  The proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has sparked an overwhelming
number of AI ethics guidelines, boards and codes of conduct. These outputs
primarily analyse competing theories, principles and values for AI development
and deployment. However, as a series of recent problematic incidents about AI
ethics/ethicists demonstrate, this orientation is insufficient. Before
proceeding to evaluate other professions, AI ethicists should critically
evaluate their own; yet, such an evaluation should be more explicitly and
systematically undertaken in the literature. I argue that these insufficiencies
could be mitigated by developing a research agenda for a feminist metaethics of
AI. Contrary to traditional metaethics, which reflects on the nature of
morality and moral judgements in a non-normative way, feminist metaethics
expands its scope to ask not only what ethics is but also what our engagement
with it should be like. Applying this perspective to the context of AI, I
suggest that a feminist metaethics of AI would examine: (i) the continuity
between theory and action in AI ethics; (ii) the real-life effects of AI
ethics; (iii) the role and profile of those involved in AI ethics; and (iv) the
effects of AI on power relations through methods that pay attention to context,
emotions and narrative.
