have a duty of care to lesser beings, just as we have a duty of care to vulnerable and handicapped humans. As our mastery of technology matures, I think we need to build a cross-species global analogue of the welfare state.}} suggesting that humanity might eventually "reprogram predators" to limit predation, reducing the suffering of animals who are predated.{{Cite web|url=https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/meet-the-people-who-want-to-turn-predators-into-vegans.html|title=Meet the people who want to turn predators into herbivores|last=Verchot|first=Manon|website=TreeHugger|date=30 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180304201342/https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/meet-the-people-who-want-to-turn-predators-into-vegans.html|archive-date=4 March 2018|url-status=live|access-date=4 March 2018}} Fertility regulation could maintain herbivore populations at sustainable levels, "a more civilised and compassionate policy option than famine, predation, and disease".{{Cite interview|last=Pearce|first=David|interviewer=George Dvorsky|title=The Radical Plan to Phase Out Earth's Predatory Species|url=https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-radical-plan-to-eliminate-earths-predatory-species-1613342963|publisher=io9|date=30 July 2014|access-date=4 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180304195650/https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-radical-plan-to-eliminate-earths-predatory-species-1613342963|archive-date=4 March 2018|url-status=live|quote={{pb}}Carnivorous predators keep populations of herbivores in check. Plasmodium-carrying species of the Anopheles mosquito keep human populations in check. In each case, a valuable ecological role is achieved at the price of immense suffering and the loss of hundreds of millions of lives. What's in question isn't the value of the parasite or predator's ecological role, but whether intelligent moral agents can perform that role better. On some fairly modest assumptions, fertility regulation via family planning or cross-species immunocontraception is a more civilised and compassionate policy option than famine, predation and disease. The biggest obstacle to a future of compassionate ecosystems is the ideology of traditional conservation biology—and unreflective status quo bias.}} The increasing number of vegans and vegetarians in the transhumanism movement has been attributed in part to Pearce's influence.{{cite book|last=Fairlie|first=Simon|title=Meat: A Benign Extravagance|publisher=Chelsea Green Publishing|year=2010|at=230–231|isbn=978-1603583251}}

Humanity+ and other roles

In 1998, Pearce co-founded the World Transhumanist Association, known from 2008 as Humanity+, with Nick Bostrom. Pearce is a member of the board of advisors.[http://humanityplus.org/about/advisors/ "Advisors"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200513004808/http://humanityplus.org/about/advisors/ |date=13 May 2020 }}, Humanity+.

Currently, Pearce is a fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies,{{cite web|title=Fellows - IEET|url=https://ieet.org/fellows/|publisher=Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies}} and sits on the futurist advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation.[http://lifeboat.com/ex/boards Advisory boards], Lifeboat Foundation. He is also the director of bioethics of Invincible Wellbeing{{Cite web|title=Team|url=https://www.invinciblewellbeing.com/staff|url-status=live|access-date=23 May 2021|website=Invincible Wellbeing|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123072435/https://www.invinciblewellbeing.com/staff |archive-date=23 January 2021 }} and is on the advisory boards of the Center on Long-Term Risk,{{Cite web|title=Team - Center on Long-Term Risk|url=https://longtermrisk.org/team/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511030126/https://longtermrisk.org/team/|archive-date=11 May 2021|access-date=11 July 2021|website=Center on Long-Term Risk}} the Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering{{Cite web|title=Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering (OPIS)|url=https://www.preventsuffering.org/|url-status=live|access-date=23 May 2021|website=|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170420002735/http://www.preventsuffering.org:80/ |archive-date=20 April 2017 }} and since 2021 the Qualia Research Institute.{{Cite journal|last=Zuckerman|first=Andrew|date=25 January 2021|title=Qualia Research Institute: History & 2021 Strategy|url=https://www.qualiaresearchinstitute.org/blog/history-and-2021-strategy|url-status=live|access-date=23 May 2021|website=Qualia Research Institute|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126112145/https://www.qualiaresearchinstitute.org/blog/history-and-2021-strategy |archive-date=26 January 2021 }}

Until 2013, Pearce was on the editorial advisory board of the controversial and non-peer-reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses.{{cite web|title=Medical Hypotheses Editorial Advisory Board, 2013|url=http://www.journals.elsevier.com/medical-hypotheses/editorial-board/ |work=Medical Hypotheses|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130626004654/http://www.journals.elsevier.com/medical-hypotheses/editorial-board |archive-date=26 June 2013}} He has been interviewed by Vanity Fair (Germany) and on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze, among others.{{cite magazine|author=Niermann, Ingo|title=Mehr Rausch für alle |magazine=Vanity Fair |date=5 April 2007 |url=https://hedweb.com/hedethic/vanity-fair1.html}}{{cite news|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037v4gd|title=The Pursuit of Happiness|date=7 August 2013|publisher=The Moral Maze. BBC Radio 4|at=from 00:11:13}}

Pearce currently serves as an advisory board member for Herbivorize Predators,{{Cite web |title=Who We Are |url=https://www.herbivorizepredators.org/who-we-are |access-date=2023-03-05 |website=Herbivorize Predators}} an organization whose mission is to discover how to transform carnivorous animals into herbivorous ones in order to minimize suffering across all species.{{Cite web |last=Smyth |first=Richard |date=2023-04-12 |title=Why we need to be honest with children about the brutality of nature |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25834342-600-why-we-need-to-be-honest-with-children-about-the-brutality-of-nature/ |access-date=2023-11-23 |website=New Scientist |language=en-US}}

Books

{{Cite book|url=https://www.hedweb.com/hedonist.htm|title=The Hedonistic Imperative|year=1995|oclc=44325836}}
"[https://www.biointelligence-explosion.com/biointelligence-explosion.pdf The Biointelligence Explosion: How Recursively Self-Improving Organic Robots will Modify their Own Source Code and Bootstrap Our Way to Full-Spectrum Superintelligence]" in {{cite book|publisher=Springer|year=2012|isbn=9783642325595|location=Heidelberg|pages=[https://archive.org/details/singularityhypot00mueh/page/n198 199]–238|title=Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment|title-link=Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment|editor-first=A. H.|editor-last=Eden|editor-first2=J. H.|editor-last2=Moor|editor-last3=Soraker|editor-first3=J. H.|editor-last4=Steinhart|editor-first4=E.|oclc=915554031}}
[https://www.davidpearce.com/paradise-engineering.html Can Biotechnology Abolish Suffering?]. Vinding, M. (Ed.). 2017. ASIN B075MV9KS2