The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots, and Ethics by David J. Gunkel

Author:David J. Gunkel [Gunkel, David J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780262017435
Amazon: 0262017431
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2012-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

bodily expression. It is neither trope-free nor a fantastic kind of “ natural

authenticity. ” It is instead a reciprocal exchange situated in the meeting

of the gaze of an other. It is a “ co-constitutive naturalcultural dancing ”

illustrated by, as Haraway presents it in considerable detail, the demanding

sport of canine agility. And the operative question in these circumstances

is not Bentham ’ s “ Can they suffer? ” but “ Can animals play? Or work? And

even, can I learn to play with this cat? ” (Haraway 2008, 22). In these playful

encounters, Haraway emphasizes, the participants

“ do not precede the

meeting ” (ibid., 4) but fi rst become who and what they are in the course

of their interactions with each other. This reconceptualization of commu-

nication, where the interacting subjects are a product of the relationship

and not some preexisting substance, clearly has promise for both sides of

the “ companion species ” relationship, and Haraway describes it in a way

that is careful to avoid simply slipping back into the language of metaphys-

ics and the metaphysics of language.

Despite this promising development, however, Haraway ’ s account rede-

ploys that other metaphysical privilege — the privileging of vision, the eyes,

and the gaze of the other. It is only those others who look back with eyes

that are capable of meeting her eyes “ face-to-face in the contact zone ”

(ibid., 227) that are considered to be capable of engaging in this kind of

nonlinguistic communication. For Haraway, then, companion species are,

in more ways than one, indissolubly connected to optics:

In recent speaking and writing on companion species I have tried to live inside the

many tones of regard/respect/seeing each other/looking back at/meeting/optic-hap-

tic encounter. Species and respect are in optic/haptic/affective/cognitive touch: they

are at table together; they are messmates, companions, in company, cum panis . I

also love the oxymoron inherent in “ species ” — always both logical type and relent-

less particular, always tied to specere and yearning/looking toward respecere . . . . The ethical regard that I am trying to speak and write can be experienced across many

sorts of species differences. The lovely part is that we can know only by looking and

by looking back. Respecere. (Ibid., 164)

This formulation, whether intended or not, has the effect of privileging

particular kinds of animals as companion species, dogs for instance, but

even some mice and cats, where the eyes are situated on the face in

such a way as to be able to meet our gaze, and tends to exclude anything

that does not and is structurally unable to come eye to eye or face to

face with the human subject. The “ ethical regard ” that occupies Haraway,

therefore, is something that is exclusively situated in the eyes, the

Moral Patiency

125

proverbial window to the soul. It is about looking and looking back at

each other that ultimately matters. Consequently, Haraway

’ s ethics of

respect for companion species not only capitalizes on the basic innovations

of Levinasian ethics, which characterizes moral consideration as the face-

to-face encounter with the Other, but also inherits one of its persistent and

systemic diffi culties — a conceptualization of

“ face ” that remains, if not

human, then at least humanist.

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