It is controversial whether virtual reality should be considered fictional or real. Virtual fictionalists claim that objects and events within virtual reality are merely fictional: they are imagined and do not exist. Virtual realists argue that virtual objects and events really exist. This metaphysical debate might appear important for some of the practical questions that arise regarding how to morally evaluate and legally regulate virtual reality. For instance, one advantage claimed of virtual realism is that only by taking virtual objects (...) and events to be real can we explain our strong emotional reactions to certain virtual actions, as well as their potential immorality. This paper argues that emotional reactions towards, and wrongs within, virtual reality are consistent with its being merely fictional. The emotional and ethical judgments we wish to make regarding virtual reality do not provide any grounds for preferring virtual realism. (shrink)

This paper provides a novel defence of the philosophical use of examples drawn from literature, by comparison with thought experiments and real cases. Such fictional examples, subject to certain constraints, can play a similar role to real cases in establishing the generality of a social phenomenon. Furthermore, the distinct psychological vantage point offered by literature renders it a potent resource for elucidating intricate social dynamics. This advantage of the internal insight that fictional examples can (though do not always) possess helps (...) explain their prevalence in certain areas of philosophy, such as ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of emotion, in which we can require a more precise characterization of a subject's mental states. While the respective advantages of fictional examples, real cases, and thought experiments clearly depend on many contextual factors, the former have an important, and arguably underappreciated, role to play in philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

This paper provides an account of truth in interactive fiction. Interactive fiction allows the audience to make choices, resulting in many different possible fictions within each interactive fiction, unlike in literary fiction where there is just one. Adequately capturing this feature of interactive fiction requires us to address familiar issues regarding impossible fiction and the nature of time in fiction. Truth in interactive fiction thus requires a complex account to capture its multitude of fictions. It is argued that a full (...) account of truth in interactive fiction requires distinguishing two works for each interactive fiction, which contain distinct fictional truths. The actual work encompasses what is in fact represented as fictional (hence mistakes can be fictionally true in this work), whilst in the implied work, truth in fiction is governed by authorial intention, hence mistakes are not fictionally true. This dual account best captures our aesthetic evaluation of interactive fictions, for which we often need to distinguish how the work actually is from how it was intended to be. (shrink)

The work highlights the problems of economic risk management in a territorial context. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the strategic management of economic risks in a territorial context, based on the development of a mechanism of criteria that can give a generalized assessment of the results of risk situations, based on consideration of the variability of the development of the territorial economy. When assessing risks, special attention is paid to the economic results of the consequences of their (...) occurrence for the objectivity of strategic planning. The materials studied on various approaches to risk assessment show the economic category, while there is a functional connection between social and economic processes. The calculation technology itself requires improvement, which consists in creating a mechanism for generalizing indicators, concentrating them in a territorial context. Most likely, when developing a strategy for the development of the economy of a territory, it will be necessary to consider the variability of events that involve the occurrence of risks, providing an objective assessment of risks when making management decisions. The scientific novelty of the study is to justify the development of a mechanism for assessing the risks of the territorial economy, based on the relationship between the consolidation of risk analysis indicators and the effectiveness of the development of socio-economic processes, while comparing various options for the forecast effect. As a result of the study, the problems of assessing the strategic management of economic risks in the territorial context made it possible to develop generalized indicators characterizing risk events. (shrink)