The Rise and Fall of Wilbur Mercer

Viskovic, Richard. "The Rise and Fall of Wilbur Mercer." Extrapolation 54.2 (2013): [163]-182.

An essay on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? relevant for the elements in the story of replicant electro-mechanical animals, the "mood organ" and "empathy box" — and for the story-within-the-story of Wilbur Mercer and how this relates to the central theme of Androids of empathy.

In Androids empathy is what defines human beings. It is the means used to distinguish the androids from humans. The androids look and seem human, but their lack of empathy sets a clear dividing line between them and the empathic humans of the novel, one guarded by application of the Voigt-Kampff empathy test. Yet the line between what is human and what is not is not as static as it might seem. The apparent humanity of the androids rises and falls in the novel, as does the humanity of the human characters. (Viskovic, p. 173)

For the rise and fall of apparent humanity, as with all other reversals in the novel, keep in mind Dick's use of the van Vogt rule of introducing a new idea every 800 words to keep reader interest — John Huntington, "Philip K. Dick: Authenticity and Insincerity" (Philip K. Dick: l'authentique et l'insincérité).

Still, note well Viskovic's point that

Despite its categorical acceptance in the novel as a definitional human characteristic, empathy is not a quality exclusive to human beings and not all human beings possess it. [The human lead,] Deckard's police superior even admits [... of a possibility that some] human beings could not pass the Voigt-Kampf scale" ([Androids rpt. Gollancz 2001] 33). Aside from their lack of empathy, the androids are almost identical to their creators. By making them so similar, Dick pushes at the boundaries between human and non-human. (Viskovic, pp. 173-74)
 

Nothing human is alien to Mercer, and beyond human, and this underlines the empathy theme.

Dick [...] has made a thorough case for the humanity of the organic robots. [...The androids] to not seem at all like machines are we know them[,] and because of the similarities between the humans and these androids[,] it is very natural to react to the androids by extending outward our definition of what is human [...] just like Mercer at the top of his climb [in his story]. (p. 165) 

So a crucial reversal is the scene with J. R. Isidore (a human who has befriended androids), the rogue androids, and a spider they torture "in order to satisfy an idle curiosity [...]. They are cold, emotionless, and psychopathic, and at no other point in the story do they seem so utterly inhuman" (Viscovic, p. 178) — at least as most of us humans like to think of ourselves (comment by RDE), though as "human" appears with empathy with Mercer and with Mercer's own empathy, leading to greater humanity in Deckard.

RDE, Initial Compiler, 6Feb19