Hedonistic Imperative

The Hedonistic Imperative is an ethical concept introduced by the philosopher David Pearce in 1995. It calls for future society to be reorganized to eliminate all suffering, and also to maximize pleasure to currently unimaginable states.

As such, it is the ultimate evolution of hedonism justified by utilitarian principles. The concept is explained in detail on Pearce's website.

The Abolitionist Project

Pearce believes the universe itself is amoral. He stated that most suffering on earth is experienced by animal life, and that this pain forms a vast but neglected moral problem. He has criticized how large carnivores like tigers and wolves are romanticized, when these predators are responsible for vast amounts of suffering.

Pearce believes this suffering should be ended as soon as possible. To do so, it would be justified to change the biosphere into a park or zoo-like environment, and to use genetic engineering to radically change the nature of earth life. This is an extension of the existing concept of Abolitionism.

These beliefs have also been used to justify vegetarianism and veganism among some transhumanists.

Maximalization of pleasure

According to the hedonistic imperative, human descendants should be improved through genetic engineering, brain interface technology, and a tightly controlled environment to only feel positive emotions. These would both be pleasurable and exalted.

A wirehead is a science fiction-derived term for someone who has electrodes implanted into the pleasure center of their brain. The pleasure they feel is said to be indescribably profound, and doesn't wear off like with drugs. However, wireheading is dangerous because the user will neglect all other activities and obligations to keep feeling the pleasure until they die.

In the future, ways may be found to make the experience safer, and also to widen the number of pleasurable states. In addition to feeling pleasure, wireheads could also use brain stimulation reward to find certain tasks incredibly compelling and meaningful. This could make learning seem profoundly enjoyable.

By changing and expanding the architecture of the brain, even higher degree of happiness would be possible than humans could experience in their present state. Human-like software minds could evolve to become far larger than any human mind, and feel even more intense pleasures beyond all human comprehension.

Criticism

• Currently, it is completely impossible to modify animal life and their environments to eliminate pain. Predators are known to be necessary to maintain a complex ecological balance. Any attempt to change that balance could have unpredictable risks. Most of the earth's surface is unsuitable for agriculture, but it is possible to breed animals there which graze off the land. If all humans became vegetarians, the humans who live there could starve.

• Creating such a society might impinge on personal freedoms.

• Attempting to eliminate pain and maximize pleasure could weaken society. It may make organisms unwilling to face unpleasant threats and problems. Such a society may become degraded and eventually collapse. This is also part of the concept of Gnon.

• Another possible criticism is that the amount of pain and pleasure must be inevitably balanced across the multiverse of everything that exists. Any attempt to increase pleasure will be balanced by some equivalent amount of pain created elsewhere. Instead, the most ethical course might be to minimize good and bad emotions alike, like in Stoicism.

Fictional depictions

• An advanced alien society that has figured out how to maximize pleasure while also developing high technology is featured in the story "Three Worlds Collide" by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

• Wireheading was mentioned as an irresistible compulsion in the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, as well as in the SF stories of Larry Niven.

External links

• http://future.wikia.com/wiki/Hedonistic_Imperative