Do droids have feelings?

The reason why is because in ROTJ there is a droid being tortured in Jabba's palace and it's screaming! But how can that be if it's a robot? The same goes for in ESB when R2-D2 is repairing C3-PO's foot at the end? He starts moaning too. What's it all about? it's bending me mind! Any assistance?

 

It's not impossible they can sense pain. The bionic limbs used to replace ones that are cut off in saberfights certainly do so, and they're mechanical, just like the droids. They feel sensations, but I'm not sure if they have feelings, meaning emotions.

 

yeah but the droids i'm talking about aren't gonna have bionic limbs like General Grievous in ROTS.
I'm talking about ones that have have been build just to aid and assist people like C3-PO and that one in ROTJ which is being tortured (which resembles a wheelie bin like we have in England for putting rubbish in and look hilarious!). Also C3-PO has no bionic limbs so he can't feel pain yet starts crying when R2-D2 is mending his shoe. What's all that about?

 

Well, the reason we have pain (as humans) is to cause aversion to doing things that hurt us and are stupid (ie, jumping off of tall buildings, sawing off limbs, etc.) One could imagine that it serves the same purpose in droids: those with low cognitive abilities could be programmed to "feel" pain if something was causing them damage; thus, causing them to not want to do whatever it is they were doing.

 

humans feel pain cos of nerve endings. droids (robots) only need to be programmed to do tasks. they either do it or they don't. why do they need to feel pain. also as for the one being tortured at jabba's house, why didn't jabba just turn the droid off?

 

I was speaking in evolutionary terms; that is, the reason that humans have nerve endings in the first place is because those who had an aversion to things that hurt them were more likely to survive.

Anyway, yes, droids are just programmed to do tasks...but as we saw in the movies, without proper memory wipes, personality quirks can develop. And so, a curious little droid might reach out and touch something quite hot. To prevent further damage, and to keep the droid from doing it again, programmers might make the droid think it's feeling pain, so it will remove it's hand. Or at least, that's my explanation.

 

the droids in jabbas palace have been fitted with circuits to cause distress such that they CAN be tortured. they didnt have them originally. they've been added....

 

^ PPOR

 

lol this reminds me of KOTOR, in Davik's estate...when you walk into that interrogation room. Inside the room there's these two torture droids, but when I first read the description "torture droid" I thought it was talking about some dark-side Force power that let you torture droids =D

 

c3po does for sure.