Empathy In Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep

Pondering what it means to be human delves into the idea of soft sciences like psychology, which is deemed “not a true science[]” by John Campbell, but in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (DADOES) there is a proof to the humanity (Campbell, 86). The Voight-Kampf scale provides the proof that humanity relies on the existence of empathy within them. As Campbell goes on to theorize, these “human sciences are, actually, more interesting to contemplate” than true sciences are (Campbell, 87). This is precisely what DADOES does. The Voight-Kampf scale, which utilizes animal cruelty in the face of a planet devoid of its normal animal population, is able to deduce if an android is human or not by their reaction to the information. At first this test
However, this particular aspect is not a novum because humans have been asking this question for years without a definite answer or, upon finding one, realize that it is a rolling definition. It is the fact that this established definition is found incorrect that is one of the true novums of the novel. When Mercerism, which also helps prove empathy is a thing shared by all humans, is disputed everything begins to change. Imigard says “It’s that empathy… isn’t it a way of proving that humans can do something we can’t do? Because without the Mercer experience we just have your word” which, along with the spider torture, unnerves J.R. just as the novel does the same (Dick, 209). This revelation, unprecedented and surprising to everyone, not only undermines the religion, although that can be debated since both Rick and J.R. see Mercer after the revelation, but also determines that what humans believe is crucial to being human (empathy) is degraded. Even though this novum arrives at the end of the novel it immediately changes everything about the novel. From this point on, J.R. and Rick see Mercer outside of the empathy box. To them, this new idea that empathy and religion may be false has changed everything which follows Darko Suvin’s idea that novums are mirrors “but the mirror is not only a reflecting one, it is also a transforming one” (Suvin,
In a way, defining humanity is crucial to the plot and helps transform it, but there is a cataclysmic shift when Dick destroys that definition. Suddenly, the non-religious Rick finds him contemplating Mercer, and even seeing him, as he traverses a desert. He even thinks that “But what I’ve done… that’s become alien to me. In fact everything about me has become unnatural” (Dick, 230). Now, the novum is humanity. Disrupting humanity becomes the alterity of the novel in the last 50 pages. Without this decimation of the definition the ending would be completely different. Empathy is established throughout the novel and can be used to extrapolate this new novum; of course, this novum is only realized at the end of the novel but that does not prevent it from being