Replicant or Human?

Philosophical Insights in Literature & Films

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), a work by Philip K. Dick that inspired films like Blade Runner and Minority Report, offers a projection of the future, exploring scientific and technological progress, prompting us to think about our “human” nature, our existence with other beings, and evoking a sense of fear about our power in the world we inhabit. The drive to dominate and alter nature, to create and remake artificial beings according to human purposes (the “replicants” in Blade Runner), should concern us.

The novel shows us that a purely mechanical perspective of life is false: replicants manufactured by humans for the sole purpose of fulfilling their desires begin to seek a life of freedom and meaning.

The work also reveals what we might do to others in a technological future, a lesson we have already learned from the past: a new apartheid, a world divided between two types of beings, with one group considered merely a workforce, simple and available, for the other group – humans – with no rights.

Although physically very similar, there is a difference between the two types of beings, defined from the start only by their mode of conception, one group lab-generated, the other naturally born. This difference establishes a qualitative distinction and hierarchy between the groups.

The novel and the Blade Runner films also demonstrate that humanity is essentially based on the ability to think creatively, act and live autonomously, make decisions, and imbue life with personal meaning.

It’s not human to live deterministically, without awareness, as if we were predestined robots. In this regard, as the diversity of life shows us, there are replicants more human than humans, and there are enhanced and dangerous replicants, just as there are humans with all these positive and negative traits.

Similar to Shelley’s Frankenstein, Philip K. Dick and the Blade Runner films explore the idea, from the replicants’ perspective, of what it means to live in a world where one lacks rights, a recognized identity, yet feels to have that identity and the dignity of rights. They give voice to what it means to value the gift of life, much as many humans feel the blessing of having a life, regardless of its artificial origin (ethnicity, gender, among others).

These literary examples suggest that advances in science and technology can have a profoundly negative side, massive dehumanization. Still, we sholud ask: what does dehumanization mean? As Gazzaniga aptly suggests:

“[…] we are talking about a practice that exists only because of the very nature of being human: discovering, thinking, finding new ways to do things. How can one then use this human ability, use the brain, that something that makes us human, and be accused of ‘dehumanizing’?”

Certainly, the dehumanization in these films and novels is related to a lack of positive emotional bonds, to an alienation generated by excessive human desire for power (Frankenstein, Brave New World, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). But there is even more dehumanization in Brave New World: people reject their freedom, their critical spirit, and authenticity, not caring about being enslaved, in the name of permanent well-being. We can imagine a future where most people will lack the most important traits that define humans. Surprisingly, some of these traits might be retained only by a few political tyrants (such as intelligence, determination, and the will to power). And that is indeed dehumanizing.

Sara Fernandes is Research Fellow in the Post-Doctoral Program in Integral Human Development (UCP/Porticus).

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