Students
Teachers & SchoolsStudents
Teachers & SchoolsCompassion & Forgiveness
Put away that Mensa application and stop studying for that IQ test: in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the key question isn't how smart you are but how emotionally smart you are. Not IQ; EQ.Does the word "empathy" look familiar? After all, you've only seen it appear in the novel roughly 9,634 times. Empathy is the ability to imagine the thoughts, feelings, attitudes of another person or animal as though they were your own. Not surprisingly, it tends to lead to compassion and forgiveness.
But what happens when a person is born human but lacks empathy, or when an android develops the ability to think of others beyond his or herself? Is the human no longer considered human? Is the machine more than a machine? (And will it still obey our every command?)
Mercer's prompts for Rick to kill the androids that Mercerism's definition of empathy is inherently faulty.
No character is completely empathetic in the novel. Even Isidore, the grand master of empathy, can't fathom the pain or feelings of Rick or Roy.