eradication of suffering
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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 ...
to create a permanent absence of involuntary pain and suffering 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 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 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 ...
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 pseudogene (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 r ...
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 ...
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 has raised the prospect that "scientists can identify the causes of certain unusual people's physical superpowers 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 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 chara ...
, 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, 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 t ...
, 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 could not exist.


Animal welfare

In 2009, Adam Shriver suggested replacing animals in factory farming 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 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 M ...
. Katrien Devolder and Matthias Eggel proposed gene editing research animals 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

* 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 *
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 descr ...
* Suffering-focused ethics *
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

* * * * * * {{Transhumanism footer Animal welfare Bioethics Biotechnology Consequentialism Genetic engineering Genome editing Hedonism Pain Suffering Transhumanism Utilitarianism