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Is it distinctively wrong to simulate doing wrong?

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Abstract

This paper is concerned with whether there is a moral difference between simulating wrongdoing and consuming non-simulatory representations of wrongdoing. I argue that simulating wrongdoing is (as such) a pro tanto wrong whose wrongness does not tarnish other cases of consuming representations of wrongdoing. While simulating wrongdoing (as such) constitutes a disrespectful act, consuming representations of wrongdoing (as such) does not. I aim to motivate this view in part by bringing a number of intuitive moral judgements into reflective equilibrium, and in part by describing the case of a character that I call The Devious Super Geek who simulates wrong to particular people that he knows personally. I build bridging cases from the case of the Devious Super Geek to capture games in which one simulates wrong to imaginary members of extant, morally salient categories. The surprising conclusions that we are led to include not just that simulated wrongdoing is pro tanto wrong, but that simulated Just killing is pro tanto wrong, and also that the simulated killing of zombies and aliens is also pro tanto wrong. Finally, I describe how I propose to handle some potential objections and attempt to weigh the pro tanto wrong identified in the paper against some countervailing considerations in some all things considered judgements.

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Notes

  1. https://www.superdataresearch.com/market-data/market-brief-year-in-review/ [last accessed 10 Aug 2017].

  2. It may help some readers to consider how actions can be wrong as such or wrong given contextual features. An armed robber’s squeezing their index finger is not wrong as such, or not wrong as the squeezing of their index finger. It is instead wrong given contextual features, namely as being the causal precipitate of murder by gunshot. On the other hand, committing murder is wrong as such, it is wrong as murder.

  3. I acknowledge a slight awkwardness in drawing the distinction, since consuming videogames and simulating wrongdoing more generally seem to be slightly more authorial on the player’s part than consuming non-simulatory representations of wrongdoing.

  4. George (2005).

  5. Spielberg (1993).

  6. Riefenstahl (1935).

  7. Griffith (1915).

  8. For further reading, see Sanchez-Vives and Slater (2005) on the concept of ‘presence’, namely “the phenomenon of behaving and feeling as if we are in the virtual world created by computer displays” (p. 332). On embodiment, see Won et al. (2015). On involuntary biological reactions resulting from immersive identification with an avatar, see Fox et al. (2012). On “the relationship effect of immersive system technology on user experiences of presence”, see Cummings and Bailenson (2016).

  9. An anonymous reviewer has kindly pointed out research indicating there to be little difference between the effects that consuming simulatory and non-simulatory representations have on consumers’ character and behaviour (Anderson et al. 2003).

  10. Patridge (2011), p. 303.

  11. Patridge (2011), p. 304.

  12. Patridge (2011), p. 303.

  13. Luck (2009) p. 31.

  14. Luck (unpublished) ‘The grave resolution to the gamer’s dilemma’.

  15. Bartel (2012), Young (2016) has responded by arguing that child pornography is synonymous with child abuse, that virtual paedophilia need not involve child abuse, and that therefore virtual paedophilia is not an example of child pornography. However, there seems to be little to motivate the claim that child pornography is synonymous with child abuse. Firstly, there is much child abuse which is not child pornography (e.g. neglect). Secondly, child pornography arguably consists in sexually explicit visual representations of children, and such representations could be generated from imagination without requiring any abusive treatment of children at all. So this response seems insufficient.

  16. To motivate the first thought, one might urge that neither simulating murder nor simulating paedophilia is immoral, but that both are simply in bad taste, for instance.

  17. Rawls (1972), p. 47.

  18. Rawls (1999), p. 289.

  19. Scanlon (2002), p. 145.

  20. Kagan (1989), p. 12.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Spiecker and Steutel (2001), p. 35.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Law (2006), p. 118.

  26. Spiecker and Steutel (2001), p. 36.

  27. Daniels (2016).

  28. Spiecker and Steutel (2001), p. 33.

  29. Ibid, p. 32.

  30. Kagan (1989), p. 11.

  31. Spiecker and Steutel op. cit, p. 33.

  32. Ibid.

  33. Nagel (1970), p. 76. To be sure, Nagel argues that these are indeed unacceptable results.

  34. Kagan op. cit, p. 15.

  35. McCormick op. cit, p. 284.

  36. McCormick op. cit, p. 285.

  37. Ibid, p. 284.

  38. Ibid, p. 285, 286.

  39. McDowell (1979).

  40. For sophisticated discussion of non-consequential wrongs still within an Virtue Ethic Frame, see Partridge (2011).

  41. Cf Patridge (2011).

  42. “[T]he question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?” Bentham (1970).

  43. McCormick (2001), Waddington (2007), Schulzke (2010).

  44. Both of these objections have been suggested by an anonymous reviewer.

  45. Calvert et al. (2017), p. 138.

  46. I am grateful to Adam Slavny for suggesting this example in conversation.

  47. Haneke (1997).

  48. Grayson (2013).

  49. Haneke (2005).

  50. Singer (2009).

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Acknowledgements

Viktor Ivanković, Morgan Luck, Chris Mills, David Rowthorn, Adam Slavny, Nathan Wildman and two anonymous referees are to thank for reading and commenting helpfully on drafts. Craig Bourne, Emily Caddick Bourne, Rebecca Davnall, Michael Hand, Hwa Kim, and Felix Pinkert are to thank for very interesting conversations on its arguments. Christopher J Bartel and Derek Matravers are to thank for organising the Video Games and Virtual Ethics conference in July 2017 at which I delivered the presentation on which this paper is based. Emma Fenn, Philp Gaydon and Sally Latham are also to thank for inviting me to speak to their A Level students about video game ethics.

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  1. Department of Education Studies, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK

    John Tillson

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Tillson, J. Is it distinctively wrong to simulate doing wrong?. Ethics Inf Technol 20, 205–217 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9463-7

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