Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in View of the Reading of Life of Pi
I observed how Pi went through a retrogression in his empathy towards animals. This move, from empathy to absence of empathy, or suspension of it, receives an inverted treatment in Do Androids. Rick Deckard holds the position of hunter, though, unlike Pi, his prey is not animals, but androids. If, at first, his job requires his indifference towards those artificial beings, it is clear that at the novel’s conclusion he has changed his views and can no longer “retire” androids without compunction: in effect, possess higher empathic sensibilities. He even questions the morality of eliminating them. However, the text does not direct this empathic change at animals, which Deckard’s culture insincerely holds as natural objects of empathy.
The novel is based on a false cultural belief that animals are natural vessels for human empathy, and are thus, as shown in the Voigt-Kampff profile test, indicators of humanity. Reflecting on the androids’ general failure to pass the empathy measuring test Deckard wonders, “Precisely why an android bounced helplessly about when confronted by an empathy-measuring test” and arrives at the conclusion that “Empathy, evidently, existed only within the human community” (26).…show more content… He notices that, “A difference had manifested itself.” He admits that he “had never felt any empathy on his own part toward the androids he killed. Always he had assumed that throughout his psyche he experienced the android as a clever machine.” Evidently, although he believes that an android “only pretends to be Alive,” he still insists to himself, “Luba Luft had seemed genuinely alive”. This contradiction captures the process he undergoes in the course of the novel, of changing his perception of empathy