In chapter 15 of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Rick Deckard at this point of the story has retired three androids, before he goes home to his wife Iran he stops by and purchases a goat. When Rick arrives home he says to his wife, “Something went wrong today; something about retiring them. It wouldn’t have been possible for me to go on without getting an animal” (Dick 171). There is a possibility that Rick is doing this because he feels guilty for what he has done; is he finally feeling empathy for androids? Is he seeing himself as murderer? Or is he doing this for the sake of Mercerism and balancing that belief system with his job as a bounty hunter?
Rick is doing it for the sake of Mercerism, on page 233 in chapter 21 “Rachel was wrong I didn’t have any trouble retiring them…..the only one who was right is Mercer.”-Rick, this does illustrate that even when Buster told the whole world Mercerism is fake, Rick still believes in this so called “religion” which does help him face the fact that he has no empathy towards retiring androids. Killing androids does not go against the beliefs of Mercer.
I believe he bought the goat for the sake of Mercerism and balancing out his life. Once he retires the first three androids, he questions everything he believes in. He wants to find a new job, he is confused on whether he feels guilty for retiring the androids, and he is lost because he has started to feel empathy for the very thing he kills for money. I think he buys the goat to try and reconnect to his old morals and what was normal to him.
I believe Rick sees the androids as more human than he is which is causing him to rethink all that he has done as a bounty hunter. His job is to kill, even if what he is killing isn’t actually human; which I consider to be different from being a murderer. Having an animal helps with empathy and taking another life because it’s something that’s part of society and has an important function to how things are run.
I do think he was beginning to feel guilty about retiring the androids, based on that particular passage in particular. It seems to have really caught up to him that even though it’s his job, he’s inflicting real damage. He feels so low at this point in the story that the only way to even the odds is by having another animal to take care of, so as to give him some sort of moral salvation.
I think Rick realizes what he has done, and he does feel guilty about it. But this all goes back to the lawful vs. moral discussion we had on Thursday. He knows what he did wasn’t moral but it was lawful and he was fulfilling his duty as a bounty hunter. Getting an animal was his way of continuing to live with himself afterwards and fulfilling his life as a follower of Mercer.
I think that Rick has developed some empathy for androids however, I do not believe he thinks himself as a murderer. I think the difficulty Rick is facing has to do with the fact that the lines have been blurred when it comes to what true empathy is. Mercerism may seem black and white on the outside but when androids are involved there are some discrepancies. We know that some androids do have the ability to take care of animals and the test used to sort human from android has flaws. I think that Rick is realizing that Mercerism is not perfect and knowing true empathy is impossible since it is so diverse.
It seems to me as though he is doing this because he is possibly starting to feel empathy for androids. If he felt the need to balance the belief system of Mercerism this wouldn’t be the first time he retired an android and then bought an animal.
I think he did this because he truly felt guilty. I think Mercerism could possibly tie into his reasoning somewhat, but it really boiled down to his guilt. He had a bad day because he started empathizing with the androids. And he thought by rewarding himself with a goat, all the guilt would go away. It’s the same as anyone who buys themselves a little something because they had a rough day. However, when you do that, it only works short term. Your problems never actually go away. And that’s exactly what happened with Rick. As soon as he bought it, he felt buyers remorse. Not because he didn’t want the goat, but because buying the goat didn’t make his guilt disappear.