Ethics and Information Technology 13 (4):303-312 (2010)
Authors | |
Abstract |
In this paper, I consider a particular amoralist challenge against those who would morally criticize our single-player video play, viz., “come on, it’s only a game!” The amoralist challenge with which I engage gains strength from two facts: the activities to which the amoralist lays claim are only those that do not involve interactions with other rational or sentient creatures, and the amoralist concedes that there may be extrinsic, consequentialist considerations that support legitimate moral criticisms. I argue that the amoralist is mistaken and that there are non-consequentialist resources for morally evaluating our single-player game play. On my view, some video games contain details that anyone who has a proper understanding of and is properly sensitive to features of a shared moral reality will see as having an incorrigible social meaning that targets groups of individuals, e.g., women and minorities. I offer arguments to support the claim that there are such incorrigible social meanings and that they constrain the imaginative world so that challenges like “it’s only a game” lose their credibility. I also argue that our responses to such meanings bear on evaluations of our character, and in light of this fact video game designers have a duty to understand and work against the meanings of such imagery
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Keywords | Aesthetics Applied ethics Ethics Gender Race Video games Virtual pedophilia |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
Reprint years | 2010, 2011 |
ISBN(s) | |
DOI | 10.1007/s10676-010-9250-6 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Ethical Criticism of Art.Berys Gaut - 1998 - In Jerrold Levinson (ed.), Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection. Cambridge University Press. pp. 182--203.
The Gamer’s Dilemma: An Analysis of the Arguments for the Moral Distinction Between Virtual Murder and Virtual Paedophilia.Morgan Luck - 2009 - Ethics and Information Technology 11 (1):31-36.
View all 14 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Cultural Appropriation and the Intimacy of Groups.C. Thi Nguyen & Matthew Strohl - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (4):981-1002.
Robots, Rape, and Representation.Robert Sparrow - 2017 - International Journal of Social Robotics 9 (4):465-477.
Regulating Child Sex Robots: Restriction or Experimentation?John Danaher - 2019 - Medical Law Review 27 (4):553-575.
A New Solution to the Gamer’s Dilemma.Rami Ali - 2015 - Ethics and Information Technology 17 (4):267-274.
View all 26 citations / Add more citations
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