Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Critical Reading – Matthias Ojo

Matthias Ojo
Professor Licastro
September 27, 2015

Philip K. Dick employs the theme of empathy into his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In his novel, Dick incorporates the subject of posthumanism and gives the reader controversial situations to ponder on. One of those topics include the term human and what it means to called human. Dick then takes this broad topic into depth through his novel and discusses whether technology can be become so advanced that robots will one day be indistinguishable from humans. Although this is something that a lot of people cannot fathom, it is a certain reality. Technology is rapidly becoming a vital part of the life of humans. Humans have become dependent on the abilities of technology. The abilities of technology range from something as simple as depending on an alarm clock on a phone so one can be woken up to having Siri or Google give an answer to every and any question anyone may have without an exercise of control over them. However, these advancements in technology are not what Philip K. Dick discusses in his novel. In his novel, Dick displays that technology will reach a point where robots will be nearly indistinguishable from humans. However, in his novel, Dick uses the ability to exhibit empathy as a distinguishing factor that separates humans from robots or androids.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the androids that are hunted out to be retired are incapable of displaying empathetic emotions. In order to distinguish these very humanlike androids called the Nexus-6, from humans, an empathy test called the Voight-Kampff Empathy test is administered to a subject to determine whether the subject was really a human or an android. The results of the test determined whether the test subject was an android based on its incapability to display empathy in response to a series of questions. “An android no matter how gifted as to pure intellectual capacity, could not make sense out of the fusion which took place routinely among the followers of Mercerism-an experience which he, and virtually anyone else, including subnormal chickenheads managed with no difficulty” (Dick 30). In one scenario, Rick, the main character administers the test to a woman named Rachael who Rick thought was a human prior to the test. After administering the test to Rachael, Rick deemed her to be an android because she did not respond to the questions with empathy as a normal human would have. However, Rick was told that Rachael was not an android, but scored like an android would have, because she grew up aboard the Salamander 3. “She was born on it; she spent four of her eighteen years living of its tape library and what the nine other crew members, all adults, knew about Earth” (Dick 53). Rachael had been raised with different morals and beliefs on empathy than the post Terminus humans were. This lie convinces the reader that Rachael is actually a human and not an android until the reader eventually finds out that Rachael is actually an android.
Humans used the Voight-Kampff Empathy test to determine whether a subject was an android or a human. Rachael’s responses to the empathy test told Rick that she was indeed an android. As an android she had not empathy for animals. When asked questions regarding animals, Rachael was unable to give an empathetic answer because she was not human. However, this statement seems like an obvious reason, but it is a topic of controversy because the idea of learned empathy is introduced into the novel. Empathy is not a learned characteristic. It is a natural trait that humans possess and express with other humans. Humans cannot empathize with androids because they are not human and in the same manner androids cannot empathize with humans because they are not androids. The two subjects are not the same being which means they cannot empathize with one another. Contrary to the idea employed in the book, empathy is not something that androids can learn. It is something that humans either do or do not do. Not all humans empathize, but of those that do, they empathize with other humans and sympathize with everything else.
Empathy is not a valid test to determine whether one is human or not. Empathy is a personality trait not a broad human trait. Some humans actually fail to empathize with one another. Dick displayed this characteristic in the character of Phil Resch who did not display empathy towards an android. In the novel, Phil retires an android named Luba Luft in cold blood after becoming angry at it. Rick eventually realized that Phil enjoyed killing as a hobby, when in fact he is supposed to be filled with empathy as a human. This confused Rick because according to Mercerism, the religion practiced by most of the world in the novel, empathy is a trait that humans should possess. When Phil failed to display empathy towards Luba Loft and Garland, Rick concluded that Phil just enjoyed killing. “I see a pattern. The way you killed Garland and then the way you killed Luba. You don’t kill the way I do; you don’t try to—Hell,” he said. “I know what it is. You like to kill. All you need is a pretext. If you had a pretext, you’d kill me. That’s why you picked up on the possibility of Garland being an android; it made him available for being killed” (Dick 137). Upon this realization, Rick invoked the thought in the reader that maybe humans are either incapable of displaying empathy or are capable of losing empathy. Phil’s actions did not correlate with the beliefs of post Terminus times and this controversial personality conflict sheds some light on human character flaws as well as a flaw in the empathy test.
In reality, Empathy is only a human characteristic and capability. Although Nexus-6 androids become so advanced that they develop feelings, they are still not capable of expressing empathy. Dick manipulates the meaning of the word empathy in his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The androids in the novel are able to learn empathy, but empathy is not learned. It is a natural trait that develops in humans throughout life. Therefore, the androids technically were not capable of expressing empathy, but they may have been capable of understanding and expressing sympathy. Sympathy is the ability to understand the feelings of someone else without actually experiencing their feelings, while empathy is the ability to understand as well as share mutual feelings with another person. Humans are able to empathize with one another sometimes because they are the same being. However, they cannot empathize with anything not of the same being. In that situation, humans would be sympathizing because although they have not experienced what the other being, whether a dog or a robot, has experienced, they can understand from an objective view and sympathize with them because they are of two different beings. In the same manner, the androids in the novel were incapable of empathizing with humans or with themselves for two reasons. They were incapable of empathizing in general because they were robots and they do not naturally possess that trait. They were also incapable of expressing empathy because they are of a different being than humans. As simple as it may sound, androids are robots, and humans are humans, which does not enable each group to empathize with one another. However, they are able to sympathize with one another.
Dick’s manipulation of the word empathy brings up the question of what actually makes humans, human. As simple as that question may sound, it is a perplexing question that still remains subjective. In the novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the display of empathy is used as a distinguishing factor that separates humans from androids. However, this distinguishing factor contains flaws because empathy is a natural trait and in the novel androids learn to develop empathy. In addition, humans sometimes fail to express empathy, as seen in the character of Phil Resch. The ability to express empathy does separate humans from androids, but for those humans who cannot empathize because of a lack of experience; it defines something which makes humans, human-personality.

Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Ballantine Books, 1996. Print.