Abstract
Consider the multi-user virtual worlds of online games such as EVE and World of Warcraft, or the multi-user virtual world of Second Life. Suppose a player performs an action in one of these worlds, via his or her virtual character, which would be wrong, if the virtual world were real. What is the moral status of this virtual action? In this paper I consider arguments for and against the Asymmetry Thesis: the thesis that such virtual actions are never wrong. I also explain how the truth of the Asymmetry Thesis is closely aligned with the possibility of what Edward Castronova has called closed synthetic worlds. With some qualifications, the ultimate conclusion is that the Asymmetry Thesis is false and that these closed worlds are impossible.
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Notes
There are differences between these examples. World of Warcraft and EVE have built-in objectives that players try to accomplish, whereas Second Life has no built-in objectives. Nevertheless, they are similar in having persistent virtual worlds where players have freedom to perform many different actions and interact with other players. These similarities are what will be important in what follows.
Brey (1999) and Gooskens (2010) each address a similar issue, but with respect to games that have only one human player, the rest of which are controlled by the computer. Bradley and Froomkin (2004) consider the relationship between real rules and virtual worlds, but the emphasis is on using virtual worlds to assess the efficacy of proposed legal rules. Strikwerda (2012) has recently focused on virtual theft and asked when real-world legal action should be taken in such cases. For other work on this topic, see Powers (2003), Wolfendale (2007), and Johansson (2009). Some of these will be discussed below.
Powers (2003, p. 198) suggests that he ascribes to the Asymmetry Thesis. This is despite the fact that he argues that some virtual actions—though not the actions in the virtual worlds of things like Second Life or World of Warcraft—can be wrong.
Craft (2007) argues that actions like the one that occurred in EVE in 2005 are wrong. It's unclear, however, whether he ascribes to the Symmetry Thesis or simply the third view. Wolfendale (2007) appears to reject the Asymmetry Thesis, but it is pretty clear she also rejects the Symmetry Thesis. Johansson (2009) also rejects the Asymmetry Thesis. It is less clear what his views are about the Symmetry Thesis.
It is often hard to know what effects a particular action has, or what one's motivation is in performing it. It is often much easier to simply recognize what type of action one is performing.
Hunter and Lastowka (2004) note this, too.
Indeed, as others have noted (Hunter and Lastowka 2004; Fairfield 2005; Craft 2007), the objects in virtual worlds meet the standard definitions of things that have economic value: the players who accumulated those in-game artifacts invested time in acquiring them, they regret their loss, they have utility within the virtual world, they can be bought and sold using real currency, etc. For a recent argument for the claim that virtual theft can be real theft, see Strikwerda (2012).
In a different way, Munn (2012) emphasizes the way in which an avatar is more than just an online object. He argues that the fact that participants have avatars that represent themselves allow them to do things with each other in a virtual world, rather than just discuss things with each other. He sees this as important to understanding how true friendship can develop in virtual worlds, in a way that it cannot in mere chat rooms.
A better analogy to virtual worlds, perhaps, would be the “shared dreams” that are featured in the film Inception (Nolan 2010). But it's not clear that actions done to others in such shared dreams really fail to be immoral.
Not all multi-user virtual worlds are best thought of as games. For instance, Warburton (2009) does not describe Second Life as a game. Nevertheless, Second Life does have rules (Community Standards n.d.) and many people enter the virtual world of Second Life voluntarily and for enjoyment. Thus, it is appropriate to see several of the arguments in this section (especially Game Argument 2 and 3) as applicable to the virtual world of Second Life even if Second Life should not be counted as a game.
Both Kerr (2008) and Hunter and Lastowka (2004) note that something similar to this argument is upheld by US courts. Kerr sums it up nicely, saying that from a legal perspective, “the rules of the game trump” (p. 421). That is, if an action is performed within a game that would be illegal outside the game, the courts do not treat this action as illegal so long as the action violates no rules of the game. Of course, the courts are concerned with legal rightness and wrongness, not moral rightness and wrongness. But the form of the argument is the same.
For example, Hurd (1996) talks about the “moral magic” of consent.
For instance, Wertheimer (2000, p. 560) writes: “It is a mistake to think that consent always works “to make an action right when it would otherwise be wrong,” if “right” is equivalent to “morally worthy” or “justified.”.
For example, consider the reactions to the case of Armin Meiwes, the German citizen who in 2001 killed and ate a man who had apparently consented to such an arrangement. For some details, see Lander (2003).
Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting this line of argument.
Perhaps not all multi-user virtual worlds are meant to sustain play. Certain parts of Second Life are perhaps not meant to sustain play in this way. However, many virtual worlds are meant to sustain play and one could see these arguments as applying to those virtual worlds or parts of virtual worlds.
I am grateful to an anonymous referee who suggested this very helpful example.
Castronova prefers the term 'synthetic worlds'.
Or, at least, it is one that does not take up actual space in the normal sort of way. There is some sense in which a virtual world takes up actual space on a hard drive or server.
As an anonymous referee notes, Castronova’s views on this may have changed. In a post the Terra Nova blog (Castronova 2005, December 24), Castronova considers the moral status of avatar choice. He writes: “But when the avatar is a considered an expression of self, in a social environment, then deliberately choosing a wicked character is itself a (modestly) wicked act.” This seems to imply that behavior within virtual worlds is morally evaluable and so matters, morally speaking. Of course, it is consistent with this claim that this behavior is significant precisely because such worlds are not closed. On the other hand, Castronova might maintain that such worlds are closed and yet have moral (though not legal) importance. Nevertheless, in print Castronova has defended the view described in the text, and the connection between the Asymmetry Thesis and Castronova’s (2004) view is interesting independent of whether or not Castronova himself currently holds his previous view.
He writes: “As meaning seeps into these play spaces, their status as play spaces will erode. As their status as play spaces erodes, the laws, expectations, and norms of contemporary Earth society will increasingly dominate the atmosphere. When Earth’s culture dominates, the game will be over, the fantasy will be punctured and the illusion will be ended for good. Taxes will be paid. The rich and poor will dance the same macabre dance of mutual mistrust that they do on Earth, with no relief, no re-writing of beginnings, and no chance to opt out and start over. The art that once framed an immersive imaginary experience will be retracted back to the walls of the space, and the people will go back to looking at it rather than living it. Living there will no longer be any different from living here, and a great opportunity to play the game of human life under different, fantastical rules will have been lost.” (Castronova 2004, p. 196).
Of course, this would then cast doubt on the possibility of closed worlds.
He attributes these arguments to Brey (1999), though fails to mention that Brey offers the arguments with respect to virtual worlds that have only one human user rather than interactive worlds with many human users. Thus, Brey's arguments are actually a bit different than those presented by Johansson and attributed to Brey. Johansson, however, offers the arguments with respect to interactive virtual worlds, and so I focus on those in the text.
Notice that according to this argument, these virtual actions are wrong for roughly the same reasons that their real counterparts are wrong. This is an important difference between it and the argument from moral development. Of course, just because an action causes some harm, it does not follow that it is wrong. The harm could result in some greater benefit. However, it is hard to see what this greater benefit could be in these cases. The most plausible thought is that although I harm you by doing something to your avatar in a virtual world, the benefit is the pleasure I get from doing this. But we don’t think that this sort of benefit offsets harm caused in non-virtual situations, so it is not clear why things would be different here (for more on this idea, however, see Sect. 6).
Thanks to Erik Wielenberg for prompting me to think about this strategy.
I don’t mean to commit myself to a controversial thesis about personal identity here. The claim is not that it is metaphysically necessary that I cannot exist without my body. Rather, the claim is that, given current technology, I depend on my body more than I depend on my avatar in a virtual world.
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Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at Ethical Inquiry Through Video Game Play and Design at DePauw University, and at the 6th International Conference on the Philosophy of Computer Games in Madrid, Spain. Thanks to the participants of both conferences for helpful comments. Thanks also to Erik Wielenberg, Marcia McKelligan, and the members of the DePauw University Ethics Bowl team for discussion and comments. I also thank two anonymous reviewers for this journal.
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Dunn, J. Virtual worlds and moral evaluation. Ethics Inf Technol 14, 255–265 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-012-9298-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-012-9298-6