Humanizing what isn't human is just as fundamentally human as is dehumanizing what is human. It's possible to feel empathy for an electric toad and, at the same time, see an intellectually deficient man as less than human.

How much of his own humanity does one have to sacrifice in order to destroy a soulless simulation of what a human is supposed to be? Is the irreconcilability of what is right and what feels right, as Mercer put it, a basic reality of the human condition?

It's a short book, but densely packed with ideas, surprisingly different than the movie it inspired. I would definitely recommend it.