Why be Moral in a Virtual World

Virtual Worlds and Criminality, 2011

The present chapter pursues the question if virtual violence is morally problematic behavior. Virtual violence is defined as any user behavior intended to do harm to perceived social agents who apparently try to avoid the harm-doing. The chapter reviews existing literature that suggests that users hurt themselves if they get engaged in virtual violence and that users may also do harm other users if they direct their violent acts against their avatars. Recent research is reviewed that further suggests that users may intuitively perceive virtual agents as social beings. They may thus intend to do harm to other social beings (instead of objects) when conducting virtual violence. The chapter also tackles (and denies) the idea that autonomous virtual agents are living entities that may suffer from virtual violence. In light of the reviewed evidence, virtual violence is considered morally problematic behavior.

2012

The world we live in is expanding its borders by letting the "virtual" become part of our lives. As new technologies emerge, virtual communication is taking over step by step and more and more virtual features become an important part of our life.

Philosophy in the Contemporary World, 2001

This paper critically describes the mediation of social relations by information technology, drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas. In the first of three movements, I discuss ethical relations as primordial sociality based in proximity. In the second movement I discuss the how the self encounters the Other, the ethical contact. How can the self make contact with the Other without turning the Other into a theme, a concept or a category? In the third movement, I discuss the electronic mediation of the social as simulation. I argue that simulation shatters proximity since it transforms expression, the trace, into presentation, an image. I argue that the distance produced by the mediation increases the potential for the Other to become appropriated by the self-certain ego as a theme, according to its categories. In simulation, proximity is shattered and the ego can no longer be disturbed-no longer become a hostage. In a final section, I explore alternative arguments for the possibility of electronic mediation that preserves the trace, that possibility of being disturbed.

Through an analysis of the theme of virtuality in media mythology, philosophy, and science, a process is illustrated—echoing themes in the esoteric tradition— whereby we are being faced with the opportunity for a deeper understanding of the world and ourselves, if only we can cross the existential void and take responsibility for creating our world.

2009

Thomas and Brown / Why virtual Worlds Can Matter 37 Virtual worlds are persistent, avatar-based social spaces that provide players or participants with the ability to engage in long-term, coordinated conjoined action. In these spaces, cultures and meanings emerge from a complex set of interactions among the participants, rather than as part of a predefined story or narrative arc. At least in part, it is the players themselves who shape and to a large extent create the world they inhabit. While many virtual worlds provide the opportunity for that kind of world to emerge, game-based environments such as World of Warcraft or Eve Online illustrate it best because of the intense degree of coordinated action and co-presence among players. This sense of “being with others” and being able to share space, see physical representations of each other, and communicat e and act in that shared space provides a very specific set of affordances for players. This article is an effort to trace out and...

Science and Engineering Ethics, 2014

This paper attempts to give an insight into emerging ethical issues due to the increased usage of the Internet in our lives. We discuss three main theoretical approaches relating to the ethics involved in the information technology (IT) era: first, the use of IT as a tool; second, the use of social constructivist methods; and third, the approach of phenomenologists. Certain aspects of ethics and IT have been discussed based on a phenomenological approach and moral development. Further, ethical issues related to social networking sites are discussed. A plausible way to make the virtual world ethically responsive is collective responsibility which proposes that society has the power to influence but not control behavior in the virtual world.

2016

How is that we come to know another person within the confines of a gamic interaction – to acknowledge a responsibility towards them as just that: another person? In having become accustomed to forming and carrying out relationships by means of verbal computer-mediated communication (Walther 1992: 72), a certain measured form of intimacy has arguably come to inform many of our day-to-day interactions, as we purposefully and selectively reduce our communicative faculties for the reach, speed and convenience of new media. But even as we continue to ponder how the paradigmatic efficiency of the media we use to interact shapes the ways in which we relate to one another, little has been made about the philosophical perspectives of online multiplayer games’ oftentimes entirely unique remediations of human communication: How games, as a medium for accommodating that first desire to, in existential phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas’ words, give and receive “beyond the capacity of the I” (Lev...

2011

The present paper describes an exploration of teaching of moral psychology within Second Life, a web-based virtual world. Using student written comments and observations collected weekly across the semester-long course, we conclude that virtual worlds support instruction by allowing students to experience situations that cannot be easily replicated in the real world. Particularly salient was the observation that Second Life—coupled with course content- provides students with examples of how various social processes influence moral understanding, judgments and actions. Further, Second Life provided a range of environments in which students can assess the influence of context on moral actions. The utility of virtual worlds as a teaching and research environment are discussed.

Whether my life fares well or not seems inextricably related to whether the states of aff airs that contribute to my well-being are real or not. Thus, we are constantly exposed to and troubled by claims of unreality: Is this real love? Get a real life! What is my real identity? Is she a real friend? Am I escaping my real obligations? Is there really a God? We are either relieved or disappointed when a particularly lifelike dream turned out not to be real, or by realizing that a particular state of aff airs turned out not to be true after all. When so much of our lives and well-being is tied up with concerns and claims about reality, it should come as no surprise that the impact of virtual events and experiences on our lives is a controversial topic. Indeed, philosophers, policymakers, researchers, and journalists often make claims to the eff ect that wasting one's life on virtual surrogates for the real thing amounts to being bereaved of what real life has to off er; that virtual worlds, entities, and experiences might give immediate gratifi cation, but not deliver the kind of authentic happiness that a life engaged with reality can off er.

2009

Humans are spending an increasing amount of time in teleimmersive environments interacting with avatars or virtual human bodies. Additionally, human behavior and cognition are affected by experiences in tele-immersive environments. Although there is substantial psychological work surrounding the notion of morality, there is little work that examines the interplay of immersive digital environments and the moral identity of the digital medium user. We conducted a study to explore how participants' moral behaviors and self-ratings of morality changed after immersion in either a moral or immoral tele-immersive environment. Results revealed that participants who witnessed the immoral scenarios felt and acted more immoral than participants in the moral scenario condition. These findings have important implications for understanding the effects of digital media as well as for the study of the psychological construct of moral identity.