I was watching the original cut of the movie "Blade Runner" after not having seen it for many years, and I re-realized that the ethical question it raises...
should humans consider it ethical to kill another being who has feelings yet is perceived to exist just to serve humanity?
...relates to the question of whether killing animals to eat them is murder.
The connection between the movie's ethical question and whether it is right to kill sentient beings (livestock animals) was noted by none other than "Blade Runner" actress Sean Young in an interview about the movie:
Quote:
Sean Young on "Blade Runner"
Quoting her:
"If I have feelings, how does that make me any different than you? How does that make me less of a person, just because I was engineered, if I have feelings as well? It's like an important question even now, you know, when you think about slaughtering animals and everything. I mean, there are some feelings that are roused in a person when they watch 'Blade Runner' because it can affect you on many different levels as far as where our society is going and where we are as people, and what we really take for granted."
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This video of lovely Sean Young in 1982 is the source of the quote:
Sean Young on Blade Runner - YouTube
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I remember liking the movie when I first watched it. I liked it even more after this second viewing. If you aren't familiar with the movie, here's a description:
Spoiler for "Blade Runner" plot and ending:
Harrison Ford, as Rick Deckard, "prowls the steel-and-microchip jungle of 21st century Los Angeles" as a "blade runner," stalking genetically made "criminal" replicants to kill them, their crime being wanting to be considered human, and not wanting to have a genetically-determined short lifespan.
One of my favorite scenes is a final one about the dying and death that awaits us all. This scene is especially touching because the replicant, who had been a ruthless killer, near the end of his own life chooses to save and spare the life of the blade runner who had just killed his mate and had tried to slaughter the replicant himself. Perhaps facing his own imminent death made him realize how precious life is.
If only more humans were as compassionate as that replicant, and were willing to take mercy on animals instead of raising, and ignoring, and slaughtering them as if their lives and experiences of life meant nothing! The treatment of livestock animals is especially horrific to me because they have done nothing wrong to humans and people don't *need* meat to survive. Livestock animals have not harmed you or any person, yet how do people repay them for their innocence?
This scene moves me because it makes me sad for all of us, and all sentient beings, whose unique experiences of life will be lost when they die or are killed/murdered/executed. Apparently, the line "like tears in rain" was never scripted. Rutger Hauer, the studly actor, "just said that while filming. It became one of the most famous scenes in movie history" (from the description of the YouTube video below):
"Blade Runner" - tears in rain scene
Rutger Hauer as a replicant in "Blade Runner"
