講題：「無痛文明」與人生意義：森岡正博對科技與資本主義的反省
時間：2025/02/04, 14:30
地點：政治大學百年樓哲學系圖書室/線上同步
線上報名連結請點此
Painless Civilization and the Meaning of Life
Masahiro Morioka
I would like to discuss the meaning of life in our civilization, which is strongly driven by scientific technology and capitalism. Our civilization aims to provide pleasure and comfort and eliminate pain and suffering as much as possible. This is particularly evident in the advanced countries. We are gradually moving toward a so-called “painless civilization.” This term was first used in my 2003 book of the same name, and recently I have been trying to explore it further from the perspectives of the meaning of life and the philosophy of technology. One of the most important features of a painless civilization is “preventive pain elimination.” In today’s assisted reproduction, we can test fertilized eggs and discard those with chromosomal abnormalities. This is a technology that preventively eliminates possible future pain for the parents, which is a good example of preventive pain elimination in advanced medicine. What happens if this tendency permeates every corner of our society in the future? I believe that in such a society we will be led to a strange kind of suffering, the suffering of losing our true “joy of life” in exchange for acquiring pleasure and comfort. The concepts of painless civilization and the joy of life were also discussed by Lucas Scripter in 2024. Scripter compares my concept of “framework” with Bernard Williams’ concept of “ground projects,” and argues that the existence of the joy of life that emerges when our psychological framework collapses can provide a radical critique of Williams’ idea of ground projects. In my talk, I will re-examine the concept of painless civilization and try to shed new light on the discussion of the meaning of life.
