Table Of ContentEthics in the
virtual world
THE MORALITY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF GAMING
Garry Young
R Routledge
O
U
T
L
ED Taylor & Francis Group
G
E
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First Published 2013 by Acumen
Published 2014 by Routledge
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© Garry Young, 2013.
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ISBN: 978- 1- 84465- 549- 6 (hardcover)
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Contents
Abbreviations v
1 Introduction: playing with right and wrong 1
2 To prohibit or not to prohibit, that is the question 15
3 Hume’s strength of feeling 25
4 Kant’s call of duty 37
5 Th e cost and benefi t of virtual violence (and other taboos) 51
6 Are meanings virtually the same? 65
7 Th ere are wrongs and then there are wrongs 75
8 Virtual virtues, virtual vices 85
9 Doing what it takes to win 99
10 Agreeing the rules 115
11 Why would anyone want to do that? 127
12 Coping with virtual taboos 139
13 Conclusion 155
Notes 159
Bibliography 167
Index 181
iii
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Abbreviations
ADT actual disgust trigger
BBFC British Board of Film Classifi cation
CPPA Child Pornography Protection Act (US)
EE ethical egoism
ESA Entertainment Software Association
EULA end user licence agreement
MMOG massively multiplayer online game
MMORPG massively multiplayer online role-p laying game
NE Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
NPC non- player character
PIU problematic internet use
PDT potential disgust trigger
POTA prohibited offl ine taboo activity
PVL preference for virtual life
STA symbolic taboo activity
VE virtual environment
VR virtual reality
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ONE
Introduction:
playing with
right and
wrong
According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), during the
period 1996–2009, in the United States alone, the number of video games
sold for use on a console or personal computer increased from 73.3 million
units to 273.5 million (ESA 2010). For the same period, spending on these
games rose from 2.6 billion dollars to 10.5 billion (peaking in 2008 at 11.7
billion dollars). Similarly, in the United Kingdom in 2008, video games were
reported to have become the UK’s most popular form of entertainment,
with sales for that year estimated to be around 4.64 billion pounds (Cellan-
Jones 2008). Moreover, in its 2010 report, the ESA claimed that 67 per cent
of households in the US owned either a gaming console or a personal com-
puter used to run entertainment software, that the average age of a gamer
was thirty- four – with 49 per cent aged between eighteen and forty- nine –
and that, on average, adult gamers had been playing video games for twelve
years. Th e ESA report also contained a list of the top twenty console games
for 2009 (based on units sold). Ranked number one in the US was Call of
Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (rated “mature”). In fact, Prigg (2009) reports that
4.7 million copies of this game were sold on its opening day in the US and
1
ETHICS IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD
UK alone, out- selling the previous best video game – Grand Th eft Auto IV –
by some distance. (Prigg also reports that of the 4.7 million sold, the sale of
1.23 million copies in the UK was a record for that country.)
Both the Grand Th eft Auto and Call of Duty series are held to be extremely
violent games. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is infamous for its civilian
massacre scene, and Grand Th eft Auto IV has courted controversy by per-
mitting the gamer’s character to have sex with prostitutes before mugging
or even killing them for their money. Th e possibility for simulated violence
of the kind demonstrated by these games (and others), even when restricted
to adults – which demographic data from the US and UK show to be a large
percentage of the total gaming population (see Th e Average Gamer 2010) –
raises a number of interesting and important moral questions. Within the
context of video games, is it appropriate to judge a legitimate action or even
a more sustained gaming strategy as either morally good or morally bad?
When one bloodies and brutalizes a stranger to the point of death with a
kitchen utensil, as it is possible to do in Manhunt 2 (for example), or when
one sexually assaults a defeated female opponent (watching her cry and
hearing her anguish) in Battle Raper, are these activities morally bad things
to engage in? If so, in what sense are they bad and for whom should we be
morally concerned? Conversely, within the game BioShock, if one chooses
not to “harvest” the Little Sisters – that is, kill mutant female children – for
the extra power one will obtain, but instead elects to spare them, is this a
morally commendable act?
Providing a coherent and philosophically astute response to these ques-
tions is an important aim of this book, and is without doubt one of its key
challenges. After all, what does it mean for x to be a morally bad thing? Th e
answer to this question will depend, of course, on what one considers moral-
ity to be. In simple terms, if one holds that it is morally good to do one’s duty
(among other things, let us say that this involves being kind to other people),
then it should follow that not doing one’s duty is morally bad. However, what
if one virtually enacts not doing one’s duty (one is “cruel” or, at the very least,
not “kind” to a character within a game): is that morally bad also? Alterna-
tively, what if one virtually enacts doing one’s duty: is that morally good? If it
is, why should this be? After all, in this case, one has not actually done one’s
duty, only simulated it (the “person” to whom one was “kind” was not a real
person, just a gaming character). So if it is not morally good then how can
being “cruel” to a gaming character be morally bad? Perhaps the virtual act
of doing or not doing one’s duty is, in and of itself, an amoral act that only
becomes of moral interest if it interferes with one’s tendency to do one’s duty
for real. Th us, one may judge x to be amoral in one sense (in and of itself)
but immoral in another: morally problematic if, and therefore because, it
interferes with one’s tendency to do one’s duty and so be moral (something
that, if it is the case, would need to be empirically verifi ed).
2
INTRODUCTION
Others may hold that morality is not about duty, of course, or is about
more than this. But whichever system of morality one adopts, the same issue
arises: namely, its application to virtual enactments. A large part of this book
will therefore be taken up with just this issue: considering the applicability
of diff erent moral criteria to virtual activities within video games, and the
extent to which a particular moral theory is able to provide the satisfactory
and hence justifi catory means – where deemed necessary – for the selective
prohibition of video game content. In addition, it is ultimately my intention
to argue for the importance of psychology rather than morality as a meas-
ure of what should be permitted within video games, based on the view
that the selective prohibition of content should stem from what gamers are
able to cope with, psychologically, rather than what is deemed morally right
or wrong, or good or bad. In order to support this argument, however, it
is necessary to provide a detailed philosophical assessment of what I shall
call the current state of play regarding permitted and prohibited video game
content (see Ch. 2). Can traditional moral theory (see Chs 3–5, 8, 9 and 10)
or even more contemporary moral approaches (Chs 6 and 7) be applied to
video games so as to provide a cogent argument for why certain content is or
should be prohibited? Th rough a systematic examination of diff erent philo-
sophical arguments, some of which have applied traditional moral theories
to video game content (mostly violent), I aim to show how each is ultimately
unable to account for the current state of play or provide a cogent reason for
why certain content should be prohibited but not others.
In the chapters to come, then, I shall consider the extent to which the
moral theories used to provide guidance for our non- gaming activities may
legitimately be applied to the world of video games. More traditional theo-
ries, such as Hume’s sentimentalism (Ch. 3), Kant’s deontological approach
(Ch. 4), the consequentialism characteristic of utilitarianism (Ch. 5) and
social contract theory (Ch. 10), or even the less popular ethical egoism (Ch.
9), will be critically examined to see if they are able to inform our judge-
ments regarding the selective prohibition of video game content. In addition,
I shall consider the extent to which selective prohibition should incorporate
views regarding the content’s symbolic meaning (Chs 6 and 7), or the gam-
er’s moral character and motivation (Chs 8 and 11, respectively), and how
these might best be understood within the context of video games and video
gamers. Finally, by drawing on empirical research, I shall consider ways in
which gamers morally manage their activities while playing video games, so
as to support my argument for psychologically informed, rather than mor-
ally based, prohibition (Ch. 12).
Th e virtual enactments of interest throughout this book are those that
represent real- world taboos:1 namely, actions that are typically both legally
and morally proscribed outside the gaming environment. Such activities
include discrimination, murder, rape, assault (sexual and physical), torture,
3
