Three - Happily Ever After

Summary

This chapter explores transhumanist attempts to live “happily ever after.” As British philosopher and transhumanist Dave Pearce expounds in The Hedonistic Imperative, “nanotechnology and genetic engineering will “eliminate aversive experience from the living world” and usher in “a sublime and all-pervasive happiness”(Pearce 1995). This chapter thus asks, how exactly do transhumanists conceive of the good life? By what means do they seek to usher it in? How do transhumanist conceptions of the good life compare and contrast with the way peope in other societies have understood and pursued the good life? This chapter seeks to further our understanding of “the hedonistic imperative” and in so doing, further illuminate some of the values transhumanists hold dear.