Hey, just for kicks here are some things that people may want to look for in Bladerunner as we watch it.

Mind/Body problem:  what is the nature of conciousness?  Does it have to be embodied in an organic living person? 

What it is to be a person:  does being a person entail being 'organic'?  Does it involve self-awareness regardless of artificial or natural means? 

If an artificial construct is self aware, can you kill it?

I think these will help orient our viewing of the movie.  It's a fantastic one, in my opinion, so enjoy!

Like I said in response to Geoff's post, I think it doesn't matter where ethics or morality orginated.  I agree, if you're taking a very naturalistic (meaning there is what I see, this is what is demonstrable by the physical sciences, so this is all there is. The universe is the sum total of its parts, nothing more.  Atheism would fall under this) view of people then the idea that morality and virtue arise out of instinctual wills is convincing.

I side stepped the question orginally and talked about the value of ethics and morality because I don't think the origins matter and that discussion is a waste of time, because it doesn't matter.  So what if morality and ethics arose out of certain instinctual wills that helped developing humanity to survive (I am going to assume that if one wants to take the naturalist position then one is also fairly convinced by the findings in evolution).  Even if these wills developed in animalistic man, does that make them helpful to humanity now?

In some respects humanity has surpassed its surroundings.  I am not claiming that we are not subject to our surroundigns, we of course are (e.g. natural disasters, there is still the threat of disease, starvation), but we are also able to excert control and manipulate our surroundings (e.g. air conditioning, sterile enviornments, irrigation, etc).  Our instinctual wills may have gotten us to this point, but now that we are here, it is more beneficial to kick aside the ladder that allowed us to reach this point.

I still maintain that the origins of ethics, morality, and virtue are unimportant so long as the function that they serve is benefical to our interactions, in the stability of societies, and so some extent our unspoken social contracts. 

(Thomas H. Huxley actually had a good analogy about this.  He make the comparison with wolves, saying that for wolves there is an unspoken agreement that they will not attack each other during the hunt, since to do so would allow the prey to escape.)

I believe that it would be quite challenging to make an argument that virtue and morality exist outside of will to survive, will of power, and fear of consequences.

I am not formally educated in philosophy and would love to hear from those who know more than I about how these issues have been bypassed during pholosophers' pro-virtue/morality arguments.