Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: playing with right and wrong
- 2 To prohibit or not to prohibit, that is the question
- 3 Hume's strength of feeling
- 4 Kant's call of duty
- 5 The cost and benefit of virtual violence (and other taboos)
- 6 Are meanings virtually the same?
- 7 There are wrongs and then there are wrongs
- 8 Virtual virtues, virtual vices
- 9 Doing what it takes to win
- 10 Agreeing the rules
- 11 Why would anyone want to do that?
- 12 Coping with virtual taboos
- 13 Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Virtual virtues, virtual vices
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: playing with right and wrong
- 2 To prohibit or not to prohibit, that is the question
- 3 Hume's strength of feeling
- 4 Kant's call of duty
- 5 The cost and benefit of virtual violence (and other taboos)
- 6 Are meanings virtually the same?
- 7 There are wrongs and then there are wrongs
- 8 Virtual virtues, virtual vices
- 9 Doing what it takes to win
- 10 Agreeing the rules
- 11 Why would anyone want to do that?
- 12 Coping with virtual taboos
- 13 Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
We should not only look at the “message” (violent content) but also at what the “medium” does to us, that is, what the game play itself does.
Coeckelbergh (2011: 96)Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, NE II i, 1103a19–21)In this chapter I switch focus. Instead of evaluating the morality of a video game's representational content in terms of its socially significant expression or incorrigible social meaning, or the morality of the player's actions based on established rules of morality (e.g. utilitarianism and Kant), my aim is to consider whether STAs are something the virtuous person would engage in. Can the notion of actions that are characteristic of a virtuous person be used as an effective means of assessing the permissibility of video game content? If so, then if x is not characteristic of an action P would perform, in virtue of being a virtuous person, does this mean that x should be prohibited on moral grounds? The problem with this question, at least within the context of video games, is that it is conditional on x not being something that a virtuous person would do.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ethics in the Virtual WorldThe Morality and Psychology of Gaming, pp. 85 - 98Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013