NIX THE NEXUS-6 Killer Androids on the Loose MORALITY, ETHICS, and TRUTH

In this Religious Studies course in bioethics, we have explored the normative ethical theories that seek to explain choices made when presented with a moral dilemma. As we ventured into deontological and consequential perspectives, we first considered the puzzling mystery of Truth. For how can one determine right vs wrong, if there is no comprehension of Truth? Largely, in our day to day lives, I believe we abide by social constructivism, which is to say that truth is dependent on culture and it can change over time. For example, men in America used to believe women were inferior and therefore women were not permitted to vote until 1920. Unfortunately, in many countries still today, women continue to be denied the same rights as men. So truth is a belief. It is made up.

Or is it? Are there beliefs that humans collectively understand to be true? Such is the basis of Natural Law that suggests rights and values are inherent and divinely orchestrated to be universal truths. The Golden Rule, “Treat others as you would like to be treated” is golden because it encompasses a universal truth that is identified in most religions and cultures, Empathy. The Golden Rule is a Natural Law. Empathy impels us to consider what another may feel, as we identify with our own feelings. Empathic choices are the moral choices.

However, what if empathic action does not generate the greatest good for the greatest number of people? The act would be immoral. Such would be the utilitarian argument of the consequentialist, who believes the ends justify the means. Although it is a work of fiction, the sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick deals with many of these ethical problems. Would a human bounty hunter be justified in assassinating apathetic, self-centered, killer androids to protect humanity? In accordance with consequentialists, I think so. Just because a choice may be utilitarian, it does not negate Natural Law. The consequential decision is in preservation of Natural Law. In this paper, I will defend the protagonist of the novel, bounty hunter Rick Deckard. This thesis will show that the killing of rogue androids is morally justifiable and that their moral status is relative to an individual’s interpretation of relationship and circumstance. Referencing some of today’s leading thinkers and the wisdom of spiritual scholars since passed, I will speculate on Dick’s use of religion and the spiritual revelation of key characters developed in his plot is for readers to consider the relationship of Natural Law and Consequentialism. I will conclude with what it means to be human and how our choices shape the evolution of our species.

DO ANDROIDS HAVE MORAL STATUS? In Philip Dick’s post-apocalyptic interplanetary world, Earth is dusty and desolate. World War Terminus caused many animals to go extinct and those that remained are highly coveted. Cities and suburbs around the world have been abandoned for Mars, and emigration has been incentivized with the promise of a free servant, a “custom-tailored humanoid robot” (17), the Nexus-6. The Nexus-6 is the most intellectual of all androids, with ten million separate cerebral neural pathways, and is near indistinguishable from humans except for one significant trait, empathy. Eight of these androids killed their owners and fled to Earth. Deckard is assigned to kill the remaining six, after his superior was injured killing two. Now is his chance to earn a substantial amount of money. At $1000 apiece he will be able to afford a real large animal, like the sheep he used to have (14). Having an animal is a symbol of social status. Since his sheep died, he tends to an electric sheep to save face. “Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one. And yet from a social standpoint it had to be done, given the absence of the real article” (9). Deckard can’t pinpoint why he isn’t more pleased with the opportunity that’s fallen in his lap. He’s almost reluctant to take the assignment, but he’s motivated by desire to enhance his social status. Not too far into his hunt, he struggles with the morality of his duty as he realizes the empathy he has for the female androids. He instinctively assigns them moral status.

What is moral status? Like social status, moral status is assigned by our discernment of value and is in essence a subjective projection of one’s own judgment. It is not innate, rather it is determined by the individual and his or her circumstance. Certainly, the Nexus-6 have significant moral status to their owners on Mars, as some provide not just service, but companionship. Deckard is not killing all androids whimsically, he is policing those that prove threatening. His original motivation to bounty hunt is an immoral one. Morally disengaged, he kills for want of more—the desire to purchase a real animal. As the plot progresses, we see his moral development and the evolution of his desire to fulfill his duty not for himself, but for all mankind.

For Deckard, prior to encountering the Nexus-6, killing androids was without moral engagement until he meets escapee Luba Luft, whose operatic voice singing the role of Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, impressed him to perceive her as “genuinely alive” (141) . As bioethics scholar Grant Gillett theorizes for the Journal of Medical Ethics in “Cyborgs and moral identity”, we assign moral status with reference to our lived experience, “it is the total form that is revealed in a lived life story that gives a being the identity which matters morally and that identity, in the sense we respond to it in our moral thinking, is somewhat indifferent to the material of which the being is made except in so far as that material affects the relevant lived experience” (82). Perhaps, had Deckard no zeal for opera he would not have been moved to empathy and questioned his mission. Intuitively, he assigned Luba Luft a moral status. This is expressed as he honors her final request for a print of the painting Puberty by purchasing a book of Edvard Munch’s collected works with his own money and then sacrificially burning it after her death.

NATURAL LAW REVELATIONS After killing Luba Luft, three androids remain, and one happens to present the most challenging moral dilemma for Deckard because she is the exact replica of his adulterous android lover Rachel Rosen. He struggles with his assignment, because he feels the act of killing now is morally unjustifiable, against his Nature, against Natural Law. Ultimately, he completes the assassinations with the support of his religious faith in Mercerism, the established theology of the Sol System. The archetypal hero of Mercerism, Wilbur Mercer appears to console Deckard’s efforts, “You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe” (178-179). Here, Mercer is a classic consequentialist, the ends justify the means. Deckard’s duty is to preserve humanity. In Deckard’s dire world, the threat of a humanoid robot species with no Empathy that has murdered outright must be contained regardless of the moral status he designates to them.

Deckard’s quest is not only condoned during his spiritual encounter with Mercer, he is also told he will be accompanied, though never saved, “There is no salvation…I am here with you and always will be. Go and do your task, even though you know it’s wrong” (178). Deckard is confused, but endures. At the completion of his mission, despite Wilbur Mercer’s exposure as actor Al Jarry in a Hollywood setup, Deckard realizes he is Mercer, “if I’m Mercer, he thought, I can never die, not in ten thousand years. Mercer is immortal” (235). Enlightened, he knows his place in society in relation to the universe.

Dick wants us to consider that the relationships between duty, morality, and spirituality are not limited to our religious idols, rather we each are capable of developing through their dynamic interplay to realize our union with eternity. It is not only within our capacity to understand this union, but to embody and actualize God through our choices. Renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell articulates this revelation eloquently in the Epilogue of his masterpiece, The Hero With A Thousand Faces.

The essence of oneself and the essence of the world: these two are one. Hence separateness, withdrawal, is no longer necessary. Wherever the hero may wander, whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence—for he has the perfected eye to see. There is no separateness. Thus, just as the way of social participation may lead in the end to a realization of the All in the individual, so that of exile brings the hero to the Self in all. Centered in this hub—point, the questions of selfishness or altruism disappears. The individual has lost himself in the law and been reborn in identity with the whole meaning of the universe (333).

Dick’s sci-fi is mythical and Deckard is the hero. Deckard doesn’t need to be saved by some higher power, the power is within him.

RELIGION and SPIRITUALITY Now that I have established the moral dilemma and journey of protagonist Deckard, I will elaborate on Dick’s use of religion and spirituality to show how he uses his characters to suggest Natural Law is not an external command separate from man, but is in essence who we are. I will reference spiritual scholars to speculate on the significance of Dick’s plot to our lives and our potential for enlightenment. Religion expresses and guides our understanding of the human condition in relation to Natural Law derived from our experience in the world. Mercerism is Empathy, and its essential tool is the “empathy box” (21). In Dick’s story, mankind ritually engages with the empathy box by clutching its handles to physically, mentally, and spiritually “fuse” with Mercer and suffer with him (22). Mercer, an elderly man, is continuously being stoned as he wearily ascends a steep hill alone. He never makes it to the summit, and he repeatedly initiates his ascent from a vast tomb of animal corpses. Humans from all over the world and other planets join together via the empathy box to identify within themselves shared emotions, joy or sorrow, while merging in the cyclical ascent as Mercer. As Mercer ascends the steep hill, he never reaches the top, but suffering is the human condition and relating to the suffering of others is the spiritual revelation of human nature.

This spiritual ascent is acknowledged early in Dick’s work by his character J.R. Isidore, who defends Mercer as victor of “our psychic souls” (76). Isidore is a “special” man (19), of poor intellect from radiation exposure, but his spiritual intuition is intact. “Wilbur Mercer is always renewed,” proclaims Isidore. “He’s eternal. At the top of the hill he’s struck down; he sinks into the tomb world but then he rises inevitably. And us with him. So we’re eternal too” (76). We are imperfect Nature. We are God suffering. Spiritual guide Eknath Easwaran has a similar allegory. Easwaran elucidates universal truth within the world’s religions and delivers his interpretation in Words to Live By, Short Readings of Daily Wisdom.

We shouldn’t look forward to the day when we plant our flag on the mountain peak and then retire to a life of tedious leisure. Every time we reach a peak, we will feel a legitimate sense of satisfaction; but at the same time a new and more glorious mountain will probably be beckoning us from the far horizon. That is the glory of living. That is the joy of the spiritual ascent (206).

There is no final destination for our human potential, we push onward to discover ourselves, forever, eternally.

References to Mercerism pervade through the text. We witness Deckard’s spiritual revelation as he endeavors through his moral dilemma and realizes his divinity. “Mercer isn’t a fake” Deckard concludes, “Unless reality is a fake” (234). By the end of the novel, Dick’s hero is realized. This revelation is significant. Returning to Campbell, he concludes in his Epilogue, “It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal—carries the cross of the redeemer—not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair” (337). The hero is in each of us, waiting to be discovered, searching for us. This core concept of Dick’s story is profound and emphasized in his less intellectual “special” character, Isidore.

Initially, Isidore is eager to befriend the three remaining androids and protect them, but he abruptly discovers their true nature and becomes physically repulsed by their crude torture of a living spider and their rejoice in the exposure of Wilbur Mercer as a fraud. The interplanetary TV talking head Buster Friendly broadcasts, “Mercerism is a swindle!” and the androids affirmatively agree, Empathy is a lie, but Isidore faithfully retorts, “Mercerism isn’t finished” (209-210). Shortly after, Mercer appears to Isidore and tells him: It was true, “They did a good job and from their standpoint Buster Friendly’s disclosure was convincing. They will have a trouble understanding why nothing has changed. Because you’re still here and I’m still here. I lifted you from the tomb world just now and I will continue to lift you until you lose interest and want to quit. But you will have to stop searching for me because I will never stop searching for you” (214-215). Nothing has changed, because Empathy will not cease to exist as long as it is embodied. Empathy is not an external force that moves us, rather we humans have the capacity for Empathy. Truth resides in us. Rather than seek external sources of faith, we are compelled to believe in the Truth within our being. This is the force that God, Nature, the Universe, whatever we may call it, seeks to utilize within us. We are Nature’s instruments, not the other way around.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HUMAN? So far, I have explained how Dick uses life and death, religion and revelation, to establish the capacity for Empathy as essential for humanity. In this final section, I will consider why understanding the morality of our choices is essential for the preservation of our species. We are the stewards of our species, and so, we are the stewards of our humanity. This is the revelation that justifies Deckard’s killing of the Nexus-6. Before setting off on his assignment, Deckard was displeased and demoralized with his social standing, discontent with his electric sheep. What began as a mission motivated by greed evolved into a mission motivated by responsibility. Deckard was not consciously aware of his duty until his capacity for Empathy was realized with the support of his religion. By the end, he’s hardly disappointed when he discovers what he thought was a real toad is artificial. “Sometimes it’s better to do something wrong than to do right” Deckard tells his wife at the kitchen table after returning home from his arduous journey, while acknowledging the moral status of his new artificial toad, “The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are” (241). Dick’s plot is utilitarian, but Natural Law prevails.

Dick’s plot compels us to contemplate human nature, who we are and what make us human. This curiosity is unique to us, and some would say, it is this curiosity that distinguishes us from other animals. We are not only self-aware, but conscientious of how our actions affect not only others, but can and will significantly influence what has yet to exist. Astrophysicist Natalie Batalha, NASA’s investigative mission leader in search of potentially habitable exoplanets, perceives the evolution of our species as a consequence of the conscientious choices we make:

What can we become? What potentials are yet to be realized? What do we know about the empathic brain? How are we evolving, and what about the decisions that we make now, in the civic realm, that decide who lives and dies? And how does that affect our evolution? Because it will, because these are life and death situations. So what we do in the civic realm does effect cultural evolution. But cultural evolution leads to biological evolution. And it can go many ways. I don’t think that there’s a law to the universe that says there is an evolution towards goodness. That, we decide. That, we decide. (On Being)

It is the choices we have made that have brought us to what we know as the present, and it is the choices we make that shape our species’ future. Right choice? Wrong choice? Here is where morality comes to play, which brings us back to Truth.

Natural law is undeniable. To deny self-evident Truth is to deny the self. Our capacity for Empathy is what makes us human. Whatever we encounter, living or not, has the potential to mirror our own capacity for Empathy. The Golden Rule, “Treat others as you would like to be treated” informs our perception of moral status. Even Gillett concludes,“It therefore seems to me that a cyborg is, on the present account, as human as his or her life among us indicates to those who approach the encounter with an openness to others and a sense of life. The creature concerned ought then to be treated as such an acquaintance would treat them” (83). Subjectively, we are morally engaged according to our unique lived experience. Natural Law, The Golden Rule, is an extension of us, it is in the foundation of our human existence. We cannot be certain that as a species we will choose that path of Natural Law, but we can surely hope to inspire Empathy by sharing our lived experience with others.

We will all die, this is certain, “Mors certa, vita incerta” (Dick 19). This is the human condition. The physical body will suffer, die, and decay, such is our destiny. So then our curiosity beckons, where do we go from here? The mystery of our origin, the mystery of our destination and the Truth we identify from lived experience, from our connection to one another and our relationship with the world, is our story. And it is this story, we know, that must prevail if our species is to survive. This is Deckard’s story, it is yours, and it is mine.

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Third Edition. Novato, New World Library, 2008.

Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York, The Random House Publishing Group, 1996.

Easwaran, Eknath. Words to Live By. Fourth Edition. Canada, Nilgiri Press, 2010. Gillet, G. “Cyborgs and moral identity.” Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 32, No. 2., 2006, pp. 79-83.

Maria Popova and Natalie Batalha. Interview by Krista Tippett. “Cosmic Imagining, Civic Pondering.” On Being. March 29, 2018. Retrieved on July 5, 2021 from https://onbeing.org/ programs/maria-popova-natalie-batalha-cosmic-imagining-civic-pondering-mar2018/