Summary Of The Machine Questions By David Gunkel

The Machine Question written by David Gunkel is a book that focuses on moral thinking, how we question things, and in general how we analyze philosophical problems. In the introduction he addresses the problem of the relationship between humans and machines. He uses the debate that has been going on already with animals and how we treat them. Gunkel uses how animals have not been a very important in terms of human concern for them. As time has passed animals have been more of a concern in many ways including how we treat them. He uses this Animal Question to tie the idea of moral concern for machines. He introduces a multiple for books that have attempted to address this idea of machines being so close to humans. Also he also uses past philosophers

One aspect he touches on is this idea of Moral Agency. A basic definition from Google is, “Moral agency is an individual's ability to make moral judgments based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong”. David Gunkel uses this idea of a moral judgment and proposes this question for machines, “To what extent… be held responsible and accountable for decisions and actions”(6). My understanding of agency in relationship to machines is that are machines in full moral concern to the point that they should be responsible for themselves or are they just a piece of technology. If we use the connection to animals, they have become more of a moral concern but we do not hold them accountable as we do humans. The question is who is responsible. Are machines able to differ right from wrong? Gunkel says that “Technology itself is neither good nor bad”(6). We need to make a stance if machines are able to think and make moral judgments by themselves. This roles into Gunkels next idea which is should machines every have rights or will. they ever even get to that