If Only You Could See What Ive Seen With Your Eyes: On Personhood in Blade Runner

Ridley Scotts Blade Runner is one of those extremely rare movies that has withstood the
test of time and somehow gotten better with age, generating much discussion and dissention
amongst scholars, film critics, and casual fans alike. As one would probably imagine, all this talk
about the film has produced a multitude of interpretations. One focus of these interpretations
revolves around the Replicants, androids created by humans seemingly for no purpose other
than to serve those humans, and the questions the existence of such beings pose to the concept of
personhood. These Replicants look and act exactly as humans, and they, in some instances, are
superior to humans, in terms of their physical strength (e.g., Leons fight with Deckard) and
toughness (e.g., Roys fight with Deckard) and intellect (e.g., when Roy comes up with the
moves for Sebastian to defeat Tyrell in chess). Due to these Replicants, one is forced to ask the
question, What is it to be a person?
Andrew Norris, in his essay How Can It Not Know What It Is?: Self and Other in
Ridley Scotts Blade Runner, attempts to define personhood based on an inauthentic and
authentic distinction (22). Norris initially defines authentic persons with Locke, who thought
the continuity of psychological experiences as remembered by a single person is what constitutes
personhood (21). Norris therefore seems to think what separates Replicants from authentic
persons is that Replicants memories are not their own but in fact are implanted from human
minds (22). The most blatant issue with this definition of personhood is the category is too wide:
Animals have memories and can be taught to perform various tasks or tricks, yet they are not
considered to have personhood.
While the category for Norriss definition is too wide, it is also incompatible with the
message of Blade Runner. Throughout the film, we see the struggle for authenticity play out, but

not in the way Norris suggests. If the film wanted its viewers to focus on whether ones memory
is genuine or implanted from another person determines personhood, it seems it would have
made that idea more central to its overall plot. Instead, Norriss idea of authentic personhood is
only brought up a few times, and it leaves almost as soon as it arrives. In fact, this idea is really
only ever an issue for Rachel after she finds out shes a Replicant and goes to Deckards
apartment to try to prove to him, through photographs, her personhood, and he tells her some of
her own memories (ones he seems to have learned of from Tyrell before his leaving the Tyrell
building, since it is difficult to come up with any other explanation for how he knew Rachels
memories), ones she had not shared with anyone before. Aside from the possibility of Deckard,
at the conclusion of the film, realizing he, too, has implanted memories, this instance is the only
time throughout the movie the concern of implanted memories is explored, and while one would
be unwise to conclude that, due to this, the idea of implanted memories is unimportant to the plot
of the movie, it still leaves one with no choice but to conclude that it is not very important to the
message of the movie.
Norriss idea of authenticity is also insufficient because it does not apply to all
Replicants. As far as I can tell, there are only two characters with the possibility of having
implanted memories, and only one of which definitely does. Rachel is the only Replicant with
confirmed memory implants, while Deckard, only if the viewer chooses to interpret him as a
Replicant, would also have implanted memories. Seemingly for every other Replicant, at least
the ones we are introduced to, it makes no difference whether they have memory implants,
because no mention is made of the matter. It makes no sense to categorize Replicants according
to a definition of personhood that should apply to all Replicants in the movie but only applies to
a few.

This is not to say Norris is completely wrong, though. Viewing personhood through the
lens of an authenticity/inauthenticity distinction makes a lot of sense, but a more plausible -- and
indeed more compatible with what I believe Blade Runners intention to be, for I would argue
that Blade Runner, if nothing else, is an allegory for the human struggle -- and universal (or at
least more inclusive) method for defining personhood would be to base the definition on said
human struggle: that is, the struggle of deciding, in light of the inevitability of ones own death,
whether to live as if said death is not going to happen, in other words, living according to the
traditions and routines one has inherited, or to radically reinterpret ones existence in light of the
fact that, just as ones self goes with death, so do all values. The inevitability of death sets the
conditions for ones own freedom to choose for ones self, and therefore live authentically,
because it brings with it the realization that all values are inherited, that all structures of the
world are created by persons, and one person can change both the value and structure of
everything.
With this definition of personhood, Replicants and humans are used by the movie as
vehicles of comparison to elucidate, in an ironic way, how differences in upbringing do not
causally determine whether, to what extent, and what kind of person a conscious, critical being
can be. This definition blurs the line between Replicants and humans and makes it irrelevant
whether one is a Replicant or a human. It reimagines the notions of authenticity and
inauthenticity as categories of existence and not as traits of a soul.
But it also means that, in one moment, one could be living inauthentically, while in the
very next moment, one could be living authentically. Every Replicant in existence who does not
choose to rebel, who instead chooses to keep doing as their creators tell them to do, lives
inauthentically. Roy and his group, on the other hand, are exemplars of what authentic existence

means; namely, they chose not to perpetuate the past simply because their slave drivers
demanded it of them, but made a choice in the freedom that their situation can change if only
they act as subjects and not as dependents on a causal relationship to other persons which does
not in fact exist. That is not to say any are doomed to be inauthentic for the entirety of their
existence, for they still have the capacity to make the decisions that define inauthenticity and
authenticity. For example, though Roy and his group did decide to rebel, to do as they please,
and stop living according to the rules given to them by their creators, they do so in order to seek
something like a fountain of youth, to live longer than they are designed to, which is, in a sense,
a denial of the inevitability of death, and therefore the inauthentic choice.
The very same can be said about humans. Any human who decides to ignore the
inevitability of death, to get caught up in work or school or anything that one is told one must do
in order to gain a sense of false security in and control over the world, is, in those moments,
living an inauthentic life. When Deckard, despite whether one chooses to interpret him as a
Replicant, decides to retire (i.e., kill) the Replicants, as he was assigned to do by the police, he
is making the inauthentic choice, since he is choosing to live according to the routines he
inherited. But when Deckard decides to enter into a romantic relationship and run away with
Rachel, instead of retiring her, he is making the authentic choice, since this choice could only
have been made through a radical reinterpretation of his own life.
Or, as perhaps an even better example in terms of humans illustrating the capacity to
make inauthentic and authentic decisions, when Gaff approaches Deckard after Roys death,
tosses Deckard his gun, and walks away, instead of retiring Deckard, since he is aware of
Deckards relationship with Rachel, as one can infer from his saying, Its too bad she wont live.
But, then again, who does, and likely aware of Deckards intentions for his and Rachels future

together, he is making the authentic choice, because instead of doing what he was told to do, he
is doing what he wants to do: and it is freeing for him. If he did what he was told, but doing so
was also what he wanted to do, he would not necessarily be making the authentic choice.
Rebelling against what one is told to do is not necessarily what it takes to make the authentic
choice: the authentic choice is the freeing one, the one which liberates the person from
understanding herself as an object, controlled by those in power, to a subject who sets the
conditions of freedom and fulfillment of meaning for herself.
Whether one is inauthentic or authentic does not matter, though, for it is simply this
capacity, the one to make the decision to be inauthentic or authentic in any given moment, that
constitutes personhood. I have simply been showing instances in which Replicants can be
understood as either authentic or inauthentic, from which it follows from my definition that they
can therefore be understood as having personhood.
Yet another reason this definition of personhood is valid and Norriss definition is not is
that numerous allegories for this definition can be seen throughout the film. The Voight-Kampff
test itself is an allegory for the capacity to make inauthentic and authentic decisions: the test is
conducted in order to see whether one is or can be empathetic and has the ability to make
inauthentic and authentic choices, which is deeply related to the capacity to be empathetic. If one
chooses the objectively empathetic choice simply because one has been told that is the right
thing to do, that would be an inauthentic choice. But if one chooses to make the objectively
empathetic choice because it follows from their authentic commitment toward liberation and
setting the conditions for freedom, that would be an authentic choice. Only in the latter choice is
there real empathy, because only in the latter has one understood others as subjects like herself.
Empathy is contingent on identification with the other as a person, which can only happen

through recognizing ones own freedom and therefore the freedom of the other, instead of
recognizing the other as an object to be controlled and manipulated.
When Leon takes the test at the beginning of the movie and fails perhaps more miserably
than anyone could have possibly predicted, it is not because he is a Replicant that he lacks
empathy and fails, but his failure is due to his decision to run away from death; because hes
running away from death, hes living inauthentically -- because, as stated above, to deny the
inevitability of death is to make the inauthentic decision -- and therefore cannot show any
empathy, either for the tortoise in the hypothetical question posed to him by the Blade Runner or
for the Blade Runner himself when Leon decides to shoot and kill him.
Later in the movie, when Deckard is conducting the test on Rachel, Rachel also fails. The
reason for her failure is very much the same as Leons reason for failure: she is caught up in her
work as Tyrells secretary, which is the role she inherited from her creator, blinding her to the
inevitability of death, her capability to choose, and leading to her inability to show empathy.
It is only when Roy overcomes himself, after first trying to deny the inevitability of death
by driving a stake through his own hand (an act which does seem to prolong his lifespan, even if
only by a few minutes), that he makes the ultimate authentic decision. When he sees Deckard
hanging on the edge of a roof, on the brink of death, he accepts his own death, and makes the
choice to save Deckard, putting the final nail in the coffin in terms of his capacity to make
inauthentic and authentic decisions, and therefore his personhood. This is a decision that only a
person could make (because only persons are confronted with these decisions), and it illustrates
Roys ability to empathize with humans, despite those humans being the ones that put him in his
incorrigible position.

Within the relationship to his oppressor, Roy could have easily taken on the values of his
oppressor, inauthentically, to gain a sense of false value, power, and security in the world. But he
chose, against all expectations, to transcend the world ready-made for him. That world
objectified him as a slave, and would have further, at his last breath, enslaved him ultimately in
the mythology that choosing the destiny of another persons life is the ultimate form of power
(what would Roy have gained in terms of power and value if he would have killed Deckard?).
He, as a result, acquired a fully liberated, authentic existence, if only momentarily, by choosing
freedom for himself, defining the meaning of his own life in light of death, and creating the
conditions of freedom for Deckard. Deckard, the oppressor, lived, and Roy, the leader of the
oppressed, saved him.
One could argue that Roys decision to save Deckard is what inspires Deckard to run
away with Rachel, which is potentially the most interesting moment in the entire movie because
it nearly flips my concept of authenticity on its face. Taking into consideration the somewhat
rape-fantasy scene from earlier in the movie, in which Deckard sort of forces Rachel to kiss him
and tell him exactly what he wants to hear, it could be argued that Rachels decision to run away
with Deckard is the inauthentic one because she is simply doing what Deckard wants her to do.
Before they even leave Deckards apartment, Deckard inquires whether she trusts and loves him,
and her affirmative responses could simply be what she believes Deckard wants to hear and
nothing more. However, by evading her pursuers and not doing what Tyrell wants or would want
her to do, but making the leap of faith to come to know what it means to make meaningful
choices despite knowing her entire life has been a lie and will probably thereafter be brief and
tragic, it could just as easily be argued that she is making the authentic choice. It seems this is yet

another brilliant example of how binary oppositions can completely collapse upon themselves
when subjected to the right conditions.
In conclusion, in terms of the message Blade Runner seemingly attempts to communicate
to its viewers, the distinction between the inauthentic and the authentic is important, while the
distinction between Replicants and humans is negligible. Throughout the film, we witness
Replicants not only struggle against death but struggle to be recognized as more than just
machines, slaves, for humans to use as they see fit. In the end, Roy, at the very least, is
vindicated as a hero, by saving Deckards life and creating the conditions for him to know what it
is to have the freedom to make authentic choices. As Roy himself puts it, Quite an experience to
live in fear, isnt it? Thats what it is to be a slave.

Works Cited

Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Prod. Ridley Scott and Hampton Fancher. By Hampton
Fancher and David Webb Peoples. Perf. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean
Young.

Warner Bros., 1982. Blu-ray.

Norris, Andrew. "'How Can It Not Know What It Is?': Self and Other in Ridley Scott's Blade
Runner." Film-Philosophy 17.1 (2013): 19-50. ProQuest. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.