The eradication or abolition of suffering is the concept of using
biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...
to create a permanent absence of involuntary
pain
Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, ...
and
suffering
Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of a ...
in all
sentient beings
Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin '' sentientem'' (a feeling), to distinguish it from the ability to ...
.
Biology and medicine
The
discovery of modern anesthesia in the 19th century was an early breakthrough in the elimination of pain during surgery, but acceptance was not universal. Some medical practitioners at the time believed that
anesthesia
Anesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prevention of pain), paralysis (muscle relaxation), ...
was an artificial and harmful intervention in the body's natural response to injury. Opposition to anesthesia has since dissipated, however the prospect of eradicating pain raises similar concerns about interfering with life's natural functions.
People who are naturally incapable of feeling pain or unpleasant sensations due to rare conditions like
pain asymbolia Pain asymbolia, also called pain dissociation, is a condition in which pain is experienced without unpleasantness. This usually results from injury to the brain, lobotomy, cingulotomy or morphine analgesia. Preexisting lesions of the insula may ab ...
or
congenital insensitivity to pain
Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP), also known as congenital analgesia, is one or more extraordinarily rare conditions in which a person cannot feel (and has never felt) physical pain. The conditions described here are separate from the HSAN g ...
have been studied to discover the biological and genetic reasons for their pain-free lives. A Scottish woman with a previously unreported genetic mutation in a
FAAH
Fatty acid amide hydrolase or FAAH (, oleamide hydrolase, anandamide amidohydrolase) is a member of the serine hydrolase family of enzymes. It was first shown to break down anandamide in 1993. In humans, it is encoded by the gene ''FAAH''.;
Fun ...
pseudogene
Pseudogenes are nonfunctional segments of DNA that resemble functional genes. Most arise as superfluous copies of functional genes, either directly by DNA duplication or indirectly by Reverse transcriptase, reverse transcription of an mRNA trans ...
(dubbed FAAH-OUT) with resultant elevated
anandamide
Anandamide (ANA), also known as ''N''-arachidonoylethanolamine (AEA), is a fatty acid neurotransmitter. Anandamide was the first endocannabinoid to be discovered: it participates in the body's endocannabinoid system by binding to cannabinoid rec ...
levels was reported in 2019 to be immune to anxiety, unable to experience fear, and insensitive to pain. The frequent burns and cuts she had due to her full
hypoalgesia
Hypoalgesia or hypalgesia denotes a decreased sensitivity to painful stimuli.
Hypoalgesia occurs when nociceptive (painful) stimuli are interrupted or decreased somewhere along the path between the input (nociceptors), and the places where they a ...
healed quicker than average.
In 1990, ''
Medical Hypotheses
''Medical Hypotheses'' is a not-conventionally-peer reviewed medical journal published by Elsevier. It was originally intended as a forum for unconventional ideas without the traditional filter of scientific peer review, "as long as (the ideas) are ...
'' published an article by L. S. Mancini on the "genetic engineering of a world without pain":
The development of
gene editing techniques like
CRISPR
CRISPR () (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bacte ...
has raised the prospect that "scientists can identify the causes of certain unusual people's physical
superpowers
A superpower is a state with a dominant position characterized by its extensive ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined means of economic, military, technological, political and cultural st ...
and use gene editing to grant them to others." Geneticist
George Church has commented on the potential future of replacing pain with a painless sensory system:
Ethics and philosophy
Ethicists and philosophers in the schools of
hedonism
Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. ''Psychological'' or ''motivational hedonism'' claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decr ...
and
utilitarianism
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charact ...
, especially
negative utilitarianism
Negative utilitarianism is a form of negative consequentialism that can be described as the view that people should minimize the total amount of aggregate suffering, or that they should minimize suffering and then, secondarily, maximize the tota ...
, have debated the merits of eradicating suffering.
Transhumanist
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition.
Transhuma ...
philosopher
David Pearce, in ''The Hedonistic Imperative'' (1995), argues that the abolition of suffering is both technically feasible and an issue of moral urgency, stating that: "It is predicted that the world's last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event."
The philosopher
Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom ( ; sv, Niklas Boström ; born 10 March 1973) is a Swedish-born philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, superintelligence risks, and the rev ...
, director of the
Future of Humanity Institute
The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) is an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Oxford investigating big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. It was founded in 2005 as part of the Faculty of Philosophy and the ...
, advises a more cautious approach due to pain's function in protecting individuals from harm. However, Bostrom supports the core idea of using biotechnology to get rid of "a huge amount of unnecessary and undeserved suffering."
It has also been argued that the eradication of suffering through biotechnology may bring about unwanted consequences, and arguments have been made that transhumanism is not the only philosophy worthy of consideration regarding the question of suffering — many people view suffering as one aspect in a
dualist understanding of psychological and physical functioning, without which
pleasure
Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious anima ...
could not exist.
Animal welfare
In 2009, Adam Shriver suggested replacing animals in
factory farming
Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming and macro-farms, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while ...
with genetically engineered animals with a reduced or absent capacity to suffer and feel pain. Shriver and McConnachie argued that people who wish to improve
animal welfare
Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity ...
should support gene editing in addition to
plant-based diet
A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods. Plant-based diets encompass a wide range of dietary patterns that contain low amounts of animal products and high amounts of plant products such as vegetables, fru ...
s and
cultured meat
Cultured meat (also known by other names) is meat produced by culturing animal cells ''in vitro''. It is a form of cellular agriculture.
Cultured meat is produced using tissue engineering techniques pioneered in regenerative medicine. Jason Ma ...
.
Katrien Devolder and Matthias Eggel proposed gene editing
research animals
Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...
to remove pain and suffering. This would be an intermediate step towards eventually stopping all experimentation on animals and adopting
alternatives
Founded in 1994, Alternatives, Action and Communication Network for International Development, is a non-governmental, international solidarity organization based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Alternatives works to promote justice and equality a ...
.
Concerning
wild-animal suffering, CRISPR-based
gene drive
A gene drive is a natural process and technology of genetic engineering that propagates a particular suite of genes throughout a population by altering the probability that a specific allele will be transmitted to offspring (instead of the Mende ...
s have been suggested as a cost-effective way of spreading benign
allele
An allele (, ; ; modern formation from Greek ἄλλος ''állos'', "other") is a variation of the same sequence of nucleotides at the same place on a long DNA molecule, as described in leading textbooks on genetics and evolution.
::"The chro ...
s in
sexually reproducing species. To limit gene drives spreading indefinitely (for test programmes, for example), the Sculpting Evolution group at the
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...
developed a self-exhausting form of CRISPR-based gene drive called a "daisy-chain drive." For potential adverse effects of a gene drive, "
veral genetic mechanisms for limiting or eliminating gene drives have been proposed and/or developed, including synthetic resistance, reversal drives, and immunizing reversal drives."
See also
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Antinaturalism
*
Appeal to nature
An appeal to nature is an argument or rhetorical tactic in which it is proposed that "a thing is good ''because'' it is 'natural', or bad ''because'' it is 'unnatural. It is generally considered to be a bad argument because the implicit (unstate ...
*
Biohappiness Biohappiness, or bio-happiness, is the elevation of wellbeing in humans through biological methods, including germline engineering through screening embryos with genes associated with a high level of happiness, or the use of drugs intended to raise ...
*
Effective altruism
Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, c ...
*
Pain in animals
Pain negatively affects the health and welfare of animals. "Pain" is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or descri ...
*
Suffering-focused ethics
Suffering-focused ethics are those positions in ethics that give moral priority to the reduction of suffering. This means that they give greater weight to the reduction of suffering than to the promotion of pleasure, happiness, or to other things t ...
*
Transhumanism
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition.
Transhuma ...
*
Wild animal suffering
Wild animal suffering is the suffering experienced by nonhuman animals living outside of direct human control, due to harms such as disease, injury, parasitism, starvation and malnutrition, dehydration, weather conditions, natural disasters, an ...
References
Further reading
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Animal welfare
Bioethics
Biotechnology
Consequentialism
Genetic engineering
Genome editing
Hedonism
Pain
Suffering
Transhumanism
Utilitarianism