  Vision is an important metaphor in ethical and political questions of
knowledge. The feminist philosopher Donna Haraway points out the ``perverse''
nature of an intrusive, alienating, all-seeing vision (to which we might cry
out ``stop looking at me!''), but also encourages us to embrace the embodied
nature of sight and its promises for genuinely situated knowledge. Current
technologies of machine vision -- surveillance cameras, drones (for war or
recreation), iPhone cameras -- are usually construed as instances of the former
rather than the latter, and for good reasons. However, although in no way
attempting to diminish the real suffering these technologies have brought about
in the world, I make the case for understanding technologies of computer vision
as material instances of embodied seeing and situated knowing. Furthermore,
borrowing from Iris Murdoch's concept of moral vision, I suggest that these
technologies direct our labor towards self-reflection in ethically significant
ways. My approach draws upon paradigms in computer vision research,
phenomenology, and feminist epistemology. Ultimately, this essay is an argument
for directing more philosophical attention from merely criticizing technologies
of vision as ethically deficient towards embracing them as complex,
methodologically and epistemologically important objects.
