A new solution to the gamer’s dilemma

Abstract

A gamer (or player) is a moral agent who plays videogames, and a virtual act is an act which a gamer performs, using her in-game character, on a computer-controlled (but not humancontrolled) character in the game's virtual world. According to Morgan Luck (2009), gamers 2 face a dilemma when it comes to performing certain virtual acts. This is because most gamers regularly commit acts of virtual murder (which are virtual acts that would have counted as murder had the virtual environment in which they were performed been real), and take these acts to be morally permissible. They are permissible because unlike real murder, no one is harmed in performing them; their only victims are computer-controlled characters, and such characters are neither moral agents nor moral patients. What Luck points out is that this justification equally 3 applies to virtual pedophilia (which are virtual acts that would have counted as pedophelic had the virtual environment in which they were performed been real), but gamers intuitively think that such acts are not morally permissible. The result is a dilemma: either gamers must reject the intuition that virtual pedophelic acts are impermissible and so accept partaking in such acts, or they must reject the intuition that acts of virtual murder are permissible, and so abstain from many (if not most) extant games.There are multiple ways one might react to this dilemma. Luck (2009), and the subsequent literature that has arisen around the dilemma (specifically, Bartel 2012, Patridge 2013, and Luck & Ellerby 2013), have pursued a solution which rests on finding some morally relevant distinction between the two acts, such that acts of virtual murder, but not virtual pedophilia, can be performed without moral qualms. This, however, is only one way of solving the dilemma. We can clearly see this by considering the premises leading up to the dilemma: P1-Intuitively, gamers believe that virtual murder is morally permissible, and that virtual pedophilia is morally impermissible. This paper benefitted from comments given to me from Bradford Cokelet, Bashshar Haidar, Benjamin Yelle, Chris 1 Bartel and an anonymous reviewer. In addition it benefitted from the comments of the audience at the International 8th Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, and the audience at the American University of Beirut.Sometimes videogames are referred to as computer games, but throughout I will use the term videogames which is 2 the term commonly used by gamers. In some cases, I will omit the word 'video' and use 'game'.Where moral patients are objects of moral consideration, though not morally responsible themselves e.g. babies 3 and in some cases, animals.! 1

The virtual simulation of child sexual abuse: online gameworld users’ views, understanding and responses to sexual ageplay

“…Thus, similar edgeplay behaviours such as rapeplay, murder-play, incest-play are broadly culturally accepted because they are constructed as only consensual fantasy and so not as reflecting or affecting the RL resident and their future behaviours. Thus, for the residents of SL, normative moral positions on virtual deviant behaviours are founded on the perceived relationship to RL (reflecting, in part, arguments around the gamer's dilemma of Bartel 2012;Partridge 2013;Ali 2015;Young 2013Young , 2016, but this connection is more readily assumed in respect to sexual ageplay than other virtual deviant behaviours, leading to questions about why sexual ageplay has this unique position even when the context of the behaviours are identical. However, as noted, when residents also believe that there is a connection with other forms of edgeplay and RL problematic social structures or behaviours, such as for rape-play on occasion, then these residents also tend to express the wrongness of the play online.…”

“…consideration of the player's motivation does not explain the selective acceptability of virtual murder, for example, and not virtual paedophilia (sexual ageplay), unless also coupled with Ali (2015) distinction.…”

“…For example, an avatar acting out virtual murder or child abuse could, conceivably, be required (or encouraged) to do this through a game structure, thus, relieving the player from attributions of personal choice and enjoyment in the act-although such an inference may be incorrect. Ali (2015) similarly argues that the gamers' dilemma could be partially solved by reframing the dilemma itself: that virtual murder and virtual paedophilia are not actually considered morally different in the first place, if you control for contextual differences. The difference he highlights is that virtual murder tends to take place in the context of legitimised violence (war, for example), but also in the context of furthering a game.…”

“…Consequently, those virtual behaviours which align with the game structure and design are considered to be outside of the player's moral decision-making, and thus acceptable as they do not indicate any relationship to the player's motivations nor, therefore, relate to the possibility of psychological harm to the player. In arguing this case, Ali (2015) draws on the work of Partridge (2013) who also points out that not all virtual murder is acceptable either, and that the moral status of virtual murder is founded on the moral status of such acts in the real world (taking into account the lack of direct harm caused virtually). Thus, some virtual murders are more acceptable than others, with player's more likely to morally judge other players negatively for virtual deviant behaviours where they conceive of the game (and acts within the game) as reflective of RL (be that the deviant motivations and desires of the player or broader social problems of, for example, inequality and discrimination).…”

Integrating Poor Taste into the Ongoing Debate on the Morality of Violent Video Games

“…But Goerger is quick to add that the rejection of the contamination thesis does not necessitate that all video game content is morally unproblematic. What he does reject is the idea that there is something intrinsically immoral about such content (a similar view is expressed in several recent publications on violent video game content (see for example Ali 2015;Bartel 2015;Ostritsch 2017;Young 2014Young , 2015a. Instead, Goerger argues that ''violent video games should be evaluated on the basis of the values expressed in the game rather than on the basis of perceived harms or violent imagery (2017, p. 103; emphasis added).…”