philosophy

Should We Abolish Human Suffering?

Founder, Abolitionist Project
Psychology, University of Melbourne
Genesis
Response
Penultimate
Finale

David Pearce

Founder, Abolitionist Project

March 23rd, 2020
Should we replace physical and mental pain with a more civilised signalling system, i.e. life based on gradients of bliss?
Brock Bastian is no Nietzschean. Even so, there is a tension in his response. On the one hand, Brock agrees that "of course" we should abolish suffering if feasible. Yes! On the other hand, he argues "…a focus on this as a desired end state devalues painful experiences, reducing people’s capacity to ... deriv[e] meaning from adversity, loss, and failure in life."
Yet how else can we mitigate, minimise and then eradicate the biology of unpleasant experience if we don’t systematically plan its prevention? Exhaustive medico-genetic research is essential. For sure, we wouldn't comfort victims of PTSD or depression by telling them our descendants will enjoy lives of superhuman bliss. The wisdom of tact is no reason to abandon the abolitionist project as enunciated by Gautama Buddha and implemented via next-generation biotech. Compare nineteenth-century criticism of interventions to end the agonies of childbirth (cf. general-anaesthesia.com). Many mothers throughout history have derived meaning from the birth-agonies of their children. Early obstetric anaesthesia was also fraught with risk. But we wouldn't now argue that an absence of excruciating pain robs childbirth of its meaning. By the same token, an ability to rationalise the very existence of suffering is valuable only insofar as our rationalisations don’t interfere with its abolition.
Pain-thresholds, hedonic set-points and hedonic range display a huge variability and high genetic loading; they are amenable to biological-genetic control. Currently, some people go through life driven mostly or entirely by information-sensitive gradients of ill-being. At the other extreme, a small minority of high-functioning people are animated mostly or entirely by information-sensitive gradients of well-being.
Yes, ratcheting up default hedonic tone to the level of today’s genetic outliers – and then beyond – has many pitfalls, both for the individual and society. Cognitive biases may need correcting; should we make use of AI and neuroprostheses? And how can we enjoy the functional analogues of depressive realism without the ghastliness of low mood? But the risks of a biohappiness revolution are reasons for more research, not less.
Brock argues that (un)happiness is largely relative. However, hedonic tone isn’t like status or income. Receiving a 25% pay raise may leave you unhappy if your colleagues receive a 50% raise; not so a comparable upgrade in your reward circuitry and hedonic set-point. The pleasure-pain axis, bisected by Sedgwick’s "natural watershed", hedonic zero, is an objective feature of reality. Genome-editing makes sub-zero states genetically optional. True, today’s exceptional hyperthymics like futurist Anders Sandberg wouldn’t unprompted say "I do have a ridiculously high hedonic set-point"; but the fact that hyperthymics normally take subjective well-being for granted doesn’t detract from their innate zest for life. Conversely, lifelong depressives still suffer horribly even though they can’t personally compare misery with happiness.
The Hedonistic Imperative predicts that the world’s last experience below hedonic zero will be a precisely dateable event a few centuries hence (cf. abolitionist.com). Post-Darwinian life will be sublime!
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