Central to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ridley Scott's film adaptation, Blade Runner, is the relationship between humans and cyborgs. In both the novel and the film, the capacity for empathy is understood to be the key difference between human and androids (a.k.a. “replicants”). Critics have conjectured that Dick treated this difference inconsistently, justifying Scott's significant re-working of the story. However, a better (arguably) interpretation is that Dick's characters, not Dick himself, are the ones who are inconsistent. Viewed this way, the human-android relationship in the novel can be seen as a commentary on xenophobia – the irrational fear/ hatred of those who are deemed to be “different.” Also, although the film's treatment of empathy is substantially different from the novel's, it too is subject to this interpretation.

    Reflecting to himself in the novel, Deckard extols the virtue of the human's tribal instinct – the “empathic gift” that allows a “herd animal” to thrive. Much of an individual's success is dependent on the tribe's success, giving an individual incentive to do good. However, he does not mention the other characteristic feature of tribalism – fear and suspicion of the “out group.” Human history offers numerous examples of this feature (racism, sexism, anti-semitism, homophobia...). In all of these cases, members of the “in group” seize on some difference, perhaps exceedingly minor (skin color, religion, sexual orientation...) to justify poor treatment of the “out group” that possesses it – it becomes easy to treat something inhumanely if you consider it less than human. Deckard does the same kind of rationalization, noting that he “like[s] to think of” androids as “the Killers” to make his job “palatable” (p. 26-27).  Because of this admission, we can see that he is merely telling himself that “empathy only exists in the human community.” He knows that this is not the case (with recent generations of androids, at least, and perhaps others) – his Voigt-Kampff test must measure physiological differences that run to a “fraction of a second” (p. 52). He has seen firsthand that androids can have the same emotional response to empathy-probing questions – Rachael Rosen is horrified at the idea of lobsters being boiled alive and babies being skinned, but her physiological response lacks the speed or amplitude of a human's. She's not faking to avoid detection; she doesn't even know she's a robot. Yet based on the tiniest of difference in response time, Deckard is content to continue “retiring” androids. He  and other bounty hunters have to lie to themselves so they can have some difference between the “in group” and the “out group.” Without that, they would see that they are “solitary predators,” too.

    In the film, there are different illustrations of human xenophobia. The police's treatment of the replicants strongly recalls the treatment of African-Americans in pre-Civil War America. They are quite content to let replicants exist, as long as they stay in their place – off-world, as servants. As soon as they step out of their place, they are seen as dangerous criminals who must be “retired.” The replicants from off-world in the film are indeed dangerous criminals – Bryant tells Deckard that they “slaughtered 23 people” to escape. However, we see later that even harmless replicants would be hunted down if they were at large: In the scene after Rachael saves Deckard from Leon, he tells her that he would not try to kill her because he owes her his life, “but somebody would.” This is akin to how free African-Americans were treated in some parts of the U.S. – for example, Missouri's original constitution legally prohibited free African-Americans from even entering the state. If they did, they were to be treated as criminals, whether or not they were dangerous. The film doesn't have a narrator, so we can't read a character's thoughts (like we can with Deckard's in the book), but the dialog reveals another parallel to racism with Bryant's lines. He refers to replicants derisively, telling Deckard as “C'mon... I've got four skin jobs walking the streets.” He's not condemning their actions; he's condemning their nature – if he'd meant to condemn their actions, he would have said “I've got four murderers walking the streets.” It's not that they've committed a crime and are dangerous that bothers him, it's that they are out-of-place replicants, and therefore undeserving of his empathy. The original version of the film calls attention to this idea in a small bit of narration: “Skin jobs. That's what Bryant called replicants. In history books he's the kind of cop that used to call black men niggers.” This voiceover makes explicit that “skin job” is an epithet, but in film, a point is more effective when the viewer is the one to make a connection – Scott recognized this and removed the studio's voiceovers in the director's cut.

    Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'s ending is much less climactic than Blade Runner's, but they both evoke more connections to xenophobia. Deckard and Rachael sleep together, and Deckard finally experiences empathy towards an android – he tells Rachael he would like to marry her (p. 173). However, there are laws forbidding human-androids marriages, just like there were laws against interracial marriage (“miscegenation”) in the United States until the 1960's. The escaped androids Pris, Irmgard, and Roy have hidden in John Isidore's apartment much like escaped slaves hid in the safe houses that were part of the underground railroad. Deckard comes to find and retire them, a 21st century reminder of how bounty hunters did the same thing in the 19th century. Deckard, even after having personal relations with Rachael, shoots and kills her lookalike, Pris, with only moment's hesitation. After destroying a symbol of his admission that he can empathize with an androids, he feels that he can go on. He retires Roy and Irmgard with little difficulty (notably, he acknowledges that Roy loved Imrgard and makes no further allusion to this later), and afterward condemns himself for having slept with Rachael. He says he wishes he had killed her so his goat would have stayed alive, but we can surmise this is in part a rationalization – he is disgusted with himself for violating the human-android barrier, which is “absolutely against the law” (p. 208). We can see that he is still uneasy on the subject of humanity in the final conversation with his wife. He admits that artificial things “have their lives too. Paltry as those lives are,” but then tells his wife about his fear that there would be “nothing left after [he] stopped” – no more androids to retire.

    A film that merely told the viewers what they're supposed understand that would be exceedingly boring. Accordingly, Blade Runner's final scenes use vivid imagery and action to allow the viewers to draw their own conclusions. It focuses on Roy's attempt to join the in-group instead of Deckard's attempts to keep him out. As such, the film's imagery evokes a sense that Roy is becoming human. When he kills Tyrell, his thumbs press into his “father's” eyes, obscuring them from view. Tyrell falls and the camera shows Roy's eyes. Of course, eyes are often called “windows to the soul,” and the viewer is left with the feeling that Roy has acquired a soul – that which distinguishes humans from non-humans (according to Descartes and many world religions, at least). The dialog at the end of the movie reveals the pain of Roy's isolation, when he says “Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.” to Deckard as he saves him from falling. His act of charity can be seen as an attempt to buy his way into the human world, but it is too late for him. His termination date comes and he dies, and as Dr. Strathausen's lesson notes, the dove that flies off after he dies is another visual symbol of Roy's acquisition of a soul.

    There is much more to say about empathy in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner, and certainly a number of useful interpretations of how it is used in each version. However, both treatments provide effective commentary on the fear of “otherness” through parallels to xenophobia throughout history. Assuming that Philip K. Dick was sloppy in his writing is wrongheaded; human inconsistency is the driving force of xenophobia, and is illustrated by the story's characters. Even the human's crucial advantage over androids, the ability to fuse with Mercer, is exposed as a fraud within the story – something the humans do to preserve their tribe. Therefore, it is not Dick's inconsistency that justifies Scott's alterations. The best support for those revisions comes from the different strengths and weaknesses writing and film have for conveying a message. Also, even though Dick wasn't necessarily inconsistent,  this is not to say that some aspects of  his novel aren't confusing – Mercerism certainly is. Both men, by playing to these different strengths and weaknesses, produced works that are arguably their best.

Note: Dr. Strathausen's lesson has a small error. Deckard's wife is mentioned only in the original version of the movie, not only in the director's cut. In a voiceover, Deckard says “Sushi. That's what my ex-wife called me... Cold fish.” All of the voiceovers were removed in the director's cut.

References
1. Dick, Philip K. Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep). New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.

2. Blade Runner (The Director's Cut). Dir: Ridely Scott. Warner Bros: 1992.

3. Blade Runner. Dir: Ridley Scott. Warner Bros: 1982.