Is Data (from Star Trek) a person with right to self-determination or is he a thing to be bought and sold?

Question

Data (Brent Spiner) is an android, an artificial intelligence in human form. He can grasp the meaning of friendship, of accomplishments, and of self.

Answer 1

Data is supposedly sentient and able to reason and feel and care and judge based on moral values and moral deliberations. The Star Trek episode referred to by others brought those features out. Many episodes of Star Trek raised philosophical issues and in that sense they were serious thought experiments in philosophy and science and religion. The Star Trek series explores our humanity and the universe of the human mind just as surely as we humans will, I hope, one day explore the vast physical universe if we as a species survive long enough to get off the planet w/o becoming extinct first because of our many faults.

I am and will always be a trekkie forever grateful to Gene Roddenberfy, his wife Majel, and all the people who have acted in and helped produce the original series and the sequels. It, more so than Star Wars ( and I loved the melodrama of the movies) is our true future and our highest calling. It is the mythology of humanity that looks to the future in the stars and our minds.

Answer 2

If you've seen the episode where he is in court and Picard defends his rights. Because a dr wants to disable him and experiment on him(I think) Picard proves that data has the rights of a human. Because he says that data maintains 2 of three things (not sure of what they are of) but he shows how Data is self aware (I forgot the second one) but according to Picard he did meet the thrid one a coniousness (I assume this because Picard says something like and what if he meets the thrid one? Then he said something about Data someday having a coniousness) the case was ruled in Data's favor because Picard said that if more of him are made then isn't that race and that this could lead to enslaving a whole race. According to other people Data has a coniousness. Which would make since considering that he wants to become human and doesn't that display coniousness. One person told me that he wants to be more then a bunch a wires ( or something like that). So I quess maybe he is a form of
life.

Answer 3

That was answered in a second season episode which I believe was called "The Measure of a Man." It was determined in a Star Fleet court that Data had civil human rights . He was not a slave or property and he belonged to himself.

Answer 4

Yes, it was called "The Measure of a Man".... one of the better Trek episodes, and unusual in that it was actually true science fiction. Data is considered a person (even though he was constructed) because he is conscious, sentient, self-aware and can think for himself.

Answer 5

I'm not sure I can grasp the meaning of 'self' as more than a normative term.

Does he have the ability to transcend his own functioning and emerge to ordinary waking consciousness? (Not sleep, fully transcend) If not, his 'self' is distinct from a humans, at the very least.

Answer 6

It depends on your values. If sentience is something you value then no you couldn't "own" him.

Think slavery - we didn't value Africans so we sold & owned them.

Edit: To laura f... a "Data" type "android" will one day exist, so this is a valid question.

Answer 7

Once a thing has the awareness to desire self control, it deserves self control. Assuming is not a danger to itself or others.

Answer 8

If he's able to pass a Turing test, that's good enough for me.

Answer 9

If something DESIRES rights, it HAS rights.

Answer 10

"Reason is also choice." (John Milton)