The Decommisioning Of Androids Essay Research Paper

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The Decommisioning Of Androids Essay, Research Paper Introduction: In this essay I plan to prove, using three main concepts from John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding that replicates are not persons and can be retired without violating and moral, ethical, or legal laws. Replicates are merely man made intelligence and became a threat to real humans. Since the beginning of time man has killed animals and other humans that were a threat to others well-being. Why should these manufactured replicates be any exception? Problem: The problem proposed in the paper is weather or not it is ethical to retire replicates from the movie Blade Runner. In order to answer this question I must answer a couple of other questions. The hardest question will be, Are replicates

people or are they just created machines by man. If they do qualify as living beings do we have the right to kill them based on our principles? One can look at these questions from many points of view. I chose to look at these questions from John Locke’s perspective. I will use his philosophy to justify my answers to this question. Background: The movie Blade Runner takes place in the 21st Century. In this time period humans have the technological knowledge to genetically produce human like androids that have the capacity to think, feel, learn, and move about freely. They are in no way controlled by an outside party. However some of these replicates have learned too much and discovered that they are indeed man-made and can only live for four years. In an effort to find a way to

extend their lives they rebel and kill several people in a “off world” and hijack a ship and return to earth. These replicates have been made illegal on earth and a special police unit called Blade Runners has been given the authority to kill any replicate on earth upon detection. This is where the moral and ethical dilemma comes in. Do these Blade Runners have the right to kill all replicates in punishment for the actions of a few? I say yes. The Blade Runners have every right to retire these replicates for several reasons. In the movie these replicates are a danger to society. When Tyrell told the replicate that he could not extend its life span he killed him. One cannot ask for the impossible and then punish he who cannot produce the impossible. I can understand why the

replicates are upset. Their life is limited to such a short time. Still this is not a reason to commit murder. From a philosophical stand point I will support my beliefs concerning the retirement of replicates. Criteria: The justification for the retirement of replicates comes from three of John Locke’s philosophical positions relating to the concepts of a person. To begin with, Locke critiques the rationalistic idea that any human mind is equipped with innate or in born ideas that do not arise from experience. What this means is that no human can have an idea that was not perceived through the senses from the outside world. Locke firmly believes in the Tabula Rasa. This is the blank slate theory. This means that when a person comes into the world it has absolutely no ideas

imprinted on its mind. All the ideas a person will acquire will come from the time they were born until the time they die. There are no preexisting ideas. This concept of Locke’s will be used to dispute replicates memories. The second concept of Locke’s is that all ideas and knowledge come from the outside world. Locke states that all things in the physical world must be perceived through the senses and then stamped on the mind. Locke believes that a person’s experiences produce ideas, which are the immediate objects of thought. People are not directly aware of physical objects. They are directly aware of the ideas the objects in the physical world cause in them and they represent the objects in their consciousness. People then arrive at ideas by reflecting on the