Technologies of Life and Death : From Cloning to Capital Punishment

The central aim of this book is to approach contemporary problems raised by technologies of life and death as ethical issues that call for a more nuanced approach than mainstream philosophy can provide. To do so, it draws on the recently published seminars of Jacques Derrida to analyze the extremes of birth and dying insofar as they are mediated by technologies of life and death. With an eye to reproductive technologies, it shows how a deconstructive approach can change the very terms of contemporary debates over technologies of life and death, from cloning to surrogate motherhood to capital punishment, particularly insofar as most current discussions assume some notion of a liberal individual. The ethical stakes in these debates are never far from political concerns such as enfranchisement, citizenship, oppression, racism, sexism, and the public policies that normalize them. Technologies of Life and Death thus provides pointers for rethinking dominant philosophical and popular assumptions about nature and nurture, chance and necessity, masculine and feminine, human and animal, and what it means to be a mother or a father. In part, the book seeks to disarticulate a tension between ethics and politics that runs through these issues in order to suggest a more ethical politics by turning the force of sovereign violence back against itself. In the end, it proposes that deconstructive ethics with a psychoanalytic supplement can provide a corrective for moral codes and political clichés that turn us into mere answering machines. Debates over cloning and genetic engineering often revolve around the question of sovereignty and who has the right to choose. Debates over capital punishment revolve around questions of the sovereignty of the state to decide who lives and who dies. In this book, I complicate these discussions by introducing Jacques Derrida's challenges to the liberal conception of sovereignty. Developing, extending, and applying his critique, I reframe debates over life and death, from cloning to capital punishment, in the hopes of opening an alternative path through the thickets of these controversies. Combining deconstruction with psychoanalysis, I attempt to delineate the concepts of sovereignty, freedom, choice, nature, and culture as they come to play in debates over reproducing life and death, from cloning to capital punishment. Deconstruction with a psychoanalytic supplement can assist us in moving through the dense undergrowth of ethical problems and political dilemmas surrounding technologies of life and death Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: Moral Machines and Political Animals 14 PART ONE: SEX MACHINES 32 1. Genetic Engineering: Deconstructing Grown versus Made 34 2. Artificial Insemination: Deconstructing Choice versus Chance 64 PART TWO: MEDUSA MACHINES 96 3. Girl Powered: Poetic Majesty against Sovereign Majesty 98 4. Rearview Mirror: Art, Violence, and Sublimation 128 PART THREE: DEATH MACHINES 148 5. Elephant Autopsy: Optic Machinery and the Scale of Sovereignty 150 6. Deadly Devices: Animals, Capital Punishment, and the Scope of Sovereignty 179 7. Death Penalties: Ethics, Politics, and the Unconscious of Sovereignty 201 Notes 232 Bibliography 248 Index 268 A 268 B 268 C 269 D 269 E 269 F 270 G 270 H 270 I 270 J 270 K 270 L 270 M 271 N 271 P 271 R 272 S 272 T 273 U 273 V 273 W 273 Y 273 Z 273 Using deconstruction, this book approaches contemporary problems raised by technologies of life and death from cloning to capital punishment; and thereby, provides new insights into current debates from a perspective outside of mainstream philosophy with its assumptions of individual and political sovereignty.