Upon the killings of the androids Garland and Luba Luft by Phil Ressler, Rick wonders to himself how Phil is able to dispatch them so easily, seemingly without a second thought. At first, partially due to the fact that Garland had told him Phil was an Andy, that this is the explanation for his cold-blooded approach towards bounty hun ting. However, once Rick tests him and determines that Phil is in fact not an Android, Rick begins to doubt his own feelings. Rick does have a base level of sympathy for the Andys, which he can’t explain, and which is proven when he takes the Voigt-Kampff (empathy) test on himself. Despite Phil discrediting his empathy as simple physical attraction towards Luba Luft, Rick knows that this is untrue. Rick begins to doubt himself, wondering if he is a capable and qualified bounty hunter, and if there is something wrong with him.
Rick’s qualms about his ability to effectively complete his job underly a myriad of very important and real philosophical questions. Do the Andys merit empathy from humans, or in other words, should humans care when they die? Let’s say the answer for the Nexus 6 Androids is no. Why exactly is that, and is there a point to which the Androids have become so humanlike that they become treated as humans? All of this boils down to what makes a human a human. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I expect them to be explored further as I finish the story. Furthermore, these are questions that must be answered in our real world. With an assumption of continuous progress, we will reach a point where we are capable of creating androids similar to those in this novel, and it’s imperative we determine how best to deal with them when the time comes.
Great American Novels 