Philosopher

David Pearce (philosopher)

Overview

David Pearce (born April 1959) is a British transhumanist philosopher. He is the co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, currently rebranded and incorporated as Humanity+. Pearce approaches ethical issues from a negative utilitarian perspective.

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. 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". Pearce calls this the "abolitionist project".

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Philosophers who discussed David Pearce (philosopher)

• Nick Bostrom
• Science of morality

Ideas David Pearce (philosopher) discusses

• Genetic engineering
• Nanotechnology
• Welfare state
• Pharmacology
• Transhumanism
• University of Oxford
• New Scientist
• Nick Bostrom
• Elsevier
• Quakers
• Brighton
• BBC Radio 4
• James Hughes (sociologist)
• Humanity+
• Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

Place in the tradition

Part of Philosophical pessimism.

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