Doing away with suffering
On the axis: The meaning of suffering · sentient existence
Should we aim at the abolition of all suffering, whether by the spiritual cessation of the desire that breeds it or by an engineering that would erase it from our bodies? Would a life with no pain at all still be human, still desirable?
Justification
The Buddha proceeds like a physician, and it is this schema that drives the position: the state the disease (), its cause (craving), its prognosis (cessation is possible), and its cure (the path). Once suffering is treated as a curable symptom, it can carry no redemptive value: to exalt it as a sanctifying trial would be to cling to the disease rather than treat it. Against every spirituality of sacrifice, the declared goal is the complete extinction of suffering, which places Buddhism on the abolitionist side.
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (the sermon at Benares) · Dhammapada, ch. XX (The Path)
Justification
For utilitarianism, suffering is a pure evil with no redemptive virtue: it enters the welfare calculus negatively and must be reduced as far as possible. The great utilitarian campaigns, penal reform, animal welfare, global poverty, are projects for abolishing suffering.
Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation · Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Justification
Where bioconservatism sees in human nature a limit to be respected, transhumanism treats the body and mind we are given as a contingent starting point, shaped by blind evolution. Nothing sanctifies this inheritance: to forbid medicine, genetics or cognitive enhancement from extending our capacities in the name of "nature" would be a superstition. Enhancement is merely the deliberate continuation of what culture and technology have always done.
More, 'Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy' · Bostrom, 'In Defense of Posthuman Dignity'
Anchors: Buddhism · utilitarianism · transhumanism
leads to: Enhancing human nature