Alexander Carruth a.d.carruth@durham.ac.uk
PGR Student Doctor of Philosophy
Identity and distinctness in online interaction: encountering a problem for narrative accounts of self
Carruth, Alexander D.; Hill, David W.
Authors
David W. Hill
Abstract
This paper examines the prevalent assumption that when people interact online via proxies—avatars—they encounter each other. Through an exploration of the ontology of users and their avatars we argue that, contrary to the trend within current discussions of interaction online, this cannot be unproblematically assumed. If users could be considered in some sense identical to their avatars, then it would be clear how an encounter with an avatar could ground an encounter with another user. We therefore engage in a systematic investigation of several conceptions of identity, concluding that in none of these senses can users and avatars be identified. We go on to explore how current accounts of identity-as-selfhood online might resolve this problem by appealing to narrativity or authorship, ultimately concluding that as these accounts stand they are unable to provide grounds for the claim that users encounter each other online and so supplementary work is required.
Citation
Carruth, A. D., & Hill, D. W. (2015). Identity and distinctness in online interaction: encountering a problem for narrative accounts of self. Ethics and Information Technology, 17(2), 103-112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-015-9364-y
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Jun 2, 2015 |
Online Publication Date | Jun 11, 2015 |
Publication Date | Jun 11, 2015 |
Deposit Date | Mar 3, 2017 |
Publicly Available Date | Mar 6, 2017 |
Journal | Ethics and Information Technology |
Print ISSN | 1388-1957 |
Electronic ISSN | 1572-8439 |
Publisher | Springer |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 17 |
Issue | 2 |
Pages | 103-112 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-015-9364-y |
Files
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Copyright Statement
The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-015-9364-y
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