Captain Picard's 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'

Imagine yourself at work, going through your daily routine, when all of the sudden, your boss comes over and says you are being taken to a lab to be cut up and experimented upon. This is exactly what happens to Commander Data from (its) point of view in Star Trek, The Next Generation, Season 2, Episode 9. Commander Data is an Android (An android is a robot in humanoid form and with sufficient computational capacity that the android can navigate reality and contribute to reality with minimal dangerous error). (O’Hara) Commander Maddox wants to take Commander Data from the Star Ship Enterprise, dismantle it, and do experiments to figure out how the Android works. Commander Data objects to this notion saying that it would not be right to do this because it is a person with rights. Commander Maddox rebuttals saying Commander Data is property, that he has no rights, and therefore has no opinion in the matter. What do you think? In this paper we will explore the reasoning Captain Picard uses to defend Commander Data and I will argue against Picard’s thesis.
Captain Maddox explains that to be sentient the following three conditions must be met: Intelligence, Self-awareness, and Consciousness. First I will explain Captain Picard’s arguments for why Commander Data meets these three criterions, beginning with intelligence.
Intelligence is the ability to learn and understand. To be intelligent a machine must also be able to cope with situations that arise and deal with them appropriately within its environment. Picard argues that Data meets this requirement, Maddox does not