Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy: Killing Time 9781350121874, 9781350121904, 9781350121881

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

Also available from Bloomsbury Aesthetics, Arts, and Politics in a Global World, by Daniel Herwitz Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, by Darren Hudson Hick Morality and Ethics at War, by Deane-Peter Baker The Aesthetics and Ethics of Copying, edited by Darren Hudson Hick and Reinold Schmücker

Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy Killing Time Christopher Bartel

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 This paperback edition published 2022 Copyright © Christopher Bartel, 2020 Christopher Bartel has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. x constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image © kbeis / Getty Images All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-2187-4 PB: 978-1-3502-0270-2 ePDF: 978-1-3501-2188-1 eBook: 978-1-3501-2189-8 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

To my parents, Alison and Daniel, for buying me that Atari 2600 at an impressionable age.

Contents Preface Acknowledgments 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Introduction: The Problem of Virtual Ethics Amoralist Avoidance Strategies: Fiction and Games Virtual Ethics and Virtue Ethics Free Will, Motivation, and the Limits of Moral Criticism Virtual Immoral Fantasies Virtue Ethics on the Gamer’s Dilemma Criticizing Games

Notes References Index

viii x 1 33 51 75 97 121 143 157 178 188

Preface This book is about the moral status of virtual actions. Many video games offer players the opportunity to commit virtual acts of violence and cruelty. Of course, because these acts are committed in the context of a game, they are merely fictional representations of violent and cruel acts. But does that mean that these acts are all morally innocent? Is it ever morally wrong to commit a violent or immoral act in a game? If the only things that can be harmed by my actions are fictional representations of virtual beings, then do my virtual actions hold any moral significance? These questions have been at the forefront of both popular and academic discussions of gaming from nearly its beginning.1 The ensuing debate has drawn in academics from numerous disciplines, most notably psychology, media studies, and communication studies. The status of virtual actions—regarding both their reality and their morality—has been an enduring topic in the young field of game studies. Philosophical work on video games has been slow to start, but has grown considerably in recent years partly due to an interest in questions like those mentioned in the previous paragraph. Each of these academic disciplines has something unique to contribute to the study of video games, and I hope to make the case here that philosophy has a particularly valuable contribution to make regarding the moral status of virtual actions. The academic study of video games is truly interdisciplinary, which brings both benefits and challenges. One clear benefit of the interdisciplinary nature of video game studies is that researchers have a considerable range of empirical data and theoretical resources to draw on. However, this benefit is also its main challenge. The study of video games is interdisciplinary in the sense that it lacks an academic core—that is, there is no academic discipline that is central to video game studies. There is no methodology or theoretical commitment that all video game researchers share. This can be exciting, but it is also a source of frustration and misunderstanding. It becomes very easy for researchers to talk past each other and to fail to recognize that, though our methodologies differ, our conclusions are often complimentary. In this book, I aim to analyze the moral status of virtual actions through the discipline of philosophy. Specifically, my philosophical orientation is what

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many would describe as Anglo-American. I am interested in philosophical debates that historically begin with the ancient Greeks, and whose trajectory can be traced through figures such as David Hume, G. E. Moore, and Bertrand Russell. In moral philosophy, my main influences are philosophers like Rosalind Hursthouse, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and Mary Warnock. I take this sort of focus in philosophy, not because I believe all other philosophical projects are wrongheaded, but because I think there is something valuable and distinctive that this focus can offer. I hope this book makes the case for that claim. Finally, Anglo-American philosophers have long debated the merits of various moral theories; however, the main three that tend to be the focus of many debates are consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. In this book, I will examine the moral status of virtual actions against the background of these three moral theories. Certainly, there are other approaches to ethics that one could take—like contractarianism, relativism, materialist ethics, or an ethics of care—but it is not my intention to address these here. Doing so would require a much longer metaethical treatment. This book is not intended to offer an encyclopedic account of ethical theories, but it rather aims to explain the moral status of virtual actions against the three most familiar and widely discussed ethical theories. More specifically, I want to isolate as best I can what is morally interesting about virtual actions and demonstrate what a broadly virtue ethical account can say about such actions. Progress is made in small steps and this small step is one that I hope to contribute. This book was written with the intention to make it accessible to a general reader. Those who are new to philosophy will (hopefully) find the introductory material in the first three chapters sufficient to follow the arguments of the later chapters. More advanced readers in philosophy may wish to focus more attention on the account defended in Chapters 4 to 7.

Acknowledgments I have benefited from many conversations with colleagues, students, and audience members over the years on these topics. The core argument of Chapter 5 is based on a paper that I co-authored with Anna Cremaldi, who is a wonderful writing partner and brilliant philosopher. Parts of this book were presented at the Philosophy of Computer Games Conference (Copenhagen, 2018) and also to the students and faculty at Appalachian State University and the University of Louisville. Many colleagues have offered invaluable advice, encouragement, and their patience. I owe particular thanks to Espen Aarseth, Asunción Álvarez, Wesley Cray, Rebecca Davnall, John Gibson, Jack Kwong, Morgan Luck, Thi Nguyen, Stephanie Patridge, Kevin Schilbrack, John Tillson, and Garry Young. I also owe special thanks to Derek Matravers for encouraging me to continue working on video games. Thank you to my colleagues at Appalachian State University for giving me the time to complete this work. At Bloomsbury, both Colleen Coalter and Becky Holland have been a joy to work with. In addition to these colleagues, many students have offered fascinating insights and perspectives over the years that have profoundly affected my work, probably more than they realize. Particular thanks go to Montana Crowther, Dagan Danevic, and Sarah Stankus. A large portion of this book was written at Izzy’s Coffee Den in Asheville—thank you for the caffeine and the table. Finally, nothing I do in my academic career would be possible without the support of my family. Thanks to Jennifer and Evalyn for playing so many games with me. Parts of Chapter 4 are reprinted by permission from Springer Nature: Springer, Ethics and Information Technology 17 (4), “Free Will and Moral Responsibility in Video Games,” Christopher Bartel, 2015. Parts of Chapter 5 are reprinted by permission from Springer Nature: Springer, Ethics and Information Technology, “Resolving the Gamer’s Dilemma,” Christopher Bartel, 2012a.

1

Introduction The Problem of Virtual Ethics

1.1 Crashing the Funeral World of Warcraft1 (or WoW for short) is a highly popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (or MMORPG). WoW players build and embody avatars that go adventuring across the realm of Azeroth. Players can band together to form a guild, participate in traditional dungeon raiding and dragon slaying quests, and fight battles against other players. For their efforts, successful players are rewarded with loot and experience. In 2006, a Horde guild suffered the unexpected death of one of their members in real life owing to a fatal stroke. Her character’s name was Fayejin. The guild decided to hold a ceremony within the game to memorialize their lost colleague. The organizers announced that the ceremony would take place near a lake in the wilderness, which is contested territory between the guild factions. They also announced that their members would be unarmed and asked the WoW community to respect their memorial service. Of course, that didn’t work out. One rival guild—called Serenity Now—saw the service as an opportunity. Serenity Now raided the ceremony, slaughtered the unarmed guests, and posted a video of their exploits online. What is now infamously known as the “funeral raid” has been the focus of much passionate debate within the WoW community. And for good reason. The event raises fascinating and important questions about the scope of morality and its application in video games. Did Serenity Now do anything wrong? There are strong feelings on both sides of this question. Imagine that something like this were to happen in real life. While it is a fair military tactic to ambush an enemy, ambushing an unarmed enemy at a memorial service where they have openly declared their unwillingness to fight

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

is deeply underhanded, and it might even count as a war crime. But perhaps comparing this event to real life is unfair. Regardless of whether it would be right or wrong in real life, the WoW funeral raid was not real. It was a game. By focusing on WoW’s status as a game, supporters argue that Serenity Now did nothing wrong because their actions did not violate any of the game’s rules. After all, the memorial was held in a part of the game world where player-versusplayer violence is permitted. Opponents, however, claim that Serenity Now did do something wrong— something vile and inhumane. Serenity Now broke an unspoken moral rule, one that demands decency and respect even of opponent players. Sportsmanship is not a specific rule that is explicitly written into the rules of any game, yet it is a norm of game playing that is expected across all games.2 Of course, the problem with “unspoken rules” is that it is difficult to claim that any rule has been broken when no rule has ever been agreed upon. The WoW funeral raid is interesting because it brings to light many deeply vexing questions about our moral engagement with video games. Is it ever morally wrong to do something vicious or violent or cruel in a video game? Can a player’s actions in a game, which are typically directed toward virtual characters, even count as “vicious,” “violent,” or “cruel”? Do video games set up their own internal moral systems that are independent from real-world morality? Or, can some real-world moral obligations seep into the fictional worlds of video games? The difference in opinion between Serenity Now’s supporters and their opponents partially comes down to a difference in the way that players think about what is included within the “rules of the game.” Are moral concepts like “right” and “wrong” defined solely by the game’s internal rules, or are “right” and “wrong” external rules that players impose on the game? According to some gamers, the only way to do something “wrong” in a video game—whether morally or otherwise—is to tamper with the game code and thereby gain an unfair advantage. As long as the game code is not tampered with, any actions that happen within the affordances of the game are “fair play.”3 People who believe that there was nothing wrong with Serenity Now’s funeral raid take an internal or rule-based view of right and wrong. According to this group, World of Warcraft is governed by the game’s internal rules, which can only be found in the game code. Alternatively, others believe that the game code is not the only rule of the game. While Serenity Now did not technically cheat, their actions were still wrong—their actions were insensitive, damaging, and unsporting. This sort of critical attitude toward Serenity Now would only make sense if there were

Introduction

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rules of morality that we can impose on video games that go beyond the game code. We could think of this as an external or narrative-based view of right and wrong.4 On this view, we should think of the game code as something like the laws of physics of the virtual world. In reality, whether an action is morally right or wrong has nothing to do with whether that action is physically possible or not. The moral externalist might insist that the game code only describes what a player is able to do, not what they ought to do. Whether a player ought to do something in a game world is a matter that is external to the game’s code. This distinction between the internalist view of game morality and the externalist view offers a helpful way of understanding why disagreements arise when considering cases like the WoW funeral raid. Now at least we have a way of thinking about the nature of the disagreement. But we still need an answer— which view is correct? Should we be internalists or externalists? This question cannot be answered simply by looking more closely at the game code or by playing more games. Ultimately, this is a philosophical question about the nature of morality in video games: Do the rules of our actual-world morality extend into video game spaces, or do video game worlds create their own contained moralities? It is conceivable that video games might create their own in-game moral rules. For instance, notice how the kinds of actions that are condoned by players vary from one game to the next. This suggests that morality within gamespaces is changeable and is dependent on the context of the game. In fact, it might be wrong to talk about “morality” at all—perhaps what we are really talking about is nothing more than etiquette. But there is some evidence that points in the other direction, thus complicating matters. These are the cases that will be the focus of this chapter, cases that suggest that video game worlds are not so irrevocably separate from the actual world. If this is correct, then there might be good reason to believe that at least some of our actual-world moral rules, obligations, and values extend into video game worlds.

1.2 The Dilemma of Virtual Ethics The WoW funeral raid offers an example of the moral difficulties that arise in multiplayer video games, but similar questions can be asked about singleplayer games. In fact, focusing on single-player games offers a more interesting challenge. We might explain whatever real-world moral obligations players have in multiplayer games as instances of sportsmanship, which is a real-world obligation that players have to other players regardless of the virtual medium

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

of the game.5 But when playing a single-player game by myself, can I ever be morally criticized for the things that I do in the game? I have committed numerous virtual crimes in video game worlds—brutal, unspeakable crimes. Most of the time, I felt no remorse. Most of the time. But in fact, some of the time, I did feel remorseful, sometimes deeply. But why should I? In single-player video games, my actions—however horrible they might seem—are perpetrated against non-player characters, bloodless virtual beings who do not exist outside of the gamespace and who feel no pain. My virtual actions carry no realworld consequences. So, why should I ever feel remorse? A common belief is this: video games are just games, the violence portrayed in them is merely the fictional representation of violence, and there is nothing morally wrong with the fictional representation of violence. We watch movies and read novels filled with imaginary violence and there is nothing wrong with that. So, why should we worry about violence in video games? When thinking of questions like these, it is easy to treat them like abstract theoretical concerns. However, I suspect that when we treat these questions as mere theoretical abstractions, we have a tendency to overgeneralize and to dismiss genuine problems without sufficient thought. In general, it is true that video games are just fictional representations of violence; and, in general, there is nothing wrong with that. But these generalizations overlook the subtlety and nuance that is needed to address specific cases. When we look at specific cases, there is a lot more going on. Our overgeneralizations tend to lead us to adopt an all-or-nothing attitude to these problems, when what we really need is a subtle and nuanced attitude. If you think that video games are just games, the violence portrayed in them is merely the fictional representation of violence, and there is nothing morally wrong with the fictional representation of violence, then I ask that you think about the following two examples. Battle Raper6 is a Japanese video game released by Illusion, a game-design company known for its adult video games, which is a video game genre called eroge. Battle Raper is a single-player game featuring hand-to-hand combat in the style of the Mortal Kombat games that belongs to a subgenre of games known in Japan as “eroge”—games that have some erotic content. The player can choose from four female characters or one male character. As the characters take damage, their clothes fall off. While the game features the standard kicking and punching moves, it also allows the player to perform sexually explicit grappling attacks and molestation attacks. Beating the game unlocks additional content where the player is able to freely molest and rape the four female characters.

Introduction

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Ethnic Cleansing7 is a first-person-shooter published by Resistance Records in 2002. It is a white supremacist video game. The player controls a white nationalist who is fighting a “race war.” The player is required to fight their way through streets populated only by African-Americans and Latinos before descending to a subway to fight against Jews. The final battle pits the player against a fictionalized Ariel Sharon, former Prime Minister of Israel, who welds a rocket launcher.

Do we truly believe that there is nothing wrong with committing acts of violence in games ever? If so, then why not commit acts of rape or massacre racial minorities in games? Certainly one could criticize the games’ designers for producing games so morally repugnant. But it is more philosophically interesting, I suggest, to think about the position of the game player: Is it morally wrong for the player to play such games? An internalist conception of games would need to accept that the player does nothing morally wrong by enacting the sorts of violence that these games allow because it is part of the rules of the game that such acts can be performed and the player is just following the rules. But that defense seems pretty shallow. The problem I present here is a modification of one that was first posed by Morgan Luck known as the “gamer’s dilemma,” which has become one of the central puzzles of virtual ethics.8 The dilemma goes like this: many players defend murder in video games as merely harmless fun because it causes no realworld harm; however, the exact same argument could be employed to defend pedophilia in video games with equal force. If there is nothing wrong with virtual murder because no one is harmed, then there ought to be nothing wrong with virtual pedophilia because no one is harmed. The dilemma is that players intuitively feel that virtual murder should be morally permissible while virtual pedophilia should not be; yet there seems to be no morally relevant difference between the two that would justify why we treat them differently, considering that both are fictional actions. Luck argues that we must therefore treat both in the same way: either virtual murder and virtual pedophilia are both morally impermissible and we should condemn them equally, or they are both morally permissible and we should tolerate them equally. There has been much debate about this argument among philosophers recently.9 Many have sought to prove Luck wrong by arguing that there is a morally relevant difference between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia that justifies why we can defend the former but condemn the latter. Sadly, there is still no consensus on these issues. We will return to this dilemma and examine it in detail in Chapter 6, but for now it is worth noticing the broad scope of Luck’s dilemma. Many will insist that there is nothing wrong with violence in

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

games, like those in the Grand Theft Auto series or the Call of Duty series, simply because the violence is fictional and no real-world individual is actually harmed by simulating fictional violence within such games. One might be uncomfortable with some of the violence, but mere discomfort does not amount to a moral criticism. However, the acts of violence that are represented in Battle Raper and Ethnic Cleansing are also purely fictional and no real-world individual is harmed by playing those games either. Yet, Battle Raper and Ethnic Cleansing seem to be morally disgusting in a way that Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty are not. So, we find ourselves in Luck’s dilemma again. To be clear, the problem described in the gamer’s dilemma is a problem for the players just as much as it is a problem for game designers, and perhaps even more so. It might be tempting to try to resolve the dilemma by pointing out morally relevant differences in the game designers’ intentions. One might argue, for instance, that it is unfair to compare Call of Duty to Ethnic Cleansing because the latter is clearly a case of propaganda. This might be right—I have no doubt that Ethnic Cleansing is intended as propaganda—but this suggestion is insufficient as a resolution to the dilemma. The problem is that, while the accusation of propaganda is a valid criticism of the designers and publishers of Ethnic Cleansing, this accusation says nothing about the moral responsibility of the players. We typically describe works of art or cultural products as pieces of “propaganda” because of something that the author of the work has done— namely, the author has created an object that is intended to communicate a political message to a targeted audience in a defective way.10 When we criticize works of propaganda, we naturally criticize the author of the work for producing something defective; but we do not thereby criticize the audience also. However, the gamer’s dilemma is not limited to the designers of games. The scope of the dilemma is just as much about players as it is about game designers. Ethnic Cleansing may be condemned as a piece of propaganda; but is it thereby also wrong for players to play it? The answer to this question has nothing to do with the game’s status as propaganda. I suggest that we think of the gamer’s dilemma in the broader context of the criticism of violence in games and we should do so from the perspective of the player. The problem is not simply that many games represent gruesome acts of violence. The more interesting and challenging problem instead is that players participate in those acts of violence and take pleasure in doing so. The question, then, is whether it is ever morally wrong for the player to participate in acts of video game violence. To address this question, we need to develop a philosophical account of the ethical criticism of games and gameplay.

Introduction

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1.3 Redefining the Debate Much of the debate and research on violence in video games has taken place in academic fields like psychology, game studies, new media studies, and communication studies (while much of the panicked handwringing and reactionary jeering has happened in the popular media). And within those fields, the debate tends to focus on the possible relationship between video game violence and real-world violence. This debate has been wide reaching, and although no consensus has yet been reached, the debate has produced much valuable scholarship. I will examine some of the empirical research in Chapter 3, but in this introduction there is one general point to make. The participants within this debate tend to make a few significant assumptions. One of the main assumptions made is that the debate over violence in video games ultimately is a question that pits the aims of public policy against the need to protect civil liberties. If there is a positive relationship between video game violence and real-world violence, should we make some sort of change to our public policies regarding the sale or consumption of violent video games? Or, are the civil liberties surrounding the enjoyment of violent media such that it would always be illegitimate to impose any sort of restrictions on gaming? These are fascinating and important questions—but ultimately, these questions are not my concern. In fact, I think these questions have come to overshadow an important and more foundational topic: the moral criticism of violence in video games. The legal and political debates about public policy surrounding video games are certainly important. But regardless of what you might think about those issues, it is still possible to offer some moral judgment—either praise or condemnation—of video games. We should not think that if some video game allows players to do something immoral, then that video game should be illegal. That inference is much too quick. It may typically be the case that our laws follow morality—or, at least, that we expect laws to follow morality—but law and morality easily come apart. That is, some action can be both immoral and yet legal. For instance, it is legal to cheat on a lover—at least, when not married. Our lovers hold no legal obligations over us. If you cheat on a lover, you cannot be fined, sued, or arrested; and yet, you could still be morally criticized for being a cheat. It is immoral to cheat on a lover even though it is not illegal. When thinking of video games, we should consider a similar possibility. It may be legal for players to do all sorts of awful things in video games, and we may even want to insist that games and players should be protected under our civil liberties; yet

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

it may still be immoral in some cases to do awful things in a video game. Maybe you cannot be arrested, fined, or sued for the awful things that you do in a game; but perhaps you can still be morally criticized. In this book, I want to avoid getting distracted by the social and political issues surrounding public policies and civil liberties. Instead, I want to stay focused on the moral question without losing sight of it. Independently of any legal or political concern, is it always morally permissible to do anything we want in video games? Or, do some of our in-game actions actually rise to the level of immorality? Under what conditions is it morally wrong for the player to perform some action in a video game? Matt McCormick approaches the issue by asking, “Is participating in simulated violence, even where there is no victim, itself somehow morally objectionable?”11 This question has little to do with whether the content of a game is crass, or insensitive, or too violent. Instead, this question shifts the focus away from games as independent objects of moral scrutiny and onto players. Independently of whether a game is itself crass or insensitive, McCormick asks whether players are themselves behaving wrongly when playing a game. To address this, McCormick considers how the three main Western traditions in ethical theory—utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics—would analyze a player’s actions. We will examine this topic in more detail in Chapter 3, however a brief summary of McCormick’s account would suffice here. Utilitarians hold that an action is unethical insofar as it leads to negative consequences, while the deontologist holds that an action is unethical if it is inconsistent with our duty to show respect to humanity. McCormick suggests that neither the utilitarian nor the deontologist could morally criticize video game violence because the available empirical evidence supports neither the claim that the enjoyment of video games causes any significant real-world harms nor the claim that engaging in virtual violence is disrespectful to humanity. Alternatively, virtue ethics is less concerned with the moral status of our actions and instead focuses on the worth of our moral character. McCormick then suggests that we may harm our moral character by wallowing in virtual violence: “[by] participating in simulations of excessive, indulgent, and wrongful acts, we are cultivating the wrong sort of character.”12 Even though video game violence neither leads to real-world harms nor shows disrespect to any particular individual, it is still wrong to engage in virtual violence because doing so diminishes our capacity to develop a virtuous moral character. For illustration of the problem, McCormick asks us to imagine a hypothetical analogous case, one where future developments in technology result in virtual

Introduction

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reality machines that function like the holodeck in the Star Trek series. As he describes it, “an elaborate computer system is able to holographically simulate any situation for the occupant to experience. Holographic projectors, force field generators, and advanced artificial intelligence programs make a simulation of a beach at sunset or the east end of 19th century London look, feel, smell, and sound like the real thing.”13 The violence that we perform in video games is fictional. But so too would be any act violence on the holodeck. One could use the holodeck to act out a fantasy where one commits acts of murder, rape, or pedophilia. And yet, McCormick says, “[in] these cases most of us have a strong intuition that there is something morally objectionable about the act itself, isolated from anything else that might happen outside the holodeck, and even though it is only simulated and no victim gets hurt.”14 Both the utilitarian and the deontologist would struggle to explain this moral intuition in the absence of any real-world harm. However, the virtue ethicist need not be deterred. The intuition can be explained as a form of self-harm. The person who is harmed by these virtual actions is the individual who partakes of them. McCormick’s defense of the value of a virtue ethical approach to ethical game criticism suggests a potentially feasible route, but it is unfortunately very brief. The only reason McCormick gives to accept a virtue ethical account is that it does not fall into the same difficulties as the utilitarian and deontological accounts. It seems as if we should accept the virtue ethical account simply by process of elimination. The details that need to be filled out before we can accept such an account are considerable. Is virtue ethics itself a defensible theory independently from its ability to address the holodeck example? How can we make sense today of the old-fashioned notions of “virtue” and “moral character”? And why should I care whether I cultivate “the wrong sort of character”? Ultimately, I am in agreement with McCormick that virtue ethics is the right way to go, as are some other theorists, so my goal here will be to fill out some of the missing details. The task of addressing these questions is a difficult one, and yet I think it can be done.

1.4 Not All Violence Throughout this book, I will use the term “violence” broadly to refer not only to physical acts of aggression and bloodshed but also to violence that is sexual and psychological. It is considerably easier to find instances of physical violence

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

in video games than it is to find instances of sexual or psychological violence. And yet there are some games that allow players to commit acts of sexual and psychological violence. I have already talked about one game that features sexual violence—Battle Raper. For an example of psychological violence, it is arguable that the “By the Book” mission in Grand Theft Auto V,15 which is a scene where the player must torture a bound victim in order to extract information from them, would count on the grounds that torture is not merely an act of physical violence, but is also one of psychological violence. Fortunately, we do not need to get caught up in the details of how we might distinguish physical violence from either sexual or psychological violence. What matters for our purposes is that I ask the reader to think of “violence” broadly to include many different forms. That being said, not all violence in video games is morally problematic. Some acts of violence are harmless fun, while others can be genuinely upsetting even for the most hardened gamers. Violence in video games comes in different degrees as well as different forms. Some violence is graphic, gruesome, and gratuitous— this is the kind of violence that the popular media delights in sensationalizing— but we should also remember that violence in many games is not like this. Rather it can be stylized, cartoonish, and even comical. No one is really offended by the fact that Mario and Luigi crush mushrooms and kick turtles in Super Mario Bros.,16 that Sackboy can be burned and impaled in LittleBigPlanet,17 or that whole cities are rolled up into a ball in Katamari Damacy18 while the citizens scream in terror. Concerns about violence in video games focus largely on episodes like the airport massacre scene in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (or, CoDMW2)19—a mission called “No Russian.” In the opening sequence of CoDMW2, the player controls an undercover operative who is attempting to infiltrate a Russian terrorist cell. The terrorists have plotted to massacre civilians in an airport. The player-character is forced to accompany the terrorists in their attack. To infiltrate the group successfully, the operative cannot blow their cover. So, the player can either join in on the bloodshed or simply fire their weapon at the ceiling, but they cannot stop the terrorists from carrying out their mission. The “No Russian” mission contains all the hallmarks of video game violence that many find so troubling—the blood, gore, screaming terror, and the needless suffering of innocent, unarmed civilians. There has been much discussion in gaming blogs and the popular media about the inclusion of this mission in the game. Some accuse the game developers of wallowing in gratuitous violence, while others have praised the developers for engineering a difficult

Introduction

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and emotionally challenging scenario. Whatever you happen to think about the inclusion of this mission in the game, an important point to recognize is that it introduces and recognizes a level of moral ambiguity into our thinking about the justifiability of war. Past titles in the Call of Duty series celebrate the bravery of soldiers and the glory of war. But wars are not always brave and glorious. Wars also force good people into making harsh moral choices. Intellectually, we know that our governments employ undercover agents for all sorts of purposes. Many citizens simply accept the shadowy actions of their governments as a matter of fact. But CoDMW2 forces us to consider what those shadowy actions might look like from a first-person point of view by engaging the player in an emotionally harrowing experience—as it should be. This game is not about the glorification of war, but about its ugly realities. Perhaps the players, parents, and media watchdogs who are most offended by the game ought to pay as much attention to the real actions of their own governments. Not only does violence in games come in degrees, but it also serves different purposes. In some games, violence is merely a cheap and unimaginative tool used to motivate the player to explore the virtual space and to continue making progress within the game.20 In more thoughtful games, violence can become a focal point for reflection.21 The “No Russian” mission in CoDMW2 not only can serve as an introduction to the grim setting of the game but also can—and likely was intended—to prompt some moral reflection. As Rami Ali points out, some games contextualize violence in different ways.22 For many games, the violence is contextualized internally by the story or world of the game—this is the “in-game context.”23 If the story of the game indicates that some violent action is an act of self-defense, then this in-game context offers internal justification for the violence. If it is a war game, then the violence is simply wrapped into the context of a war. If the story revolves around a “damsel in distress,” then the violence is rationalized as a necessary means to rescue the damsel. In many games, the internal rationalization of the violence is simply part of the narrative of the game. But for other games, the rationalization of violence must be provided by the player—the violence requires an external contextualization, what Ali refers to as the “gamer’s context.”24 Think of those games where the player is given the option to approach some objective using nonlethal stealth takedowns instead of lethal violence—games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution.25 In such games, players do not choose to kill always for the same reason. In some instances, the reason might be pragmatic—this enemy needs to be killed to receive some much-

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

needed loot. Or the reason might be strategic—perhaps the player is simply not very skilled at stealthy takedowns, so killing is the most effective option. In other instances, players might choose to kill their targets because they are engaged in competitive play—perhaps the player is competing with friends to see who can complete the game fastest, in which case stealth is not the best option. In each of these cases, the rationalization for killing differs according to the needs and goals of the player. In games where the player is given the choice to either kill or refrain from killing, it is interesting to notice that many games will contextualize players’ choices in different ways by embedding systems of rewards or punishments within the game’s mechanics or its morality system. For instance, Dishonored26 is designed to allow players the choice to complete the game with a minimum of bloodshed. When a player chooses to kill targets rather than subdue them, the game becomes progressively harder as the player-character develops a reputation for violence. In other games, the way in which violence is contextualized can be rather subtle and implicit. For instance, both the Red Dead Redemption games and the Grand Theft Auto games employ a morality system in which the non-player characters (or NPC’s) approve or disapprove of the player’s actions. However, these games encode the NPC’s approval in different terms. In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,27 the player’s actions can earn them respect or disrespect from other members of their crew; while by contrast, players earn honor or dishonor in Red Dead Redemption.28 There is a subtle, but important, difference here. Notice that honor is an inherently moral term, while respect is not. The use of honor as the basis for a moral system in Red Dead Redemption subtly suggests what sort of choices the player ought to make. The story of Red Dead Redemption is—as the name implies—one of moral redemption. However, the game allows the player to make dishonorable choices. This can create an awkward tension: if John Marston is seeking redemption, but the player chooses to play as a villain, then the player’s choices conflict with the main storyline. While the game does not force the player to make honorable moral choices, it uses an inherently moral term to suggest what sort of actions best fit the story, which goes some way to resolving the potential conflict while still offering players the freedom to choose. By contrast, San Andreas works in the opposite direction. Respect can be earned for many reasons, moral and immoral alike, depending on the values of the community that one is trying to impress. Within a criminal organization, respect is typically earned through dirty deeds. The approval system of San Andreas functions to enhance the experience of the game by dynamically measuring the player’s

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choices against the values of a criminal organization. Earning respect from your crew increases their willingness to fight for you, while losing their respect decreases their willingness. San Andreas does not force players to choose the immoral action, but it subtly suggests that one ought to in order to maintain respect. Both games contextualize the player’s choices differently through their moral systems. Many games allow players to make certain moral choices freely and many games are responsive to those choices.29 Players can choose to be a hero or a villain, but this choice must be rationalized by the players themselves. Players might rationalize their choices in any number of ways. I previously mentioned strategic and pragmatic reasons for choosing violence within some game, but players may also choose violence for aesthetic reasons. Many gamers will play a game multiple times to try out different choices in subsequent playthroughs. Players often do this to explore the different experiences that the game offers. So, players are sometimes motivated to perform violent and immoral actions in games simply to experience how the game responds, for the enrichment of their aesthetic experience. The first time I played through Dragon Age: Origins,30 my character allied with Leliana and therefore was a pretty good person. The second time I played it, my character did everything that Morrigan wanted. That playthrough was considerably bloodier. The most interesting cases for our purposes, however, are those where the player is motivated to commit some violent or immoral act within the game for its own sake. Players’ motivations are certainly often responsive to the in-game context, but not always. Acts of self-motivated virtual violence might arise in two ways according to Ali. First, players might simply ignore the in-game context. Ali asks us to imagine “a morally degenerate gamer who fantasizes about murdering others . . . and so plays the game with the sole purpose of enacting his fantasies.”31 Within the setting of the game, the character’s actions might be contextualized as self-defense, but the player might ignore this in-game context. This may be an act of virtual violence that the player would have carried out whether it was self-defense or not. Second, some games might not offer a sufficiently rich in-game context. Many sandbox games simply offer the gamer a virtual space to play in. The game itself may not provide a story that rationalizes one’s actions. Instead Ali suggests that such games allow the player to “tell one’s own story” as “such games provide an in-game context designed to let the gamer’s own context define the experience.”32 When one engages in violence in these cases, then the rationalization must come from the player, not the game. These are the cases that we should look more closely at.

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1.5 Fictional Willful Malice In Chapter 4, I will offer a more developed account of the kind of violence that we should worry about; but to get the discussion started, we will need a rough account to begin with. With Ali’s “degenerate player” in mind, the first thing we should acknowledge is that an account of virtual ethics should pay more attention to the player’s motivation to commit acts of virtual violence than it pays to the content of the game as something independent of the player’s engagement with that content. Many video games represent acts of violence—this is the game’s content—and yet players choose to interact with that content for their own personal, psychological reasons. It is my contention that the debate over violence in video games would make better progress and would more accurately identify interesting moral problems if we focused our attention on why players choose to commit acts of violence in games rather than focusing on what sort of violence is represented in a game’s content. Up to this point, academic accounts of video games tend to take a content-analysis approach to violence. It is this approach that I wish to move away from. With this in mind, I suggest that the most morally interesting and challenging cases of video game violence satisfy three conditions: they are fictional, willful, and malicious. First, some video game violence is purely fictional. Of course, in one sense all video game violence is fictional because it is merely the pictorial representation of violence in a digital medium. But the distinction between fiction and reality becomes blurred in some cases, particularly in multiplayer games. Imagine that I have an older brother who likes to bully me. When we play a multiplayer game—like World of Warcraft—my brother likes to target my avatar for physical abuse. In one sense, the violence is fictional—the physical attack is happening in the game, not in reality—but my brother’s motivation for attacking my avatar likely has more to do with his real-world intention to bully me, not my avatar. Even if my brother gains some advantage or reward in the game for his attack, that reward need not be his motivation. In fact, my brother might attack my avatar even when it provides him no reward at all. In this case, any concern for in-game goals, rewards, or advantages is irrelevant because my brother’s attack is really intended for me. We might think of this sort of case as an impure fiction. While my brother’s virtual actions are merely the fictional representation of violent acts, his actions are motivated by his goal to affect me in the real world. By contrast, think of violence in single-player games, like when I direct my avatar to attack one of the many fictional NPCs that I encounter. Attacks against NPCs typically have no impact on any real-world person.33 These are cases of purely

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fictional violence. To offer some rough definitions: virtual actions are impurely fictional when they stand in an instrumental relation to some goal outside of the fiction, and they are purely fictional when they do not. Purely fictional actions may stand in no instrumental relation to any goal whatsoever, or they may stand in an instrumental relation to a goal within the fiction. The distinction between purely fictional actions and impurely fictional actions is not intended to track the distinction between single-player and multiplayer games. Both sorts of games exhibit both pure and impure fictional actions. Rather, the distinction is meant to draw attention to the point that the ethical evaluation of our virtual actions may be tied to the instrumental ends that the action serves, and that some ends are located outside of the fiction while other ends are located within the fiction. With this in mind, my contention is that the morality of purely fictional actions is far more interesting and challenging. Second, some actions that players perform in games are done willfully, meaning that the player is not forced to commit the act in order to complete the game. Players do not need to run down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto in order to complete the game, and yet running down pedestrians is one common activity that many players engage in willfully. These virtual actions are willful when they are actions that the player wants to do. By contrast, many actions that players perform in games are unavoidable. For instance, typically when the player-character is attacked, the player’s only choices are to fight back or to stop playing. This suggests that we should distinguish between voluntary and involuntary actions. Yet, we must be careful with this distinction as some involuntary actions can be willful. When Aloy is attacked by the Shadow Carja in Horizon Zero Dawn,34 I have no choice but to fight back; but fortunately fighting back is exactly what I want to do! In this case, my actions may be involuntary in one sense, but they are still willful in another. We might intuitively think that the only in-game actions that one could be held morally responsible for are those that are voluntary and not those that are involuntary. But I think this is not the case. In Chapter 4, I will argue that moral responsibility has more to do with willfulness than it has to do with voluntariness. But for now, it would not cause much confusion to interpret willfulness as something like voluntariness. Finally, some virtual actions are malicious. When gamers commit acts of virtual violence for reasons like seeking to gain a strategic advantage, or to win the game, or to enrich one’s aesthetic experience of the game, these reasons are largely instrumental—that is, the player commits some act of violence because it is a means to an end. But imagine that we set aside all of those reasons. Some

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

players will commit violent acts in games for reasons that have nothing to do with any instrumental reasons; and, in some cases, the reason might be pure malice. These are cases where the player performs an action simply because the player wanted it done. Taking these three together, the kinds of actions that are most philosophically interesting are those that are purely fictional, willful, and malicious. Here is an example. Red Dead Redemption is an open-world, single-player game set in the final days of the Wild West in which the player controls the antihero John Marston (for most of the game). Marston is a former outlaw who committed numerous crimes while he was a member of a notorious gang. Now married with a son, Marston has been coerced into hunting down his former gang in order to make amends for his violent past. Red Dead Redemption allows the player to pursue numerous activities—some harmless, some criminal, and some that are really cruel.35 For instance, the player can hogtie an innocent civilian, place her on a train track, and wait for a train to run her over. This is a case where all three conditions are met. First, this action is purely fictional. When playing Red Dead Redemption in its single-player mode by myself, there are no real-world goals that I aim to pursue. Second, it is willful. There is little in-game reason why one ought to kill civilians in this gruesome way. Players who perform this act will receive the “Dastardly” trophy. So, the player who is motivated to collect all the trophies would have some motivation to hogtie civilians to the train tracks. So, perhaps my point could be better put like this: there may be some reason within the game to commit this act once, but there is no in-game reason why one should want to kill civilians in this way repeatedly.36 Finally, some players perform this action out of pure malice. Of course, this is not a necessary claim about all gamers. Whether or not this action is performed out of malice depends on the player’s own motivations and desires. Some players might be motivated to perform this act simply to experiment with the game’s mechanics. Others might be motivated by an adolescent desire to outdo one’s friends in a display of virtual cruelty. And others might just wish to collect the trophy. But some may be motivated simply by a desire to see it done. In those cases, the action is not only willful, but also malicious. It is important here to recognize that the same action can be committed out of a malicious motivation for some players and a benign motivation for others. The fact that the motivation is malicious for some players should not lead us to believe that the act is necessarily malicious for all players. What matters here is the player’s own personal motives. Is there something morally wrong with purely fictional acts that are willful and malicious like the one described earlier? This is the kind of challenging case that

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the debate over video game violence ought to be concerned with. Many games offer players the chance to pursue such actions, and I suspect that every gamer who has ever played an open-world game will have some experience with these. Certainly, not all gamers commit willful and malicious fictional acts, but many gamers do. The purpose of this book is not to offer a blanket condemnation to all players who pursue such actions. Rather, the purpose of this book is to spell out how such actions are morally condemnable and to distinguish them from those actions that are not condemnable. This book seeks to analyze the ethics of virtual violence, but there are many instances of violence that I will ignore. I am not worried about Super Mario Bros, or LittleBigPlanet, or Katamari Damacy. I am not worried about the player of Red Dead Redemption who is interested in exploring the game and aesthetically experience the richness that it offers. And I am not worried about the player of Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 who struggles their way through the “No Russian” mission. In fact, I hope players struggle through that mission and find something in it that causes them to reflect more deeply about the ethics of war. What I am worried about are the “degenerate players.” Imagine a person who plays through the “No Russian” mission repeatedly. Someone who delights in playing through that mission. Someone who goes back to find newer and crueler ways of killing the civilians. That person creeps me out. That sort of person might defend their actions as “just harmless fun”—after all, video game violence does not cause any real-world harm. But this defense again sounds hollow. For the degenerate player, is it true that virtual violence really is nothing more than harmless fun? While most players are drawn to violent games because they enjoy a challenge or because they are exciting, there are other players who are drawn to violent games just because they are violent. These are the players that I worry about. For these players, I will argue that their virtual violence does cause harm, and that they are morally condemnable—and it will take me the remainder of this book to do so.

1.6 Theories of Ethical Game Criticism Many theorists have proposed other accounts of ethical game criticism. It is common, though not universal, for theorists to take video games themselves, independently from the player’s engagement with the game, to be the object of criticism. Theorists who pursue this approach tend to look at the contents of games themselves as bearers of moral meaning and value. This is a reasonable

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

view, as it is sometimes appropriate to interpret and criticize games at the level of their contents. For instance, we can interpret and criticize the contents of games when they contain symbolic meanings or when games function as works of propaganda. However, this sort of approach is also clearly quite limited. Most games are not deeply symbolic nor designed to function as propaganda. And most theorists who are interested in ethical game criticism do not limit their focus to only symbolic meanings and propaganda. As we will see in this chapter, many theorists seek a broader basis for ethical game criticism. On my account, we can find a sufficiently broad basis when we begin with the player and ask whether it is morally wrong for players to perform violent or immoral actions in a game. But before we get to that, we will briefly look at some other accounts that have been proposed to address these issues. I will begin with theorists who focus on the contents of games and progressively move to theorists whose accounts are closer to my own. Michael Goerger defends an account of ethical game criticism that analyzes the wrongness of violence in games as a failure to respect things that are worthy of value.37 Many games depict violence in realistic and graphic detail, but critical reception of violence in games tends to be variable about these features. Sometimes graphic and realistic violence is condemned and other times it is praised. The examples Goerger offers are Grand Theft Auto V and The Last of Us,38 both of which are third-person shooters featuring comparable levels of violent imagery, yet Goerger notes that while GTA V has been criticized for its violence, The Last of Us has been highly praised. To explain this difference in critical evaluation, Goerger argues that analyzing the moral content of a game must take into account “the values represented in gameplay and the social context of the violence portrayed.”39 Games are not morally condemnable just because they contain realistic or graphic violence, but instead become condemnable when they fail to show proper respect to things that ought to be valued. As games are a form of entertainment, Goerger claims that it is inappropriate to be entertained by disrespectful violence. To make this argument, Goerger compares the wrongness of disrespectful video game violence to the wrongness of rape jokes. It is inappropriate to laugh at rape jokes, Goerger argues, because doing so disrespects the experiences of those who have suffered from sexual assault. We should value and respect the experiences of rape survivors, so laughing at a rape joke is a failure to respect something that is worthy of value. If this is right, then we should be able to say the same things about video games. The violence in games like GTA V evokes moral condemnation because many interpret its violence as a failure to take seriously urban violence associated with

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American gang culture. Against this criticism, defenders of the game will often argue that GTA is not intended to make light of urban violence, but is instead a form of satire.40 Interestingly, Goerger argues that both critics of the game and proponents who offer the “satire defense” are disagreeing specifically according to the terms that his analysis would predict—that is, the disagreement is ultimately about whether or not GTA V shows proper respect to urban violence. By contrast, The Last of Us is a game that is often praised even though its violence is just as graphic and realistic as that of GTA V. The Last of Us is a dark and thoughtful horror-survival game where the player must struggle to survive in a post-zombie-apocalypse world. Players are forced to make difficult moral choices in the game and perform gruesome and cringe-worthy acts of violence. Yet, its violence emphasizes the fragility and weight of the survivors’ situation. Goerger argues that, on his account, the appropriateness of the violence found in The Last of Us is rarely called into question because the game shows proper respect to its subject. Finally, Goerger claims that the value of a game must be sensitive to its social context. We should worry about showing proper respect to those who experience urban violence because this is a live issue that affects living people today. But, if in some better future the problems of urban violence have been solved, then Goerger allows that it may be benign to take pleasure in games that poke fun at urban violence.41 Indeed, it is permissible to be entertained by the violence of games set in the past or the future, says Goerger, because the link to our present social concerns is lost. Goerger offers a subtle virtue-based account that aims to analyze the moral wrongness of violence through taking into consideration the in-game context. However, some of the details of Goerger’s account need to be filled out further before we can accept its proposed analysis. Specifically, Goerger’s account relies heavily on the notion that some things are worthy of value. How should we understand this claim? Goerger offers a reference to Joseph Raz’s account of the universality of values.42 There, Raz argues that values are objective and universal—they are objective in the sense that values are properties that objects have, and they are universal when “conditions for its application can be stated without use of singular references, that is, without any reference to place or time, or to any named individual” and “can be instantiated in any place and at any time.”43 To simplify, if one can intelligibly explain the value of some object without referring to any historically contingent feature of it, then that value is a universal one. The account of universality that Raz offers is intriguing; however, it is not my intention to either critique or defend it here. Rather my intention is to understand how Goerger might be thinking of values. By drawing on Raz, we

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

have some reason to think that Goerger also adopts an objective and universal conception of values. However, later in his essay, Goerger seems to suggest that values are culturally bound and perhaps changeable. As Goerger says, Game worlds represent various imagined realities, and the meaning of these imagined realities will shift over time. Games that once seemed benign may now strike us as extremely disrespectful while others that once seemed disrespectful might now seem benign. A given game-world exists at a particular time and is responsive to facts about the social world during that time.44

There is an interesting tension in the account Goerger offers. If meaning (and therefore, value too) can shift over time, then it is difficult to maintain claims to universality. But alternatively, if we insist on the universality of values (following Raz), then it becomes difficult to maintain the link to social context that Goerger wants to recognize. The point here is important because, if it turns out that values are more changeable than Raz’s account would suggest, then it becomes difficult to insist that others ought to value the same things in games that I value; but if we should follow Raz’s view that values are objective and universal, then it becomes difficult to explain why it is permissible to be entertained by any representations of violence as surely the value of violence—being universal— must remain constant no matter its place or time. So, Goerger owes us an explanation of how games can be worthy of value that is able to steer between these two concerns. Other theorists think that games are condemnable insofar as they are endorsements of immorality. Some forms of expression (whether they are video games, works of art, or political speeches) function as endorsements of some action, belief, or value. Endorsements are not like invitations to fictionally imagine something. Games invite players to fictionally imagine all sorts of things, but do not thereby function as endorsements. Rather, endorsements stand as recommendations that others ought to act, believe, or value the things in real life that the speaker has endorsed.45 Insofar as the acts, beliefs, or values that one recommends are themselves immoral, then so too is the act of endorsement. One recent defense of the endorsement view comes from Sebastian Ostritsch, who claims that games themselves, independently of how players may engage with the game, act as endorsements when they proscribe a normative view about the real world.46 Ostritsch presents the problem of ethical game criticism as a challenge to defend such criticism against a strongly amoralist alternative. We cannot base our account of virtual ethics on consequentialist arguments as the available empirical evidence does not support the inference that there is a strong

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connection between enjoying and engaging in virtual violence and real-world morality.47 Ostritsch further argues that the amoralist’s position is stronger as there is “no inherent conceptual connection between the virtual actions of gaming and morality.”48 Lacking any strong empirical evidence or conceptual connection between virtual violence and real-world harms, the amoralist position is a formidable one. However, Ostritsch argues that games fall foul of morality when they endorse immoral beliefs or values. Games sometimes require players to take control of a character who holds an immoral worldview. This becomes problematic, on Ostritsch’s account, when the game offers an endorsement of that worldview. As he says, “a game can rightly be called immoral if it prompts us to transfer the abhorrent worldview of a fictional setting to the real world.”49 Endorsements are real-world moral wrongs because they are endorsements of what sort of values one ought to find in the real world. Ostritsch says, “endorsing an immoral worldview is something actual, i.e., it is beyond the virtual realm of what is represented in the game.”50 For illustration, Ostritsch compares Grand Theft Auto V to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Of GTA V, Ostritsch says that, while the game presents an immoral worldview as the player sees the world through the eyes of a criminal, the game does not endorse that worldview. Instead, it is clear from the style and content of the game that one should interpret GTA V as a satire. “Whether it is the incompetent, ruthless, and power hungry government agencies competing against each other, or the shallow, greedy, and fame and sex crazed inhabitants of Los Santos, the world of GTA V can easily be identified as a satirically exaggerated version of our world, the real one.”51 GTA V is, therefore, morally blameless as its satirical tone makes clear that one should not take the game to be an endorsement of its worldview. Alternatively, Ostritsch strongly condemns the “No Russian” mission in CoDMW2.52 Ostritsch claims that there is “simply no good narrative reason for this scene.”53 The difference, Ostritsch claims, is that CoDMW2 fails to provide the player any guidance or suggestion of how the scene should be contextualized while the tone of GTA V is clearly satirical. It would be better, on Ostritsch’s view, for CoDMW2 at least to provide some voice-over of an internal monologue that indicates that the player-character experiences disgust or inner conflict. One might disagree with Ostritsch’s forgiveness of GTA V or his criticism of CoDMW2. However, we should set aside whatever disagreements we might have with these specific interpretations and focus more broadly on the plausibility of his account. Largely, I see nothing wrong with the general idea that games can function as endorsements of values, and therefore that games can be criticized for

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endorsing immoral values. Broadly speaking, I am in agreement with Ostritsch on this point. However, one of the difficulties that any endorsement view must face is that we must contend with the professed claims of the game designers. Ostritsch claims that CoDMW2 endorses indiscriminate violence. However, the game’s designers likely do not see it that way. They might plausibly profess their innocence and claim not to endorse indiscriminate violence. Perhaps the designers’ intentions are unclear, and perhaps Ostritsch is right to suggest that a voice-over could provide the needed context to see more clearly what those intentions are. But these are criticisms of execution and design rather than criticisms of the game’s professed values. Goerger and Ostritsch both base their accounts of ethical game criticism on the contents of games independently from how players engage with games. Apart from the specific questions facing Goerger’s and Ostritsch’s theories that were set out earlier, content approaches to virtual ethics have their limitations. I have no doubt that some games are crass, insensitive, and disrespectful; and that some games are endorsements of immoral actions and beliefs. Certainly, games can be criticized on these grounds. But it is also important to account for the ways in which players engage with such contents. When playing a crass and insensitive game, some players may respond with disgust while others may find the game to be hilariously fun. This difference in the players’ responses is what interests me and, I suggest, is morally relevant. I will turn now to theorists who offer player-based accounts of game criticism. Miguel Sicart offers a detailed and nuanced account of the ethical criticism of video games that is also broadly committed to virtue ethics.54 Sicart’s account is situated within a view of the ontology of games that sees games as fundamentally systems of rules.55 However, where some theorists of game ontology relegate a game’s fictional representations to a secondary status,56 Sicart argues that an ethics of video games arises from the interaction of rules and representations. The rules of a game set up certain actions as being allowed and legitimate within the game, and those actions are carried out within the fictional world of the game. It is not merely the fictional representation of violence that is the object of moral criticism for Sicart, but rather the way in which the rules of the game set up affordances for certain kinds of violence. The player may only interact with the fictional representation of the game world insofar as the rules allow. As Sicart says, “the virtual environment where the game happens or takes place is constrained, limited, and conditioned by the rules of the simulation.”57 This interaction between the rules and the fictional representation is what sets up the ethics of gameplay.

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An ethically designed game for Sicart is one that presents the player with an opportunity to morally reflect on their actions. This can be achieved in a number of different ways. Sometimes it is achieved through constraints. Sicart offers the example of Manhunt,58 a game where the player is required to commit gruesome acts in order to stay alive in the game. The player’s choice is simply to carry out acts of virtual cruelty or to stop playing. The choices one is offered in the game are highly constrained. Yet the world of the game coherently aligns with its rules: the player-character is themselves trapped in an analogous scenario where they must fight for their lives. Just as the player’s choice is to play-or-not-play, so too is the player-character’s choice to kill-or-be-killed. Because of this mirroring between the game’s rules and the scenario presented in the fictional world, Sicart claims that Manhunt is an example of ethical game design as it forces the player to reflect morally on their actions and situation.59 In other cases, ethical game design is achieved by removing constraints. Sicart offers XIII60 as an example, which is a first-person shooter where one takes control of an assassin. As such, one’s primary interaction with the game’s world and its inhabitants is through shooting them. However, the mechanics of the game make it impossible for the player to shoot police officers. If the player shoots a police officer, the game forces the player to restart. There is a limitation in the affordances of the game that limits the availability of moral reflection. When the constraints of a game take away choices that would not be inconsistent in the game world—why would an assassin have scruples about shooting the police?—the fictional world of the game becomes incoherent. Because of its artificial constraints, Sicart argues that XIII fails to offer the player the opportunity for moral reflection.61 For Sicart, this is a case of unethical game design. Some games exhibit ethical or unethical game design insofar as the game offers the player the chance to engage in moral reflection. However, some games are irrelevant to moral engagement. For instance, the values of speed and efficiency that are embedded in Tetris62 are not ethically relevant values. Rather, for Sicart, values become ethically relevant, and games become ethical objects, either when “the rules force the player to face ethical dilemmas, or in which the rules themselves raise ethical issues.”63 We should note here the disjunctive nature of the claim. The first half of the disjunct is about the player’s engagement with the game, while the second half is about games themselves as systems of rules. When a player is given the choice to kill or save another character in the game, the player may draw on moral reasoning to sort out this choice. Of course, players often make choices based on purely pragmatic or strategic reasons, while unengaged and unreflective players may ignore entirely the moral dimension

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of their in-game choices. Still, Sicart’s point is that the values of a game include ethical values when players must include ethical considerations among their reasons for making some choice within a game. Looking now at the second half of the disjunct, Sicart offers the example of boxing: “a game like boxing can be ethically questionable because the only way of playing it according to the rules is by hitting another human being. . . . It would be possible to argue that boxing is a game that raises ethical questions due to its rules.”64 Games permit players to perform certain actions, yet one may question why those actions are permitted and whether there are broader reasons to criticize or condemn such actions. There is much about Sicart’s account that I think is right. First, I agree with his claim that we must look for the values of games in the interaction between its representational contents and its rules. What a game represents a player as doing is meaningless to any moral analysis without taking into account how the game conditions the player’s actions and choices. While Goerger’s and Ostritsch’s theories of ethical game criticism focus principally on a game’s representational contents and ignore how players engage with those contents, Sicart’s account offers greater focus on players themselves. Second, Sicart goes a long way to filling out the details of a virtue ethical approach that McCormick’s account leaves out. Third, Sicart is surely right to suggest that games can function as objects of moral reflection. However, while Sicart’s account offers much, I believe we can go further. Players who fail to reflect morally on their in-game actions might be accused of shallowness or perhaps of lacking the moral maturity to see their actions as worthy of moral reflection according to Sicart, but that is a fairly limited accusation. Can we criticize players more strongly for their virtual actions? It is my view that games not only offer opportunities for moral reflection but they in fact also reflect back on the values and moral character of players themselves in a strong way. I will argue (in Chapters 4 and 5) that players can be held morally responsible for their virtual actions. As such, I am less interested in ethical game design, as is the focus of Sicart’s account, and more interested in ethical game engagement. Finally, Stephanie Patridge argues that games can be criticized for what she calls their “incorrigible social meaning.”65 Patridge’s claim is that the contents of a game carry certain meanings within a specific social context that is difficult to ignore or fail to notice. To illustrate the notion of “incorrigible social meaning,” Patridge asks us to imagine a cartoon image of Barack Obama eating a watermelon.66 There is a long and ugly history in the United States where depictions of African Americans eating watermelon are used to perpetuate racist

Introduction

25

beliefs and attitudes. To an American audience, the meaning of such imagery is hard to ignore. It is difficult to pretend that “it’s just a cartoon.” Moreover, such meanings are “incorrigible” in the sense that they cannot be changed just by authorial intention. An author cannot unilaterally erase the social meaning of some image by fiat. Of course, social meanings are context-sensitive: this imagery has a certain meaning for contemporary Americans. If an image like this were to appear in some other part of the world or at some other point in history, perhaps the image would not carry the same social meaning. Images do not possess their social meaning in some context-independent way, but this observation is irrelevant to our own social context. For contemporary Americans, such imagery certainly does carry a racist meaning. While her view appears to be a form of criticism that applies to game contents, as they are the objects that carry such meanings, the focus of Patridge’s account is her claim that players themselves can be criticized for their gameplay. Specifically, players can be criticized for not taking the right attitude toward gameplay that engages with incorrigible social meanings. As Patridge says, “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 . . . [so,] our responses to such meanings bear on evaluations of our character.”67 Players demonstrate their morally flawed character when they enjoy enacting violence in a video game that carries some incorrigible social meaning. In egregious cases, this may reveal some morally repugnant attitudes or values that the player holds, while in other cases it may reveal some ignorance. The player who insists that “it’s just a game” may be guilty of insensitivity and of a lack of sympathy. There is much about Patridge’s account that is right—specifically, the idea that one’s insensitivity to the social meaning of a game’s content is a genuine moral concern. However, an issue arises when we seek to distinguish morally condemnable social meanings from those that are not. How should we interpret Patridge’s notion of social meaning such that some game contents are condemnable while others are tolerable? Many of the examples Patridge offers—like that of a cartoon image of Obama eating a watermelon—suggests that we should understand “social meaning” as relating to issues of historical injustice. An image of Obama eating a watermelon would carry unambiguous racist meanings for a contemporary American audience due to the way that such imagery has been used historically to entrench and sustain racist attitudes in the United States. This is one way in which some incorrigible imagery can come to have condemnable social meaning. However, if “social meaning” should be

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interpreted this way, then Patridge’s account is very limited. It is certainly right to morally criticize games and players for contents and gameplay that is insensitive to historical injustices. But there are many forms of violence in games that appear worrying even though they are unrelated to offensive social meanings. Imagine a player who takes sadistic delight in running down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto. To my knowledge, images of pedestrians being run down do not carry any particular incorrigible social meaning. Yet, we might worry that the sadistic GTA player is still doing something wrong—or at least, is doing something worth thinking about morally. So, while interpreting “social meaning” in terms of historical injustice captures egregiously insensitive contents, it fails to capture all morally relevant contents. How might we seek to interpret Patridge’s notion of social meaning more broadly? It is central to Patridge’s account that actions and scenarios that are open to moral scrutiny are those that reflect our own moral reality. So, we might think that images carry incorrigible social meaning when they evoke problems and issues that we currently face. For instance, imagine that the sadistic GTA player from the earlier example also takes pleasure in playing through the torture scene in GTA V—the “By the Book” mission. It may be that torture scenes now carry incorrigible social meaning, not because they are related to historical injustices but because they evoke memories of more recent issues—like, memories of the photographs of tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib during the Iraq War. Players have the option of waterboarding the bound victim in GTA V. It may be difficult for players to view this scene in the game without thinking about the revelation that such techniques were used in some US detention facilities. This interpretation of social meaning is not limited only to cases of historical injustice. But now it might be too broad. Most actions in a video game will have some reflection of our actual moral world when understood broadly. Violent crime is sadly part of our moral reality. In that case, shouldn’t it be insensitive to participate in many forms of virtual criminality? For instance, mass shootings in the United States have increased dramatically over the past decade. Perhaps games that allow players to commit untargeted mass shootings—like the airport massacre in CoDMW2—are insensitive to this fact of contemporary US culture.68 If this is right, then an awful lot of games would be reflective of our moral reality, even if just abstractly; it then becomes difficult to see how Patridge’s account really functions as a distinction between impermissible virtual representations and permissible ones. The theorists canvased earlier each make important contributions to the debate and the account I will defend here is deeply indebted to them. There are various

Introduction

27

pieces of their accounts that I want to hold onto. The account I propose will focus on the player’s actions rather than on the game’s contents, will seek to account for the subtle individual differences between players, will offer strong grounds for the moral criticism of players’ actions, and will seek to delineate more accurately those virtual actions that are morally relevant from those that are not.

1.7 Outline of this Book The central arguments of this book appear in Chapters 4 and 5. Before we get there, however, a few preliminary issues need to be addressed. The first is this: the idea that the fictional events that take place in video games can be open to any sort of moral criticism is a deeply unpopular one. Some academics, as well as many gamers, game designers, and popular game critics, believe that the actions that take place in video games should be free from moral criticism. This belief is understandable. It seems weird to think that the player can be held morally responsible for pretending to do something, and we are generally quite comfortable with other sorts of games that cause genuine physical harm—like football and boxing. Many theorists dismiss the notion of ethical game criticism either because they hold that the fictional status of games removes them from the realm of morality or because it is “just a game.” However, I will argue in Chapter 2 that neither of these reasons give us a good reason to be skeptical about the ethical criticism of video game actions. Some game theorists—who I am calling the “fictionalists”—argue that video games are best understood as works of fiction and their contents have the status of make-believe.69 Just as there is nothing morally wrong with watching a violent movie, so too is there nothing morally wrong with playing a violent video game. With works of fiction, the portrayal of violence may be crass or gratuitous; but this is an aesthetic criticism, not a moral one. Against the fictionalists’ skepticism, I argue that it is a common feature of the criticism of works of fiction to engage with the moral implications of a work’s representational content. The contents of a work of fiction may be make-believe; however, consumers often evince their real-world attitudes toward the contents of those fictions. The makebelieve status of a work’s content does not diminish the moral culpability of the consumer’s real-world attitudes. Other theorists—the “ludologists”—claim that video games are “just games.”70 They are in the same category as things like poker, chess, and soccer. It is a socially accepted convention within gaming circles that players can

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

legitimately attack or otherwise harm an opponent. So these theorists claim that the moral criticism of games fails to recognize their status as games and the social conventions that govern game playing. Against these theorists, I argue that the social acceptance of harmful behavior within a game is insufficient to defend such social practices. Some social practices are morally objectionable, even if they function culturally as games. The fact that players willingly assent to some social practice does not thereby demonstrate that the social practice is good. Chapter 3 proceeds in two parts. First, I offer a brief overview of the main theories of ethics in section 3.1, theories that have received the most attention in philosophical debates: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. My discussion of these theories is very cursory. It is intended to bring readers who are new to these topics up to speed. Readers who are already familiar with the main tenets consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics could skip section 3.1 without much loss. Next, I assess how each of these theories could be applied to the problem of virtual ethics in section 3.2. As others have argued, I hold that consequentialism has limited application. Psychological and sociological theorists implicitly tend to adopt a consequentialist attitude in their studies of video games. These theorists also tend to implicitly adopt a very narrow conception of what counts as harm—namely, they tend to assume that video game violence is open to consequentialist moral scrutiny only when the playing of a game correlates with the player’s performance of quantifiable crimes. However, this conception of harm wrongly ignores what we might call “unquantifiable harms.”71 Instead, we need an account of virtual ethics that can explain why violence in video games can be moral problematic even in the absence of negative consequences in order to explain many of the cases described earlier. Then, I argue that deontology offers the least helpful philosophical framework to address the kind of violence I am interested in—that is, fictional, willful, and malicious violence. Finally, I argue (in agreement with McCormick) that virtue ethics offers the best available framework to understand the wrongness of video game violence. However, virtue ethics faces difficulties of its own. The most sustained attack on the usefulness of virtue ethics in this context comes from Garry Young.72 Young does not reject the idea that virtues can be developed in response to our engagement with video games, but instead offers a refinement of how virtues can be cultivated: the player develops a set of in-game virtues that are fictional in the sense that they are constrained to the world of the game.73 This sets up an interesting challenge for the virtue ethicist: if an action is held to be virtuous within some gamespace, then we should not criticize that action using

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a moral standard that is external to standards of that gamespace. The remainder of Chapter 3 spells out Young’s criticisms of virtue ethics. Chapter 4 returns to the distinction between willful actions and voluntary actions that I alluded to in section 1.5. Not all violence in video games is morally problematic, and this sentiment appears to be reflected in the differential treatment that violence receives in much video game criticism. So, when is it appropriate to hold a player’s virtual actions up to moral scrutiny and when is it not? I attempt to analyze these issues by drawing on philosophical debates about the nature of free will. Many philosophers worry that if our actions are predetermined, then we cannot be held morally responsible for them. However, Harry Frankfurt’s compatibilist account of free will suggests that an agent can be held morally responsible for actions that she wills, even if the agent is not free to act otherwise.74 According to Frankfurt, we can want to do something even if we involuntarily must do it anyway, and we can therefore be held morally responsible for wanting to do it. So, what matters morally speaking is our wanting, and not our voluntary control. Using Frankfurt’s analysis, I suggest that video games represent deterministic worlds in which players lack the ability to freely choose what they do—many of the player’s violent actions are involuntarily forced onto the player—and yet players can be held morally responsible for some of those actions, specifically those actions that the player willfully undertakes. With this account in mind, I also consider what this would mean for the player’s moral psychology, specifically as it has to do with the notion of choice. Video games are interactive fictions that offer players a wide range of choices. While players will often base their choices on purely pragmatic or strategic considerations, there are many cases where players will instead base their in-game choices on a concern for the fiction—that is, some players will choose one option over another, not for the sake of some in-game benefit, but because the player wants the story to go one way rather than another. Interestingly, some players make these choices for moral reasons. But, do players make these moral choices based on their actual moral sensibilities, or do players develop fictional moralities that are confined to the realm of the video game world as Young suggests? While these two options are not mutually exclusive—sophisticated gamers tend to employ both strategies—the important point for our purpose is that there are genuine cases where the player’s in-game moral choices reflect their real-world moral sensibility. In these cases, the gamer is giving us a window into their moral psychology. Players who revel in truly vicious violence reveal something about their actual moral character.

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In Chapter 2, I will argue against the fictionalist skeptic that the content of a work of fiction and the consumer’s attitudes toward that content could be open to moral scrutiny. However, Young’s criticism of virtue ethics (to be discussed in Chapter 3) avoids my previous argument because he claims that players simply develop fictional moralities. So, the attitudes that a player evinces while playing a game are not their actual real-world attitudes, but instead are a constructed fictional morality that they apply only to the world of the game. In Chapter 4, I will argue that some players’ demonstrated attitudes are not merely fictional, but rather evince the player’s actual moral sensibilities. Then, in Chapter 5, I aim to address Young’s criticism by demonstrating how a virtue ethics account would assess the morality of a player’s virtual actions. I argue that it is morally wrong for players to enact violent fantasies in video games willfully because doing so contributes to the player’s cultivation of a vicious moral character. By willfully enacting violence in a video game, the players’ values and desires are actively refined and reinforced in a negative direction. It is not just that video games offer players the chance to act out a fantasy, but by acting out the fantasy and reveling in it, games give players the chance to cultivate their fantasies. The important point here is that players do not acquire immoral beliefs by playing games, but rather that willfully committing vicious acts in a game contributes to the cultivation of immoral desires. Players should be wary of this because the cultivation of immoral desires itself is morally problematic, not because it necessarily leads to immoral real-world behaviors, but because merely harboring immoral desires can lead to the player’s own unhappiness. In that case, the burden falls on the individual to check their moral behavior. In Chapter 6, I return to the discussion of the “gamer’s dilemma.” I suggested previously that the gamer’s dilemma can be expanded to offer a general problem that is central to the ethics of video games. While the account that I defend in Chapter 5 is meant to address this expanded problem, my account may also offer us a way to address the narrower dilemma that Morgan Luck originally proposed. To address Luck’s dilemma, I argue that the morally relevant difference between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia is that the former can be contextualized by “redeeming motivations” more readily than can the latter. Players who engage in virtual murder may do so for benign reasons, but it is immensely difficult to engage in virtual pedophilia for benign reasons. I suggest that this resolution is preferable to the solutions offered by other theorists,75 as well as my own previous attempt at resolving the dilemma.76 A central point of my account of the ethics of video games is that the moral criticism of games should focus largely on the individual players’ motivations

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31

to engage in violent or immoral fantasies. However, I return to the topic of content-focused accounts of game criticism in Chapter 7, where I argue that game developers can be held morally responsible at least when they produce games whose contents limit the range of moral imagination to fantasies that one ought not to enjoy. While this argument offers only a limited account of the moral responsibility of game designers, this is the way it should be. The bulk of moral responsibility falls on individual players, as their virtual actions are a reflection of their moral character. In the end, my overarching goal is not to condemn players for their actions; nor is it to suggest or defend any sort of legislation regarding the sale and availability of games. My purpose is not to suggest that gamers who commit violent or immoral actions in video games are “bad people.” Instead, my goal is to give gamers the tools and the vocabulary they need to think about their own actions and motivations when playing their favorite games. Gamers can decide for themselves what their actions mean and whether their actions are problematic, but we need to have a clear and honest understanding of what is at stake and how to examine these issues. My goal is to elevate the discourse and criticism around games by pushing gamers to think more critically about what they are doing and why.

2

Amoralist Avoidance Strategies Fiction and Games

The overarching purpose of this book is to argue that we should take seriously the moral criticism of some actions that players perform in video games. To defend this idea, the first task is to convince the skeptical reader that the moral criticism of games cannot be avoided. The kind of skeptic that I have in mind is the amoralist who believes that it is categorically wrong to subject video games to moral criticism—that the moral criticism of video games is fundamentally mistaken. The mistake, the amoralist would argue, is the failure to recognize that video games are separate from reality and therefore should be a moral-free zone. Morality is about the real world. There is no moral wrongdoing without real harm. And video game violence causes no real-world harm.1 The claim that games are separate from reality comes in different forms. An extreme version can be seen in the dismissive rebuke, “It’s just pixels.” When playing any video game, all that really happens is some pixels flash on a screen, and flashing pixels never hurt anyone.2 This kind of hardcore amoralism has a certain appeal—at least, it is obviously true that the things that happen in video games are simply digital representations—but it is also seriously flawed. It is a gross oversimplification to say that playing a video game is nothing more than the manipulation of pixels. Rather, those pixels have been arranged in a certain way to represent something.3 The same can be said about paintings: they are not just the arrangement of colored pigments on a canvas. Additionally, those pigments have been arranged to represent something.4 Moreover, players (and viewers of paintings) are responsive to the contents of those representations. We do not talk about video games purely in abstract terms, as nothing more than the arrangement of pixels. We talk about our characters and our in-game actions at the level of what those pixels represent.5 For instance, the educational game Playing History 2: Slave Trade6 once included a Tetris-like mini-game where the player must find the most efficient means of loading a ship with captured slaves

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by contorting and stacking the slaves like Tetris blocks. I suppose that a really hardcore amoralist could insist that, even in this case, we should treat the game as nothing more than the mere arrangement of pixels; however, doing so would be to miss the point of the game. The developers intended for the game to teach elementary and middle school students about the horrors of the slave trade. The game forces the player to treat people with gross inhumanity, like mere objects to be arranged on a ship, and the horror of that crass and inhumane treatment arises only from recognizing what it represents. Additionally, the “Slave Tetris” mode has been widely (and rightly) criticized for its insensitivity.7 While the game’s developers may have intended for players to reflect on the inhumanity of the slave trade, the game’s critics argue that it fails to work effectively as a teaching tool and instead merely trivializes that inhumanity. I draw attention to this point because it is worth noticing how both the intentions of the game’s developers and the criticisms of the game’s detractors only make sense when we regard the game as more than just pixels. Ultimately, the “it’s just pixels” argument offers a dishonest view of how we engage with video games by treating them as nonrepresentational abstractions. There are other amoralist arguments available that are considerably more plausible. The two most common are those that draw attention to a video game’s status either as a work of fiction or as a game. On both accounts, it is argued that games are separate from reality in a way that frees them from the demands of morality, but for different reasons: either because works of fiction are categorically imaginary or because games tacitly suspend the normal rules of morality. Each of these are plausible accounts and have many supporters. In this chapter, I will consider each of them in turn and will ultimately offer reasons to reject both. The rejection of both the fiction argument and the ludological argument would allow us to set aside the skeptic’s amoralist worries and take seriously the idea that moral criticism has a genuine role to play in our understanding of video games.

2.1 The Fiction Argument A common amoralist strategy is to invoke the notion of fiction. The airport massacre in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 might be shocking and difficult, but it is merely a fictional representation. The characters and events depicted there have the same metaphysical status as the people and things represented in paintings. There is nothing morally wrong with the depiction of violence in a

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painting. If there were, then many famous paintings in the history of Western art would be in trouble. There are differences between paintings and video games of course—video games move, have sound, and are interactive—but despite these differences, they are still fictions. The movement, sound, and interactivity of video games might increase their sense of realism; yet no amount of realism can collapse the distinction between fiction and reality. So, the amoralist may claim that there can be nothing morally “right” or “wrong” with playing a video game because it is ultimately the play of make-believe. The fiction argument is quite powerful largely due to its intuitive appeal. Before we can assess its validity, however, some further background is required. First, we should be careful to distinguish the fictional from the virtual.8 Some writers seem to treat “fictional” and “virtual” as interchangeable terms, however they are not. Virtual actions are not necessarily “unreal” in the same way that fictions are. For instance, if a hacker were to gain access to my bank account by exploiting a vulnerability in my bank’s website and drain my life’s savings, her actions may have taken place in a virtual space, but my bank account is still non-fictionally empty.9 The virtual thief cannot defend herself by claiming that all she did was rearrange some ones-and-zeroes. All our real-world moral concerns about theft would still apply to virtual theft. So, not all virtual actions are fictional. That being said, there are cases where it is difficult to distinguish between virtual actions that are simply fictional and those that have crossed the line back into reality. In Chapter 1, I offered a distinction between purely fictional actions and impurely fictional actions (in section 1.5). Here I want to complicate that distinction a bit by pointing out how difficult it can be to tease fiction and reality apart. Think of cases where a player’s avatar is sexually assaulted by another player in a multiplayer game. In these cases, should we think that the avatar has been fictionally attacked, or should we think that the player has been virtually attacked? It is possible that some instances of virtual sexual assault are not merely fictional, but in fact count as instances of virtual harassment. Of course, this will have much to do with the specific circumstances of individual cases. For instance, imagine that four male friends often play a competitive game together in a closed space where they are the only players. During their play, they often grief each other by acting out sexual assault scenarios. A bystander who was watching their play might think that what they do and say is tasteless and insensitive, yet we might stop short of calling their play “virtual sexual harassment.” Now consider another example: imagine a male player in a multiplayer game who specifically targets female players who he does

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Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy

not know and acts out sexual assault scenarios on their avatars. Perhaps his actions would appear no different to an external observer from those of the four friends in the previous example, yet his actions are significantly different. The fact that the scenarios he intentionally acts out are fictional—that is, the actions themselves are depictions of sexual assault—does not change the fact that his actions have the effect of intimidating and harassing the other players. In this case, the fictional assault that happens in the video game is an instance of virtual harassment. To take another case, think again about the World of Warcraft funeral raid that we discussed in section 1.1. It is important to remember that the virtual funeral organized by the Horde members was intended to celebrate the death of a real-world friend. Imagine that the memorial service was held in real life—for instance, imagine that the members of Horde had organized a memorial service to take place during a gaming convention—and that members of Serenity Now interrupted the service by taunting their rivals and shouting insults. This would be blatantly morally disgusting. Now think again of the online funeral raid: why is it any less morally disgusting to interrupt a memorial service simply because it took place within the virtual world of the game? The belief that a real-world memorial service is a sacred and protected space but a virtual world memorial service is not only makes sense if we believe that there is a sharp and unambiguous distinction between the real world and the virtual world. But perhaps this distinction isn’t so sharp and unambiguous. In order to understand virtual ethics, we must recognize that the distinction between the virtual and the real is sometimes blurred, and indeed, is sometimes broken. There are surely further subtle distinctions that need to be worked out in each of these examples. Still, the basic point for our purposes is that the kind of amoralist defense we are considering here does not get its strength from the virtual nature of video games, but rather from their status as fictions.10 So, what is fiction? This question has generated a considerable amount of discussion recently. While there are many differing accounts available, I will adopt the highly influential and widely discussed theory offered by Kendall Walton.11 Summarizing Walton’s work quite a lot, fiction is a game of makebelieve where the consumer (whether they are reading a novel, watching a film, or playing a video game) treats the content of the fiction (the novel, film, or video game) as if it were true of some fictional world. When one engages with a work of fiction, one is meant to imagine that there is some fictional world in which the characters depicted are real and the events depicted are really happening. Ultimately, fictional worlds are imaginary, and novels, films, and video games

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all function to guide the consumer’s imagination. To engage with a work of fiction, the consumer must actively participate in a game of make-believe by constructing the world of the fiction in their imagination, filling in the details that might be missing in the work itself, and sustaining a belief in the fictionaltruth of the propositions making up the work. An important and useful point about this notion of fiction is that it explains how consumers can treat certain propositions as being true within the fiction—a notion that philosophers call truth-in-fiction.12 A standard view of truth holds that propositions are true in the actual world when they correspond to some fact or some state of affairs in the actual world. If all true propositions correspond to some fact about the world, then any proposition that does not correspond to some fact about the world is false. However, if we were to apply this notion of truth to works of fiction, then we would find that fictions contain many glaring falsehoods in between the few truths that they happen to contain. For instance, we would need to regard the proposition Harry Potter’s wand has a phoenix feather core as false because there is no fact in the real world that the proposition corresponds to. But, this is too strict. There is a sense in which it is “true” that Harry Potter’s wand has a phoenix feather core, even if it is not realworld-true. And competent readers know not to go looking in the real world for Harry’s wand. Instead, readers know to treat such propositions as true-in-thefiction. Moreover, readers know that they are to treat this proposition as true only in the fictional world of Harry Potter and not just in any fictional world. The proposition Harry Potter’s wand has a phoenix feather core is false in the fictional world of Star Wars. Consumers know that fictional worlds are separate both from the real world and from each other. Before going on, I want to pay a bit more attention to the separateness of fiction as this notion has important implications for the amoralist’s defense of video games. Consumers treat propositions as true-in-the-fiction by adopting an attitude that Lamarque and Olsen refer to as the fictive stance, which is the particular attitude wherein one engages in the make-belief that some sentence is true even while knowing it is not.13 When taking the fictive stance, consumers not only take an author’s utterances to refer to the world of the fiction, but additionally consumers typically refrain from drawing any conclusions about the real world on the basis of what they might find in a work of fiction. Works of fiction sometimes contain true statements about the real world, but educating consumers about the real world is not the job of fiction and consumers should not assume that reality will be accurately represented in fiction.14 One application of this separateness is that we should typically not infer that the author of a work

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of fiction holds the beliefs or sympathizes with the attitudes of the characters in their works.15 The creators of works of fiction often portray their villains as saying, doing, and believing all sorts of awful things. For instance, imagine a work of fiction that contains an outspokenly racist villain. To depict such a character convincingly, the author may need to show the character saying racist things. However, we should not thereby assume that the author of the work holds such beliefs or sympathies. It would be unreasonable to think that any author could possibly sympathize with the beliefs of all their characters, and it would be uncharitable to think that authors always sympathize with the beliefs of only the worst of their characters. Instead, we must recognize the separateness of fiction: a character’s beliefs and the author’s sympathies are separated by the distinction between fiction and reality. Think of this in the context of video games. Not only do video game developers depict their villains as saying and doing awful things, but they also give players the opportunity to take control of those villains, or to create villains of their own. As video games are works of fiction, we should extend the protections of the fictive stance beyond the game designer’s beliefs to also cover the game player’s beliefs. Extending the fictive stance in this way means that we should not infer that either game developers or game players are sympathetic to a game’s villains or their actions. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 may afford players the opportunity to massacre innocent civilians during the “No Russian” mission, but we should not assume that the game developers wish to promote indiscriminate violence; and we also should not assume that players who go along with the massacre would wish to see such actions happen in the real world or would in any way sympathize with such actions. The appeal of the fiction argument to the amoralist should therefore be apparent. The actions that are represented in video games cannot be held to realworld notions of “right” and “wrong” because they are not real-world actions. They are make-believe, and there can be nothing morally wrong with imagining that immoral things happen in some fictional world, one that is moreover understood to be separate from the real world. This is an appealing argument. But it is also flawed. The fiction argument is a categorical one: we should never be genuinely morally concerned with a gamer’s engagement with a video game because fictional actions and events categorically cannot raise real-world moral concerns. To reject the fiction argument, we do not need to deny that our actions in video games are fictional, nor must we claim categorically that all fictional actions are morally worrisome. Instead, we only need to show that genuine realworld moral concerns can arise for some fictional actions. To demonstrate this,

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I will briefly examine two amoralist applications of the fiction argument—those of Geert Gooskens and Marcus Schulzke.16 Drawing on the work of phenomenological philosophers such as Edmund Husserl, Gooskens argues that we interact only with images within video games. The car that Niko Bellic drives in Grand Theft Auto IV17 is only the image of a car. When playing the game, the player is always conscious that she is only interacting with an image. The player does not see a car, but instead has an experience as if she is seeing a car. Crucially, this “image-consciousness” frees the player from moral responsibility.18 When Niko Bellic chases down pedestrians with his car, the player has an experience as if they perceive a cruel and immoral act. But the player always remains conscious that what they perceive is only an image. Image-consciousness “neutralizes” the moral impact of our fictional actions.19 So, there is no sense in which a mere image can be “right” or “wrong” as the representational content of an image is separable from reality. Gooskens continues that, despite the inapplicability of moral terms such as “right” and “wrong” to fictional events, we may still feel discomfort when players delight in enacting violence in a video game. According to Gooskens, imageconsciousness sets up the distinction that we need between fiction and reality to separate these two out morally; however, it is also important that the player always remains consciousness of the image-status. If we suspect that the player takes some real delight in fictional violence, then we may suspect that the separation between reality and fiction has become blurred for that player. On Gooskens’ account, we may not say that players are doing something “wrong” when they enact violence in a video game. But we can rightfully be uncomfortable if we feel that the player is taking too much enjoyment from such acts. Perhaps the best we can say is that the player is doing something distasteful.20 Gooskens’ account offers a clear version of the amoralist’s appeal to fiction, one that benefits from his acknowledgement that there is still some space for justifiable discomfort. However, Gooskens overstates the moral neutrality of images. To see this, we need to consider a further distinction. Gooskens distinguishes between the “image-object” and the “image-subject.” The imageobject is the actual, physical object that is present to the observer—which may be a photograph, a drawing, a painting, or a computer-generated image produced by arranging pixels on a screen—and the image-subject is what the image depicts. Using Gooskens’ example, suppose I am looking at a black-and-white photograph of my grandfather: the image-object is the photograph that I hold in my hand, while the image-subject is the person depicted in the photograph. When I am looking at a photograph of my grandfather, you could say that I

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am simultaneously seeing two things: a piece of glossy paper in my hand and my grandfather.21 The notion of image-consciousness is meant to capture the psychological complexity of this experience: I have an experience as if I see my grandfather, though I am always conscious that I am engaging with a mere image.22 We have seen Gooskens defend the idea that the fictional status of pictorial representations removes them from the realm of “right” and “wrong.” Similarly, the separateness of fiction underwrites Schulzke’s claim that we cannot have moral responsibilities to images, though he does not refer to the notion of fiction explicitly. As he says: Just as characters in video games bear little substantive resemblance to real people, actions in the game are vastly different from their equivalents in the real world. In this case, there is nothing worthy of being called “cruelty” in video games because the characters are not capable of feeling pain or suffering. There is no object of the aggression that is capable of feeling pain or suffering. One cannot be cruel to an inanimate object and this is exactly what characters in games are. Until we are prepared to extend moral duties to photographs or other superficial human analogues, we cannot link moral obligation to this sort of resemblance.23

Schulzke’s argument can be summarized like this. Moral concepts of right and wrong only apply in cases where there is genuine harm. Inanimate objects like photographs are only representations. As such, they cannot be genuinely harmed. Characters in video games are mere representations—like people depicted in photographs and paintings. Therefore, we have no moral obligations to characters in video games. The quote cited here ends with an implied challenge: that we cannot link moral obligations to characters in a video game until we are prepared to extend moral obligations to inanimate objects like photographs. Challenge accepted. Implausible as it may sound, I think we can extend moral obligations to photographs and doing so will show us how to defuse the fiction argument. How we behave toward inanimate objects is not accidental. We have our reasons, and those reasons can be open to moral (as well as rational) scrutiny. Think again of Gooskens’ example of the photograph of my grandfather, and now imagine that I burn the photograph. Does my burning the photograph mean anything? Is it necessarily a morally neutral act because the photograph is a mere inanimate object? Is it ever morally wrong for me to burn a photograph? In one sense, you might think not. The photograph is an image-object and there

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is nothing morally wrong with burning photographs per se. And perhaps I have some understandable and morally innocent reason to burn the photograph. Suppose I am moving to a new house and I have been carrying around too many old photographs from one place to the next. No one in my family wants my old photographs because they have their own copies. So, in the frustration of having to pack all my stuff, I decide to burn all my old photographs. It is a purely pragmatic decision to cut down on my packing. In this case, we might think that there is nothing morally problematic about burning the photograph of my grandfather because I am merely thinking of it as an image-object—just another photo cluttering up my house. However, if my reasons for burning the photograph are directed instead toward the image-subject, then something more is going on, something that might be morally relevant. Suppose that I harbor some malicious and vindictive animosity toward my grandfather. In this case, my burning of his photograph is potent with meaning. I am not just burning any old photograph; rather, it is him that I am fictionally burning. My reasons for burning the photograph can be open to moral scrutiny.24 Is my animosity toward my grandfather justified? Was he worthy of such animosity? Or am I being unreasonably malicious? Consider some other examples: imagine burning a photograph of Martin Luther King Jr., a painting of Christ, or an American flag. If my reasons for burning these inanimate objects are directed toward the image-subject, then perhaps my reasons and my behaviors toward these objects are open to moral scrutiny. In these instances, the objects take on some symbolic meaning and my actions become symbolic too. My actions indicate something about my attitudes, values, and respect (or lack of respect) for the subject of the symbolic image. This is not to say that all images are symbols, nor is it to say that all actions toward images are symbolic. But some photographs are symbolic and some actions are too. If a person maliciously burns a photograph of Dr. King, we may justifiably suspect that person of racism. And suppose that our suspicions are correct— that some individual burns a photograph of Dr. King to symbolically express a malicious hatred of the civil rights that he fought for—what would Gooskens’ analysis (or Schulzke’s) allow us to say? If the only thing that we can say is that the racist burning of Dr. King’s photograph makes us uncomfortable or that it is distasteful, then that is not saying much. I think we can say more and I think we should. There are two general points we should take from this. First, our moral obligations toward photographs or other inanimate representations do not come from their status as image-objects, but rather from their status as representations

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of image-subjects. Second, the object of moral condemnation in these cases is not the individual’s actions toward the image-object, but rather their attitudes toward the image-subject, which are demonstrated by the individual’s actions. It can be morally wrong to hold malicious attitudes toward other people, and our malicious behaviors directed at photographs reveal something about our attitudes toward those real-world subjects. If the reader still finds this to be doubtful, then try this experiment at home: take a photograph of someone you love and stab the eyes out. Are you hesitant to do it? Does it make you feel uneasy? If you can carry out the act, would you be willing to leave that photograph in a place where your loved one will find it? Try that and, when your loved one finds it, explain to them that it is just an inanimate object after all. Good luck. The points discussed earlier can be equally applied to video games. Video games are not merely image-objects; they also represent image-subjects. And it is not the player’s actions toward those image-objects that are morally troublesome; rather, it is their attitudes toward the image-subjects. A player’s actions toward some image-subject in a video game can—but not categorically always—indicate something of the player’s attitudes toward those real-world subjects. Morality is involved in our gameplay, at least insofar as some gameplay engages our moral attitudes toward certain real-world subjects.25 Video games are works of fiction. What happens in a game is not real and cannot be held to the same moral scrutiny as our real-world actions. But that does not mean that our actions in video games can never be held to any moral scrutiny, as if they were entirely morally neutral. Video games often make use of the representation of people, events, or ideas that resonate with us; and by resonating with us, they invoke something of our real-world attitudes toward them. Despite a video game’s status as an image-object, a player’s actions toward the image-subject in a game can be open to moral scrutiny. It is for this reason that the amoralist’s appeal to fiction ultimately fails. To reiterate, my purpose here is not to deny that video games are fictions or to argue categorically that fictionally acting out violence in a video game is always morally wrong. Rather, the problem with the fiction argument is that it fails to take into account the consumer’s attitudes toward their engagement with the fiction. The fiction argument paints all engagement with works of fiction with the same broad brush. But consumers do not always regard video games as mere images. Rather, for some players, they are images with meaning. Consumers are responsive to those meanings and act on them. And players’ interactions with those meaningful images can themselves be full of meaning.

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2.2 The Ludological Argument Rather than focusing on the fictional status of a video game’s representational content, the amoralist might instead insist that video games should be free from moral criticism because they are essentially games. The basic argument is that games are by their nature activities in which players willingly set aside certain moral constraints by an unspoken social convention in order to compete against each other. Let us unpack this a bit. First, what are games?26 Bernard Suits offers a definition of games with four conditions, which is best appreciated in his own words: “To play a game is to engage in activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient in favor of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity.”27 To explain, first, players seek to “bring about a specific state of affairs” when playing a game. That state of affairs might be to cross a finish line, or jump over a high bar, or arrange the pieces on a chessboard so that one’s opponent is in checkmate. But, second, players accept that such states of affairs may only be brought about within the constraints of some rules. Third, the rules effectively function to make the task harder— players adopt “less efficient means.” The easiest way to win at chess would be for me to rearrange all the pieces on the board when my opponent is distracted; or if the game is high jumping, then I should use a ladder to clear the bar; or if I am racing on an oval track, then I should cut across the middle of the track to reach the finish line first. Each of these would offer more efficient means to achieve the desired state of affairs. But none of these would count as playing chess, or high jumping, or racing. Players adopt less efficient means to make the task challenging. As I understand Suits’ theory, the fundamental question he is trying to answer is why players willingly accept rules and constraints in their free activities. Suits’ fourth condition aims to address this question: we accept the rules of the game because doing so makes achieving the goal worthwhile. While Suits’ theory of games has many adherents, it has many detractors as well. For instance, Jesper Juul argues that Suits’ claim that games require the adoption of “less efficient means” is problematic. It seems entirely plausible that a game could be set up that makes use of the most efficient means, and the notion of “less efficient means” seems inapplicable in the case of video games. As Juul notes, video game versions of soccer and tennis “are much easier to master than their real-life professional counterparts are.”28

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Juul’s own account of games employs six conditions: “A game is (1) a rulebased system (2) with a variable and quantifiable outcome, (3) where different outcomes are assigned different values, (4) the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, (5) the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome, and (6) the consequences of the activity are negotiable.”29 Juul’s first condition needs no explanation, but some explanation is required for conditions (2) through (6). Beginning with (2), the outcome for a game is “variable,” meaning that there is no single state of affairs that any game aims for—as Suits’ account would imply—but rather there are a range of possible accepted outcomes. And the outcomes are “quantifiable,” meaning that they leave no uncertainty regarding who has won. As Juul says, “the outcome of a game is designed to be beyond discussion.”30 Condition (3) acknowledges that some outcomes are better than others such that a higher score (typically) correlates to a more desirable and more challenging outcome. Condition (4) acknowledges the need for players to be engaged with a game, and condition (5) attempts to explain the players’ attitude toward their engagement. Finally, condition (6) stipulates that games carry no real-life consequences. If the possible consequences of some activity are “nonnegotiable,” then one cannot be said to be playing a game on Juul’s account. Condition (6) distinguishes games from activities that might meet the other five conditions, but fail to be games. For instance, think of the experience of being stuck in traffic: arguably, Juul’s first five conditions could be applied to traffic. Certainly, there are rules governing the operation of a motor vehicle, the outcomes are variable (some destinations are further than others) and quantifiable (it is beyond discussion whether or not you arrive at your destination), some destinations might be better than others (you might be going to work while I am going to the zoo), motorists are engaged in the activity of driving (hopefully), and they are emotionally attached to the outcome (sometimes to the point of road-rage). So, does traffic count as a game? Fortunately, Juul’s sixth condition would suggest not. For most people, it is a nonnegotiable condition that they must get where they are going safely. The difference between real-life events that satisfy conditions (1) through (5) and games is that games are those activities that one pursues for its own sake. Despite the plausibility of Juul’s account, it too must still address some challenges. For instance, Juul’s insistence that a game’s rules must be beyond debate (condition [1]) would suggest that Dungeons and Dragons31 is not a game. In fact, Juul says as much: “Pen and paper role-playing games are not classic games because, having a human game master, their rules are not fixed beyond discussion.”32 What does the qualifier “classic” mean? Juul could be

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making an evaluative claim: his denial that Dungeons and Dragons is a “classic” game could simply mean that it is an atypical example of a game, but it remains within the category of games nonetheless. But I suspect that Juul is making a more categorical claim—that is, the qualifier “classic” is meant to acknowledge that things like Dungeons and Dragons have been historically treated as games, though they technically should not be.33 Whatever the case may be, it would be highly unintuitive to think that Dungeons and Dragons does not count as a game—classic or otherwise. Similarly, the notion that a game’s outcomes must be quantifiable (condition [2]) calls into question the game-status of openended games like Minecraft,34 The Sims,35 and World of Warcraft.36 Condition (4) threatens to remove games of pure chance—like roulette, or many children’s board games, like Candy Land,37 Mouse Trap,38 or Happy Salmon39—from the category of games. Finally, why is condition (5)—regarding the players’ emotional attachment to the outcome of a game—part of the definition of a game? Rather than offering something ontologically relevant, condition (5) might best be thought of as an evaluation of a player’s engagement with a game. Some players might be spoilsports, while other players might be bored or disengaged, where they are merely going through the motions. But still, the motions they are going through are surely part of a game. Emotionally uninvested players might be bad players, but that should not threaten the ontological status of their activity. My purpose here is not to assess the strength of these theories, nor is it to advance a different theory of games. Rather, we should focus on their commonalities. The theories of Suits and Juul are but two examples of theories of games; yet we can see a pattern emerging, and a brief look at other theories of games reveals a similar pattern. According to Johan Huizinga, a game is “a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious,’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. . . . It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner.”40 Here is Roger Caillois: a game is “free, separate, uncertain, unproductive, governed by rules, make-believe.”41 Finally, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman: “A game is a system in which players engaged in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.”42 Most theories of games contain three common elements: games are rule-bound, goaloriented, and governed by some social convention. While the first two points are interesting, the third is more important for our purposes: games are governed by (typically tacit) social conventions. It is only possible to play a game when all the players willingly assent to do so and willingly accept any actions that result from following the rules as a legitimate

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outcome. It is worth remembering that the rules of any game must be upheld by an act of will, one that must be coordinated between all the players. One of the fascinating things about game playing is that, when all players play fairly, it is by a communal and cooperative act of coordinating each players’ will to uphold the game. Additionally, the social conventions governing games can allow that certain actions no longer carry the normal moral weight when performed within a game. It is morally wrong to physically assault someone or to lie to others to receive some financial gain, but the social conventions governing boxing release players from the normal moral obligation not to harm others while the social conventions of poker release players from the moral obligation to be truthful. Boxers and poker players cannot complain that they have been assaulted or lied to. To participate in boxing or poker is to assent willingly to the possibility that one will be hit or bluffed. The dependence of games on such social conventions has been figuratively described by Huizinga as a “magic circle.” As he says, All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the “consecrated spot” cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc, are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.43

As I understand it, the “magic circle” should not be taken to refer to the physical space in which a game takes place, but instead refers to a conceptual space. The physical spaces where games are played may be partitioned off by the lines of a basketball court, or the ropes of a boxing ring, or the edge of a tabletop board. But these physical markers are meaningless without the conceptual act of treating them as the relevant boundaries of fair gameplay. It is a conceptual act of willing assent that gives these physical boundaries their meaning.44 For instance, imagine that Smith and Jones are having an argument, and Smith punches Jones. This is physical assault and morally condemnable. Now imagine that Smith and Jones have an argument, which they agree to settle in the boxing ring, and Smith punches Jones. While the action may be the same, this latter case is not physical assault, but rather fair play, and therefore not morally condemnable. Finally, imagine that Smith and Jones have an argument while they happen to be standing

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in a boxing ring, and Smith punches Jones. This again is physical assault and morally condemnable because, even while they are standing in a physical space where punches may be legitimately thrown, they have not willingly entered into the conceptual space that legitimizes a thrown punch. The social convention to enter into a game is a conceptual act, and play is legitimate only when players willingly assent to play the game. For boxing, players enter the magic circle when the bell signals the beginning of a round, and they exit the circle when the bell signals its end. For one boxer to punch another in between rounds would be to act illegitimately outside of the social conventions of boxing. It is an open question whether the magic circle is a useful or even plausible idea.45 However, for our purposes we will focus on one possible amoralist strategy that employs the magic circle as a defense against the moral criticism of video games. The argument would go like this: When players enter the magic circle, standard moral obligations are set aside. We must judge a player’s actions always from the perspective of the rules of the game. Games may require a player to act in a way that would be morally wrong if such actions were carried out in our everyday lives, but it is not morally wrong to carry out such actions within the game. (To modify this argument to make it applicable to video games, we need only substitute talk of “actions” to talk about “the fictional representation of actions.”) Within the rules of the game, it is agreed in advance which actions are legitimate and therefore free of their usual moral value. Many video games imply within their rules that certain actions—like murder, theft, and even rape— are permitted within the game and are therefore free of their usual moral value. The idea that it can be morally wrong to perform some action in a game that is allowed by the game’s rules is a category mistake because the critic is guilty of importing a moral standard into the gamespace that conflicts with the accepted social conventions of the game—that is, games exhibit an internalist ethics. Players cannot be held to a moral standard that is external to the conventions of the game—not after players have willingly assented to the game’s social and moral conventions. Therefore, moralist criticisms of video games are always misguided as they fail to recognize that games happen within a conceptual space that by convention is free of the normal rules of morality. The magic circle defense is predicated on the idea that games are separate from reality by social convention, which is often appealed to by the defenders of amoralism. Here are a few examples. The MMORPG Sociolotron46 allows players to rape the avatars of other players; however, players enter into this gamespace knowing that such assaults are a possibility. When players of Sociolotron willingly assent to the rules and conventions of the game, they enter

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a magic circle in which the normal moral boundaries associated with sexual assault are overridden. The amoralist can then argue that we cannot judge the fictional actions of players of Sociolotron by using a moral standard that has been suspended by the social conventions of the game as players are only doing what is allowed by the game’s rules. Garry Young offer such an argument.47 On his account, a gamer who is morally offended by the activities they find in some gamespace “would be unjustified in claiming that [such actions are] morally wrong, for to do so would be to import a system of morality from outside that space.”48 To morally condemn the things that players do within a game because those actions would be morally wrong outside of the game is to fail to appreciate the separateness of the gamespace. Taking another example, players tacitly appeal to notion of the magic circle when defending games against social or political criticisms, like those criticisms of feminist writers. When feminist critics draw attention to the social or political assumptions that designers make in developing their games, opponents in gaming blogs and chatrooms are often quick to reply with something like, “Keep your politics out of my games, social justice warrior!” While such opponents argue that social justice criticism is out of place in discussions of video games for a variety of reasons,49 their arguments often invoke the idea that games are a separate space governed by the willing acceptance of a social convention, which they interpret as meaning that concerns about social justice may also be suspended. Finally, we can see the magic circle defense implicitly at work when gamers defend the culture of gaming practices, which is a separate issue from the contents of a game. For instance, some players defend “teabagging,” griefing, and the use of sexist and homophobic insults by claiming that such taunts are just part of the culture of competitive gaming. When one enters a gamespace, one willingly accepts the social conventions of the game, even those conventions that govern the culture associated with the game. “And if you don’t like it, then don’t play.” The magic circle defense is certainly plausible and it gains some support from the observation that players are always conscious of the distinction between what is accepted within the game and what morality demands in the real world. However, despite the initial plausibility of the magic circle defense, it should also be rejected as a valid response to moralist criticism. To reject the magic circle defense, we do not need to reject the separateness of games or the conventionality of in-game behaviors. All we need to do instead is to recognize the limits of social conventions. Games are not as separate as we might think, and social conventions are not incontestable. It is certainly true that players

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(typically) willingly assent to abide by the social conventions of a game and to accept whatever consequences may come of their participation. But the fact that players willingly assent to the conventions of a game does not thereby make those conventions good.50 Social conventions themselves can be open to moral criticism. Social conventions often arise out of a need to coordinate behaviors of large groups—they can offer predictability or coherence or meaning to social interactions. While some social conventions might be beneficial and others harmless, there are clearly many that are damaging, unjust, and oppressive. Numerous examples could be offered here, but I will offer three that purport to be sports: think of the debates surrounding the enjoyment of blood sports like fox hunting, cockfighting, and bull fighting. Each of these can be found practiced somewhere in the world—some closer to home than others. Defenders of these practices often argue that, despite what harm comes to the animals, such practices should be allowed (even preserved and venerated51) because they are socially accepted as a part of one’s culture or heritage. But this sort of defense is clearly question-begging as a culture’s social conventions are not morally selfjustifying. The fact that some practice is common within one’s culture or enjoys a long history within one’s heritage does not thereby ensure that the practice causes no harm, or is fair and just, or does not contribute to the oppression of others. In the case of blood sports, the fact that such practices are widespread and have a long cultural history does not negate the fact that such games are needlessly harmful to animals. While these examples are surely controversial, the point here is a general one: the mere observation that some cultural practice is governed by social convention does not thereby rule out the possibility that the convention is itself morally wrong. It may be part of the social convention of bullfighting that the bull will suffer, but the acceptance of that social convention does not make it right. Returning to video games, the magic circle defense suffers the same problem: the fact that certain moral obligations are suspended by convention within some game does not thereby justify the moral suspension. Is it morally right that players can act out rape fantasies on each other’s avatars in Sociolotron? It may be the social convention of the game to do so, but appealing to the willingness of players to assent to the gameplay is not enough to defend the convention. So, the main idea supporting the magic circle defense—appealing to the power of social conventions—is unconvincing. Games are not free from moral criticism simply because players have agreed by convention to ignore the morally questionable aspects of their games. The magic circle is not so magical after all.

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2.3 Conclusion Amoralists argue that video games are not open to moral criticism because games are separate from reality; however, we have seen earlier that the two main arguments in support of this supposed separation are unconvincing. First, fictionalists argue that video games are works of fiction and, as the events depicted in a video game are not real, we cannot morally criticize gamers for enacting representations of fictional immoral acts. Against this, I have argued that a player’s fictional treatment of a representation can sometimes indicate something of that player’s real-world attitude toward the subject of the representation, and it is entirely reasonable to morally criticize a person’s attitudes. Second, ludologists argue that video games are separate from reality because they are games, players tacitly accept the social conventions governing games, and those social conventions can suspend our normal moral conventions. Against this, I have argued that social conventions are not self-justifying. Unjust, harmful, and oppressive social conventions are not morally good just because some willingly accept them. Games are not as separate from reality as we might think. Having set these skeptical worries aside, we can now consider what sort of moral criticism is genuinely appropriate for video games and how that criticism might be justified.

3

Virtual Ethics and Virtue Ethics

We use the words “right” and “wrong” to morally praise or morally criticize people and their actions in our daily lives all the time. We judge the moral rightness and wrongness of others’ actions, intentions, and words. Additionally, our moral sensibilities and values are not only part of our moral judgments but are also implicated in our feelings. Imagine that you were to look out your window late at night just in time to see an old woman being mugged in the street. It is likely that you would feel something—perhaps you would feel a tense, churning knot of anger and disgust in your belly. You might not make the conscious judgment, “That is wrong,” but that is because you do not need to. Moral rightness and wrongness are things that we feel in addition to things that we judge. When we describe things as being “morally right” or “morally wrong,” what do we mean? What, generally speaking, makes some things “morally right” and other things “morally wrong”? Our history of philosophical debate shows that these questions have been at the heart of philosophy as far back as our history goes. While philosophers have not achieved consensus about the nature of morality, we have narrowed down the options. Within Western philosophical traditions, there are three main positive theories of morality: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics.1 I refer to these theories as “positive,” meaning that each theory holds that there is something substantive that we can positively say about the concepts right and wrong. Philosophers often refer to positive ethical theories as realist theories, meaning that there is some real fact of the matter that our moral judgments and feelings are about. Morality is “real” in the sense that it has some firm basis such that our moral judgments can be true or false. Alternatively, we might think of negative theories of morality as those that deny that there is any substance to our judgments of rightness and wrongness. These sorts of theories are often referred to as anti-realist theories, meaning that there is no fact of the matter when it comes to ethics. Philosophers who defend such theories believe that morality is “anti-real,” in the sense that there can be no

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firm basis to ground our judgments. Instead, our moral judgments are nothing more than an expression of our subjective feelings of approval or disapproval. Such theories often go by the names emotivism or expressivism.2 An expressivist is typically someone who claims that moral statements lack any truth-value and, therefore, one cannot verify the truth of any moral statement by looking for some fact in the world to which the statement corresponds. For instance, A. J. Ayer argues that ethical terms like “right” and “wrong” cannot be reduced to nonethical terms, and they therefore add nothing of factual content when used in a sentence. As Ayer says, “the fundamental ethical concepts are unanalyzable, inasmuch as there is no criterion by which one can test the validity of the judgments in which they occur. . . . . [T]he reason why they are unanalyzable is that they are mere pseudo-concepts.”3 Therefore, Ayer continues, “in every case in which one would commonly be said to be making an ethical judgment, the function of the relevant ethical word is purely ‘emotive.’ It is used to express feeling about certain objects, but not to make any assertion about them.”4 On this view, there are no facts when it comes to matters of values. Statements like “Murder is wrong” mean nothing more than “I disapprove of murder.” Unfortunately, this book is not the right place to try to refute anti-realism or to defend realism directly—but I do wish to offer some indirect defense of realism, at least as realism stands for a virtue ethicist. Briefly, my view is that some things are genuinely, non-subjectively morally wrong—for instance think of genocide, slavery, rape, pedophilia, and murder. The thoroughgoing anti-realist who wants to deny the genuine wrongness of these things must do an uncomfortable dance to avoid acknowledging their denial. Indeed, even Bertrand Russell, who defended emotivism, once fretted, “I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values, but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don’t like it.”5 My defense of realism will be indirect and somewhat roundabout: one way to defend realist ethical theories is to demonstrate how they can be fruitfully applied to new and difficult cases. If we can show that realist ethical theories have something sensible to say about video game ethics, then this offers one step toward defending realist theories. So I must ask the reader to make one major assumption: “Right” and “wrong” are substantive concepts that we can make genuine positive claims about. If you believe that nothing is ever truly morally right or morally wrong, then you are never going to agree with me that our virtual actions can sometimes be morally wrong. But you will also struggle uncomfortably with denying the wrongness of genocide, slavery, rape, pedophilia, and murder. On the other hand, if you are willing to consider that

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some things are genuinely morally wrong, then I ask you to consider that some virtual actions in video games can also be morally wrong. The literature on philosophical ethics is vast. Unfortunately, I cannot hope to cover exhaustively all that material here. While I do not wish to sacrifice rigor, I will aim to err on the side of brevity. In what follows, I will offer a brief overview of each of the “big three” ethical theories that have been central in Western philosophical debates: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Then, I argue that both consequentialism and deontology are limited by the availability of the empirical evidence on video game violence. Finally, I will identify the main challenges facing a virtue ethics of video games. Ultimately, I think virtue ethics offers us the best account to discuss video games ethics. Other theorists have sought to do the same, and for good reason: virtue ethics offers a natural theoretical basis to talk about the morality of character traits, like our taste for violence.6 While this chapter will set out the issues that must be addressed to defend virtue ethics, the full defense will unfold over the following two chapters. To get this discussion started, we will first set out the basic tenets of these theories in sections 3.1. The point of the discussion here is not to defend any theory, but rather to offer a broad outline for each and identify some of their commonly discussed problems. Then in section 3.2, we will return to consider how each of these theories may be applied to video games and what sort of difficulties each would encounter when seeking to address the ethics of virtual actions.

3.1 Theories of Ethics 3.1.1 Consequentialism Consequentialism is a general type of moral theory that originated in the work of two British philosophers, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.7 There are many different versions of consequentialism today, but what they all have in common is the idea that whether an action is right or wrong depends on whatever real-world consequences might follow from that action when compared to other possible actions. There are three quick points worth noticing here. First, it is always an empirical matter whether some action leads to good or bad consequences. It is of course incredibly difficult to measure the consequences of an action in their totality, or even to conceive of how one might go about measuring such consequences. Despite this, the consequentialist’s point generally is that ethics should make some observable difference in our lives—good actions makes our

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lives measurably better while bad actions make our lives measurably worse. Second, we must judge the consequences of some action all things considered. We may come to an overall judgment of some action only by considering all the positive and negative factors together. Finally, because consequentialism ties the concepts of “right” and “wrong” to real-world consequences, this theory leaves no room for the idea that something can be good or bad in the abstract. According to consequentialism, there is no such thing as “the taboo.” Nothing can be good or bad independently of its associated effects. As mentioned, consequentialism comes in many varieties. Each of these agree that goodness and badness must be defined in terms of real-world consequences; however, what sort of consequences matter? Each action likely carries many kinds of consequences: financial, social, political, physical, and so on. Which consequences are morally relevant? According to Bentham and Mill, the only kinds of consequences that matter to morality are the psychological consequences of increasing or decreasing happiness. To put it simply, an action that increases happiness for society as a whole is good, while an action that decreases happiness is bad. Bentham and Mill called their version of the theory “utilitarianism.” According to these philosophers, pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically good and pain is the only thing that is intrinsically bad. All people seek to increase their pleasures and decrease their pains. That is a simple and obvious observation, and one that would be difficult to deny. But importantly this “pleasure principle” is not what makes utilitarianism into a moral theory. As it stands, the pleasure principle only tells me what I already know: I like to be happy. It does not tell me why I should care about the happiness of other people. To make the pleasure principle into a theory of morality, we need to know how to apply that principle to people beyond ourselves and thus avoid egoism. To turn the pleasure principle into a theory of morality, we need to recognize that our actions not only have consequences for our own individual happiness but also have consequences for the happiness of others. According to Bentham and Mill, it is not the business of only individuals to increase their pleasures and decrease their pains but is also the business of whole societies. My personal happiness is no more important for society than the personal happiness of any other individual. For that reason, I should not try to increase my happiness at the expense of others. Instead, I have a duty to help the whole of society to increase happiness for all. However, this does not mean that the happiness of the simple numerical majority always wins. If some law would make 51 percent of people slightly happier, but would plunge the remaining 49 percent into abject misery,

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then it is a bad law. It is not the numerical majority of people that matters, but rather the sum happiness of the whole of society. One of the most striking things about consequentialism is how naturally and intuitively we seem to accept consequentialist thinking. If you ever think that it would be best to act for “the greater good,” then you are thinking like a consequentialist. However, there is still much debate about the plausibility of the theory. Some argue that whether maximizing happiness is good is an open question.8 Others argue that consequentialism cannot make space for fundamentally important moral concepts, like that of human rights.9 If morality is nothing more than a cost-benefit analysis, then the worry is that we can set aside human rights if doing so leads to slightly more happiness. Finally, consequentialists themselves disagree about the role that intentions should play in our moral judgments. Act consequentialists claim that we should only take into account the actual consequences of a person’s actions regardless of what their intentions may have been, while rule consequentialists argue that a person who intends to follow a typically good rule should be forgiven if their actions inadvertently lead to harm.10 These debates aside, consequentialism is still one of the leading contenders.

3.1.2 Deontology Deontology is a theory of ethics first proposed by Immanuel Kant.11 Kant’s theory revolves around the concept of duty. Doing the “right” thing means acting out of a sense of duty. For Kant, we should never base our moral judgments on something as subjective as happiness—doing so may allow us to ignore genuine moral obligations. A duty is something that a person can rationally accept or reject. We can reason about our duties and come to see their importance rationally, which is certainly not true of our feelings. Actions based on happiness are always selfserving, whether we are serving our own happiness or the happiness of those we love. But sometimes the demands of morality require us to act against our own happiness. For instance, we should insist that criminals should always receive a fair trial because we have a duty to act out of fairness. And this is true even when the criminal has harmed us. In some instances, we may know that the defendant is guilty, and yet we should still insist on a fair trial as the purpose of holding a trial is to make sure that the guilty party is not treated unjustly. Not even the guilty should be treated unjustly. It might make me happy to see someone who has wronged me thrown into prison on phony charges, but I also know that a world in which people can be wrongly imprisoned is unfair and unsustainable.

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We sometimes must act out of a duty to fairness in order to temper our vengeful instincts. Kant argues that there is one moral law that we cannot break, which he calls the “categorical imperative.” He offers a number of ways to think about this; however, the two most widely discussed are known as the Universal Law Formulation and the Humanity Formulation. The first of these says, “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”12 Whenever you are contemplating some action, try to imagine what the world would be like if everyone acted the way that you are considering. For instance, imagine that you are tempted to park your car in a disabled parking space—after all, you are only planning to be in the shop for a few minutes. The Universal Law Formulation tells us that we should imagine a world in which everyone parks their cars in the disabled parking spaces. In that world, the disabled parking spaces would rarely be available to those who really need them, and the entire practice of setting aside some parking spaces for the disabled would be ineffective. If you would not wish to live in the hypothetical world that Kant asks you to imagine, then the action you are considering is one that you not ought to pursue. The Humanity Formulation says, “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.”13 The idea is that each person has their own goals, hopes, dreams, and desires—these are our ends. Inanimate objects lack these. We can use inanimate objects as a means to pursue our ends; however, if we were to use another human being as nothing more than a means to pursue our ends, then we would be treating that person as having as little worth as an inanimate object. We would be fundamentally denying their personhood. This, Kant believes, is something that no rational person should ever do: we should never treat a person only as a means to an end. Kant’s theory is a powerful one and has been highly influential. However, it also runs into some difficulties. One fundamental difficulty concerns Kant’s conception of the unyielding nature of our moral duties. Kant famously defended the point that, if a murderer were to knock on your door and asks where he could find a friend of yours that he has been pursuing, it would be immoral to lie to the murderer because to do so would be to treat him as a means to an end. We have a duty to be truthful, after all. If you tell the murderer where to find your friend, and he goes on to kill your friend, the fault is not yours, according to Kant. The fault lies squarely with the murderer. It is his choice to kill your friend. By contrast, we have an “unconditional duty” to tell the truth. The fact

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that our truthfulness results in the death of a friend is merely an accident of the circumstances, but such accidents do not change the nature of our duties.14 Many philosophers find this outcome to be absurd. Perhaps the faithful Kantian deserves a pat on the back for their noble honesty, but this would be little comfort to someone who just lost a friend.

3.1.3 Virtue Ethics The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that the purpose of living ethically was to live a happy and flourishing life, and to do so, one must develop a virtuous moral character.15 This has come to be known as virtue ethics.16 The history of this theory has ancient roots and it was the dominant approach to ethics in the West until it fell out of favor in the nineteenth century. But we are seeing a resurgence of interest in virtue ethics among Western moral philosophers today.17 It is easy to see why virtue ethics lost some of its popularity: it sounds like an odd theory to a modern audience. For this reason, it would be reasonable to spend a bit more time on it. First, it is different from consequentialism and deontology in that virtue ethics is not centrally concerned with identifying whether some action is good or bad. Instead, a virtue ethicist is more interested in identifying whether or not some action will lead to the development of a virtuous or vicious moral character. Second, it also differs from the first two theories in that it emphasizes that ethical behavior is a practice.18 Aristotle thought that it was impossible to teach someone to be good. To be good is not just to do good things, but is also to have the right feelings toward goodness—to feel outraged by injustice, to be moved by kindness, and to feel disgust toward cruelty.19 A person may do good things while feeling no real commitment to what they are doing, or they may even feel resentment toward having to do something that they do not really want to do. A person cannot be taught how to be good because it is impossible to teach someone how they ought to feel. Instead, all we can do is teach someone to follow the rules. Aristotle thought that after years of practicing good actions, one will eventually come to appreciate the goodness of their actions, and only then would one develop the right moral feelings. The most interesting point about virtue ethics—in my view—is Aristotle’s belief that the purpose of morality is to live the good life, and in order to do that, we must cultivate a virtuous moral character. For Aristotle, the good life is characterized by the achievement of eudaimonia, which is a state of flourishing or fulfillment. To understand how one can flourish or find fulfillment through the cultivation of virtue requires a bit more background. Aristotle held that

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rationality distinguishes humanity from all other life, and acting in accordance with reason is part of what leads to the fulfillment of our humanity. Rationality is what enables us to choose wisely. As we meet various challenges in life, we will be faced with numerous choices. Each choice will present us with two extreme options. But reason is able to guide us between the extremes toward the “middle path.” A virtue for Aristotle is a disposition of character that aims for that middle path, and each virtue can be described as the median point between two extremes. For instance, courage is the virtue that stands in between the extremes of cowardice and recklessness, while temperance is the virtue that stands in between excessive indulgence and excessive self-denial. In the case of many of the virtues, it can be fairly straightforward to identify the median that stands between two undesirable extremes; however, other cases can be tricky. It is natural to think of honesty as the binary difference between truth and falsehoods, yet it is by Aristotle’s account another middle path between two extremes: while one extreme is deceitfulness, the other extreme would be tactless honesty, which we should also seek to avoid. The person who blurts out every thought that enters their mind, no matter how hurtful it might be, is not “just being honest.” Rather they are using truth as a weapon to humiliate others. Finally, the person who is able to walk this fine line between the extremes of vice and develop virtuous habits has achieved eudaimonia. This might sound like a tall order to achieve, but morality is not supposed to be easy. It takes practice and effort, but in the end, it leads to the betterment of oneself. The achievement of eudaimonia is a worthwhile goal according to a virtue ethicist, not because doing so leads to good consequences, but because doing so is itself valuable. While it is true that a virtuous person will behave better in the world, the cultivation of virtues is good even when the individual does not act on them, just as the cultivation of moral vices is bad even when the individual does not act on them.20 The moral character that I cultivate certainly makes it easier for me to exhibit similar behaviors in the future, but it also impacts my sense of moral sentiment—that is, I feel that certain things are “right” or “wrong,” “threatening” or “safe” by habituating myself to such values and norms. A morally virtuous person will feel content in their decisions and confident about their actions. By contrast, a morally vicious person will feel confusion, conflict, and uncertainty. So we should seek to develop the virtues partly to align our emotions with our actions. Finally, moral character can be trained through habit. By doing good things and avoiding bad things, we can change our habits, our feelings, and even our desires.

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Virtue ethics is an odd theory, but it is also a very useful one. It can do something that the other two theories struggle with: it offers the means to judge a person’s moral character, which is something that we judge quite commonly.21 For instance, when we praise someone for their honesty, we need not praise them for one specific act of honesty. Rather, we praise them in a more general sense. We are making a judgment of the person’s overall character and their disposition to be honest and trustworthy (without being tactless). Making judgments of moral character is something that we often do, and so we should seek to understand this practice and consider its justification. Virtue ethics offers that. A more detailed example might help to summarize this point. Imagine two men named Bob and Joe. Bob and Joe live very similar lives—they have similar jobs, similar backgrounds, and similar hobbies. Outwardly, Bob and Joe are both decent blokes, and there is very little difference between them. However, inwardly there is a significant difference: Joe often fantasizes with delight about pedophilia. Fortunately, however, Joe never acts on his fantasies. Is there any moral difference between Bob and Joe? If the only things that are morally relevant are the consequences of our actions, and Joe never acts on his fantasies, then the consequentialist would need to accept that Joe is not morally better or worse off than Bob. For a deontologist, the answer comes down to whether Joe resists acting on his fantasies out of a sense of duty or not. In his fantasies, Joe often thinks about treating children as merely a means to an end. So why doesn’t Joe act on it? If he resists simply out of a fear of getting caught, then Joe’s concern is not really for the humanity and dignity of the children that he fantasizes about. Rather his concern is for himself—perhaps for his safety, freedom, or reputation. Alternatively, if he resists because rationally he knows that such treatment toward children would be contrary to the Categorical Imperative, then his resistance is an expression of his commitment to his moral duties. Certainly, it is good of Joe that he has such a strong sense of duty and the moral fortitude to act out of duty. But he still enjoys entertaining morally repugnant thoughts toward children, and it seems inconsistent for a “good person” to take pleasure in entertaining such disturbing thoughts, which is a point that deontology is unable to justify. With this in mind, the virtue ethicist has a much easier answer to give about the moral difference between these two: Joe is morally worse off than Bob because his fantasies are a part of his moral character. Our moral character is not just the things that we do, but also our thoughts, motivations, and our moral feelings. The fact that Joe fantasizes about pedophilia with delight tells us something about his moral character—specifically it tells us something about his feelings and desires.22 As such, moral character can be thought of as the complex

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psychological web of habits, feelings, beliefs, desires, and motivations, which all have some impact on our outward behaviors. Our actions are a result of our moral character; to put it another way, our actions express our moral character. But our moral character is made up by more than just our actions. Of course, it is good that Joe does not act on his desires, and we can even praise Joe for his ability to overcome them;23 but it would be even better if Joe did not have such desires in the first place. Indeed, even the Kantian point that Joe could be praised for his sense of duty can be more easily explained by virtue ethics.24 But, finally, virtue ethics has its problems too. First, proponents of virtue ethics often struggle to explain what human flourishing consists of and, relatedly, how human flourishing is dependent on the cultivation of virtues. Moreover, it is often difficult to see how virtue ethics can offer us any practical guidance for making moral decisions. When Kant’s murderer-at-the-door comes knocking, what would the virtue ethicist say that we should do? Both consequentialism and deontology offer specific recommendations for how we should go about managing the process of moral decision-making. But the recommendations offered by virtue ethics often appear murky at best.25 We could undoubtedly go into more detail if we wanted to really understand the variety and the complexity of each of the theories discussed. For instance, we could question whether any kind of consequentialist theory can provide a firm foundation for things like human rights, whether our intentions to act out of a sense of duty should be given as much weight as the actual consequences of our actions, or whether virtue ethics gives us a practical theory that can offer guidance when we need to make some difficult moral choice. But that kind of detailed analysis would not serve our purposes here.

3.2 Video Game Ethics So what about violent video games, or video games that allow the player to commit other sorts of immoral actions? Does my playing a violent video game decrease the overall happiness for the whole of society? Do I neglect my duties to humanity? Does it contribute to my development of a vicious moral character? Are any of these theories in a better or worse position to help us think about our virtual actions in video games? Here is a brief summary of my view. The effectiveness of consequentialism is dependent on what the empirical evidence can demonstrate, and much of the evidence currently available is inconclusive. The applicability of deontology

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to video game ethics has been met with criticism from other theorists, and I find much of that criticism to be convincing. Deontology can help us to think about ethical issues that arise in multiplayer games, but not single-player games. Finally, virtue ethics is a theory that initially seems difficult to apply to a modern phenomenon like video games, but in fact it can help us to think about numerous issues. In the end, virtue ethics may be the most promising way to go; however, we would still need to overcome some difficult challenges to make good on such an account. A full defense of a virtue ethical account of video game ethics will unfold over the following two chapters.

3.2.1 Consequentialism and the Empirical Evidence Consequentialism tells us that violent video games would be morally problematic only if playing such games led to negative real-world consequences. But we must also balance the good consequences against the bad ones in order to get a full, overall picture of the moral impact of video games. So the consequentialist must judge the moral value of violence in video games by looking at all of the available empirical evidence about the harms and benefits associated with playing video games. To negatively judge video games, we must demonstrate that playing them leads to harms that are measurably outweighed by all the pleasure and fun that games provide. So are there any consequences—good or bad—to playing violent video games? The focus of this book is about the moral status of virtual actions. As such, I wish to answer this question by isolating the potential impacts that virtual actions may contribute to real-world harms. However, I will briefly look outside of this narrow scope in order to acknowledge the many important and urgent issues that concern gaming ethics. By looking more broadly, we find that, while there are many real-world benefits to gaming, there are also many serious ethical challenges. For the benefits of gaming, broadly speaking, I will mention four. First, it is obvious that playing games makes loads of people happy. It makes me happy, and I do not think I am very unusual in this respect. If games did not make so many people happy, then gaming would not be a multibillion dollar industry. And it does not matter if we are talking about violent video games or nonviolent ones: playing games of any sort leads to a great deal of enjoyment. Second, the pleasure of playing games is not necessarily a single, solitary pleasure. Certainly, it can be easy to isolate oneself while enjoying a game, but the same is true of reading a novel. And just like the enjoyment of literature, the pleasure of gaming is one that can be shared with a large community. So

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in addition to the enjoyment that individual gamers get from playing games, there is also the collective enjoyment that gamers experience from the sense of community that is formed. Third, the pleasure of playing games is not strictly the pleasure of competition. It can also be an aesthetic pleasure. There are many games that contain compelling narratives, fascinating character development, and social commentary. These are all values that we expect to find in narrative art forms like literature and cinema. As these narrative values are a source of pleasure in the arts, then they can also be a source of pleasure in games. Finally, some researchers have found evidence to suggest that playing games— even violent ones—can lead to other kinds of benefits beyond the pleasure of playing. Some have suggested that gaming can improve hand-eye coordination and problem-solving skills.26 Clearly, much real-world good is generated by playing games. What about the harms? Again, taking a view of gaming ethics that looks beyond the narrow scope I wish to pursue here, I will briefly mention four sources of harm. First, I previously identified the community of gaming as a benefit. However, like any community, conflicts can arise over the issue of who gets to be a member. Undoubtedly, that feeling of belonging to a community has remained elusive for many individuals due to a lack of inclusivity. While this problem persists, we must consider community-formation as an ambiguous benefit, and possibly the lack of inclusiveness currently tips the consequentialist balance toward an overall harm. Second, the energy consumed by gamers is quite substantial. Energy consumed by consoles and gaming PCs makes up a considerable portion of overall energy consumption,27 as well as the need for constantly running servers to support cloud-based gaming.28 Third, gaming consoles have a lifespan where they are a hot commodity for a relatively short time, but they eventually wind up in e-waste landfills, typically in economically disadvantaged developing countries.29 Finally, gaming consoles are produced using precious materials—like coltan (columbite-tantalites)—that are found in high quantities in some developing countries. Control over the coltan mines in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo is often a source of violent friction, working conditions are quite dangerous, and many mines employ child labor.30 If we take the total stock of the positive and negative consequences of gaming broadly, the black mark left by its ecological and economic damage may prove quite difficult to overcome.31 For the genuine consequentialist, these global impacts of gaming must figure strongly in their calculation. While much more could (and should) be said about these issues, I must set them aside. These issues are deeply important. However, my hope is to isolate what is morally interesting

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about virtual actions, and the real-world harms mentioned here are independent from any concern over virtual actions. When we shift attention to consequences associated with virtual actions narrowly, the most widely discussed and controversial question is whether the virtual acts of violence that players commit in games leads players to commit real-world acts of violence. If we could definitively say that there is a link between real-world violence and video game violence, then this would certainly tip the consequentialist scales against video games. There have been a considerable number of studies on this question. Unfortunately, the popular media often ignores the subtlety of those studies. Instead, the popular media seems to enjoy going through the game collection of every mass murderer in order to suggest some link between their gaming habits and their crimes, no matter how tenuous the link may be. And certainly some violent crimes have been committed by people who were fans of violent video games. The teenagers responsible for the mass shooting at Columbine—Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold—were fans of Doom.32 Anders Breivik, the individual responsible for the deaths of seventyseven people in Norway, was an avid gamer who claims to have used Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as a training tool in preparation for his attacks.33 But there are also clearly cases of mass shootings that seem to have little to do with violent video games. Stephen Paddock killed fifty-eight people who were attending a country music festival in Las Vegas in 2017. While he was a video poker player, no one suggests that this might be to blame. What does the empirical evidence say about the effects of violent video games on players? The possibility of a relationship between violent video games and aggressive attitudes, aggressive behaviors, and real-world violence has been widely studied and hotly debated among researchers in the social sciences. There currently exists a quite extensive literature on the topic spanning diverse fields, such as psychology, criminology, and economics. While it is not my intention to offer an exhaustive review of the literature here, I will highlight a few studies that have been influential on my own thinking.34 The American Psychological Association’s most recent “Resolution on Violent Video Games” cites numerous studies that demonstrate a link between playing violent video games and various forms of aggression.35 However, the APA Resolution also contains two caveats. First, we should not confuse “aggression” with “violence.” While violence typically involves some form of aggression, mere aggression need not lead to violence. Second, it is important to acknowledge that there is considerable dispute among psychologists about how the effects of violent video games should be interpreted. For instance, much research in this

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area has been able to demonstrate that playing violent games increases the player’s physiological arousal—that is, playing a violent video game increases heart rate and blood pressure.36 But this is not surprising. The fact that games increase the player’s heart rate and blood pressure demonstrates nothing more than that the player finds the game to be exciting.37 Nor is this fact worrying. The physiological arousal associated with playing a video game is only short-lived. The same could be said about playing soccer or football. It would be more worrying if players exhibited heightened aggression long after their engagement with the game was over. But the available longitudinal studies offer only inconsistent support for evidence of any long-term effects.38 There are a number of studies available that cite evidence in support of the claim that violent video games are linked to aggressive thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors—but again the effects appear to be short-lived. In a review of the literature by Christopher Barlett, Craig Anderson, and Edward Swing, they argue that games could have long-term effects on players. They suggest that the positive and negative effects of playing video games should be situated within an understanding of behavior known as the General Learning Model.39 To summarize the basic point, patterns of behavior are learned, and they are not learned in a vacuum. Behaviors are learned against a backdrop of other contributing factors, both environmental and personal. One’s own feelings, thoughts, and state of physiological arousal can contribute to or inhibit one’s capacity to learn. Certainly, video games have some impact on the player’s feelings, thoughts, and physiological arousal. Players may feel excitement, frustration, or that unique sense of flow when they are playing well. Players think about strategies, storylines, and the contents of their inventories. And players physiologically respond with racing hearts, gritted teeth, and sweaty palms. If games did not provoke such effects, then we would not play them. With this background, the worry according to Barlett, Anderson, and Swing is that players are learning aggressive behaviors while playing games, which could “change the video game player’s personality traits and abilities.”40 In short, aggressive gameplay might produce an increasingly aggressive personality. But, many of the studies that purport to demonstrate a link between violent video games and real-world violence have been called into question. Christopher Ferguson has argued that many studies in this area suffer from issues of internal inconsistency and results that barely achieve significance.41 More worryingly, Ferguson’s analysis would suggest that empirical studies that seem to demonstrate such a link tend to be published at a higher rate than research that shows no evidence of a link—meaning that pro-link studies may benefit from publication bias.42 Instead of seeing a link where playing a violent video

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game leads to heightened aggression, Ferguson suggests that the relationship between violent video game content and aggression could be best described as reverse causation: it is not that violent video games cause people to commit acts of real-world violence, but rather it is that people who are already prone to committing acts of real-world violence prefer and tend to seek out games that satisfy their violent streak.43 In fact, one study lead by Ferguson suggests that the people who play violent video games and then go on to commit crimes typically fit a certain profile: they tend to be male, come from broken homes, and have already exhibited aggressive and antisocial behaviors.44 Such individuals likely interpret the world to be a hostile and violent place—a place that forces them to put up an aggressive front just in order to survive. When such people look for entertainment, it seems likely that they would gravitate toward that which confirms their hostile worldview. Violent games do not make players aggressive, but rather aggressive players tend to select violent games. This too should come as no surprise: hardened criminals do not play LittleBigPlanet. Instead of being a cause of real-world violence, Ferguson suggests that violent video games may act only as a stylistic catalyst for real-world violence: When an individual high in violence proneness decides to act violently, this person may then model violence that he or she has seen in the media. As such, the style or form of violence may be socially modeled but not the desire to act violently itself. Thus, an individual may model violent behaviors he or she has witnessed in a video game, but had that video game been removed from that individual’s sphere of modeling opportunities, the violence would still occur in another form. Therefore, video game violence does not cause violent behavior but may have an impact on its form.45

What does all of this mean for consequentialism? It means that we cannot condemn violence in video games unless we can show that the risks outweigh the possible benefits, and it is entirely uncertain whether that is the case. The benefits of playing video games—even violent ones—are considerably high. The video game industry is a multibillion dollar industry. Millions of players spend billions of hours each year playing video games. Surely, this means that an awful lot of pleasure is generated by video games, which is an incalculably large benefit. Schulzke argues that if our consequentialist calculation must balance the inconclusive empirical data against the definitive economic data, then the consequentialist would likely conclude that gaming is an overall benefit to society.46 Additionally, McCormick has observed that we seem to be willing to tolerate many acts that increase our risks of harm provided that they offer clear

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benefits. In more detail, McCormick first argues that a consequentialist need not wait and see what actual effects some action will have in the real world before we can say whether the act should be permitted or not. For instance, imagine that Second Amendment activists insist that the right to bear arms in personal self-defense should extend as far as the right to plant landmines in their property. We do not need to wait for widespread landmine usage to be implemented across the United States to recognize that this would be a terrible idea. Instead, we can recognize that some actions are risk increasing—meaning the possibility that some harm would occur would be recognizably greater if the act were performed than if it were not performed. However, even if we thought that the enjoyment of violent media—whether it is video games, movies, or music—increases the risk of harm, we must acknowledge that the threshold for unacceptable risk is fairly high. Sports such as football cause numerous injuries per year, including deaths. Sports fans sometimes riot when their team loses (or even when their team wins). Despite these obvious and known risks, we still allow our children to play football and we do not cancel matches when the fans are known to be rowdy.47 Against this, David Waddington has argued that the consequentialist should condemn violence in video games. Waddington argues that it is not enough for the consequentialist to show that the risks of playing violent games outweigh the benefits of the enjoyment that we might take from them, but rather the consequentialist needs to defend the less stringent claim that “there is a significant possibility that the risks outweigh the benefits.”48 By changing the terms of the debate away from actual negative consequences to the “significant possibility” of negative consequences, Waddington has shifted the burden of proof considerably. On Waddington’s account, the unconfirmed suspicion that some negative consequences are a significant possibility is enough to condemn violent video games. However, Waddington does not rest his argument on mere suspicion. Instead, he offers a provocative defense that employs Karl Popper’s notion of falsifiability.49 Briefly, Popper’s conception of the scientific method emphasizes the role of the falsifiability of theories. Scientists make advances by first proposing a theory and then subjecting that theory to empirical tests. If the theory can be shown to be false, then it is rejected. Following this thought, Waddington points out that the hypothesis that violent video games cause aggression has not yet been falsified. Waddington says: Studies which show no correlation between violent video games and aggression would constitute falsifying evidence for this hypothesis, but according to the

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meta-analytic reviews [authored by Anderson and Bushman (2001), Sherry (2001), and Dill and Dill (1998)], a scant amount of this falsifying evidence has been collected. Since the hypothesis that violent video games cause aggression has not yet been falsified, despite significant testing, and is better tested [than] the opposite hypothesis (namely, that violent video games don’t cause aggression), Popper would suggest that we should prefer it as a basis for action.50

Waddington’s thought here seems to be that the hypothesis that video games cause aggression fares better than the hypothesis that video games don’t cause aggression, because, while neither hypothesis has been falsified, the former hypothesis has been tested more widely than the latter. Therefore, we should regard video games with some caution. As Waddington says: “The notion that violent video games cause aggression is not just a logical possibility—it is a hypothesis that has been tested to some extent . . . . [Thus,] it seems reasonable to hazard, based on available evidence, that violent video games may be risky.”51 However tempting this argument might be, there are two main problems with it. First, in Waddington’s review of the literature, he focuses entirely on empirical studies that confirm the hypothesis that violent video games cause aggression. He does not seem to consider the many studies that either contradict the hypothesis or offer alternative, nonaggressive interpretations of the available data.52 This begins to look like confirmation bias. Second, even though the hypothesis that violent video games cause aggression has not been falsified, it is not clear that the empirical evidence shows that the potential for negative consequences are a significant possibility. As discussed earlier, the empirical evidence tends to show that any negative consequences are either short-lived or are no more significant than the negative consequences associated with contact sports, or are dependent on external factors that are not intrinsic to gaming. Finally, I am highly skeptical that Popper would think we should act on the hypothesis that violent video games cause aggression. While the hypothesis has not yet been falsified, other less drastic hypotheses have not yet been falsified either. When it comes to action in the form of public policy, I think Popper would be more cautious and less willing to act harshly, and so should we. Overall, consequentialism is unverified. The evidence to support the claim that violent video games cause aggression is not overwhelming, and we can tell a plausible story that accounts for the empirical evidence while also denying the aggression hypothesis following Ferguson. When we further consider that the possible limitations on individuals’ civil liberties would be a severe cause of harm—a harm which must also be included in our consequentialist calculation

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of risks and benefits—then it would seem that consequentialism should show little concern for the virtual actions of gamers.

3.2.2 The Limits of Deontology Kant’s Categorical Imperative tells us how we ought to treat other people, but not how we should treat digital representations of people. People should not be physically harmed because all people are an end in themselves and to physically harm someone is to treat that person as a mere means to an end. By physically harming someone, we disrespect them and deny their humanity. But as already discussed, the obvious problem is that digital representations of people are not people—they are not autonomous rational beings who are ends in themselves. As such, it is not possible to disrespect their humanity.53 When I control John Marston and tie one of the residents of Blackwater to the railroad tracks in Red Dead Redemption, you could accuse me of denying the humanity of those virtual people and disrespectfully treating them as a mere means to an end—which I accept! The residents of Blackwater (and NPCs in all video games) are only fictional representations of people. So, Kant’s Categorical Imperative does not directly apply to them. McCormick suggests that the best that the Kantian can do is to think of our treatment of virtual beings as analogous to our treatment of animals. Kant believed that we have no “direct duties” to animals as they “are not self-conscious and are there merely as a means to an end.”54 Despite their lack of humanity, Kant still believed that we should not needlessly harm animals, but only because we have an indirect duty to treat animals with respect. On Kant’s account, we should not take a callous attitude toward harming animals because our cruel treatment of them may spill over into our treatment of fellow humans. To treat animals cruelly, we must harden our hearts. As Kant says, “he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.”55 McCormick considers the possibility that we might develop this view into an analogous account of video game ethics. We should avoid harming virtual representations of people, not because we have any sort of genuine moral duty toward mere representations, but because our indifference toward imaginary cruelty may erode our concern for real cruelty.56 However, after considering this proposal, McCormick later dismisses it.57 This Kantian argument is nothing more than the familiar argument that we have come to expect from critics of violent video games: our virtual actions can somehow contaminate our real-world lives.58 McCormick rightly says that, if this were so, then we should be able to locate some empirical evidence to support

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it.59 So, deontological criticisms of video games are left in the same situation as consequentialist criticisms: the empirical evidence does not support the claim that violent games truly do erode our concern for real-world suffering. At least, that is what we should say about single-player games where the virtual people who are the victims of my violent outbursts are NPCs. However, when we are talking about multiplayer games, the story is very different. When I am playing World of Warcraft and the virtual people who I interact with are avatars of other players, then certain moral duties genuinely do arise as according to the Categorical Imperative. McCormick makes the point that we have a duty to other players to be a good sport.60 A poor sport is one who demeans their opponent either by gloating when they win or by throwing a tantrum when they lose. The poor sport treats their opponents merely as a means to an end, where the end is winning the game. As McCormick says, “The bad sport is too selffocused, wallowing in self-pity over a loss, or gloating in arrogance over a win, and refuses to consider the opponent’s perspective. Being a bad sport is wrong for Kant because it is disrespectful of one’s opponents as ends in themselves.”61 This is true for all games, not just video games.62 However, McCormick also suggests that the anonymity of playing online can make it difficult to see other players as people.63 So perhaps poor sportsmanship is a greater concern in video games than in many other games because of the technology of online gaming. Others have argued on Kantian grounds that some virtual murders in multiplayer games are morally wrong, though not for reasons having to do with sportsmanship. Helen Ryland claims that virtual murders in multiplayer games are morally wrong when the victim—the player whose avatar has been murdered—has been put in a position where they could not have tacitly given consent to the murder.64 Players tacitly consent to be virtually murdered when they enter a gamespace knowing that acts of virtual murder are permitted within the game. However, Ryland contends that there are cases where players do not give their tacit consent to abide by the social conventions of the game. For instance, “team killing murders” are cases where a player is invited to join a group of players to complete a quest, but is then murdered by the group once the quest is complete.65 In such cases, the murder of one’s character may be possible, but the victim has been lead to believe that members of the group have agreed to suspend the social convention that allows for virtual murder. In such cases, Ryland says, the victim has been exploited.66 By identifying virtual multiplayer murders as forms of exploitation, Ryland offers us a stronger way of morally criticizing such actions, as exploitation is a clearly moral concept while sportsmanship is not.67

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To put this in context, think again of the World of Warcraft funeral raid, when one rival guild raided the memorial ceremony of another guild and slaughtered the unarmed guests. A Kantian account would unambiguously find this to be morally unacceptable either for reasons of a lack of sportsmanship or as an instance of exploitation. In this case, the Horde—the guild who was attacked— had made their intentions clear to hold a memorial ceremony for their lost teammate. Effectively, they had signaled that they were leaving the “magic circle” of the game. When the guild members of Serenity Now attacked, they were plainly taking advantage. In this instance, the avatars within the game world stand for real-life people, to whom a competitor owes the respect of sportsmanship and ought not to exploit. The individuals who were attacked were wronged because they were treated as a means to an end. Even when competitors only have contact with each other through the anonymizing platform of an MMORPG, they still owe each other respect. However, the main point to notice here is that the moral duty to demonstrate respect only arises because of our interaction with other people.68 It is not possible on a Kantian account to disrespect an NPC. As previously noted, NPCs lack humanity and therefore are undeserving of Kantian respect. In the end, deontology is a theory with limited application in the virtual world. We can make sense of our moral duty to other players in multiplayer games on Kant’s view as we can be held morally responsible for neglecting our duties to other people. But it is difficult to see how we might apply Kant’s theory to single-player games. Absent any empirical evidence demonstrating that virtual violence really can erode our concern for real-world violence, a Kantian criticism of violent games is at best incomplete.

3.2.3 Virtue Ethics and Video Games Virtue ethics gains some initially plausibility because it does not require us to equate moral harms with consequentialist outcomes or deontological duties to others. Both consequentialism and deontology depend on the empirical demonstration that real-world harm comes from our enjoyment of video games—through either a significant increase in aggressive thoughts and behaviors or an erosion of our concern for actual violence. The empirical evidence does not currently support either of these points. However, the virtue ethicists may remain unfazed even in the face of such inconclusive empirical evidence. The harm done to my moral character from the cultivation of vices may not be easily detectable—at least, not in ways that would satisfy consequentialists

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or deontologists—and yet, this is still a real form of harm. Additionally, while consequentialism and deontology are other-directed theories—that is, they both seek to explain the nature of our duties to other people—virtue ethics is selfdirected—the focus is instead on bettering ourselves.69 Even if the enjoyment of violent video games does not cause harms that involve others, it may be the case that such enjoyment harms the player. To remind the reader, the purpose of living a moral life for the virtue ethicist is to cultivate a virtuous moral character; the virtues are behavioral dispositions that aim for a middle path between two extremes, and we must develop the virtues through practice. When I give in to one of the extremes in my behavior, I am cultivating a vicious moral character. And when I constrain my extreme tendencies by employing reason and aim instead for a middle path, I am cultivating a virtuous moral character. Regarding violent video games, the virtue ethicists might worry that we are not cultivating the right sort of moral character when we indulge in fantasies of excessive violence. Put simply, if we practice being angry, then we will become angry people. And an angry person is not a happy and fulfilled person. When playing a violent video game, perhaps we are training ourselves to live in a world that makes us fundamentally unequipped to live in our actual world. Think of the experience of playing a postapocalyptic first-person-shooter, a game in which the hostile environment forces me to make harsh moral choices. Obviously, this is not the world that I actually live in. Perhaps when I practice making moral decisions in a harsh postapocalyptic world, I am in fact diminishing my ability to make well-balanced moral decisions in my actual world. Or if that sounds too strong, we might instead think that practicing making moral decisions in a postapocalyptic world robs me of the opportunity to practice making moral decisions in the real world. So the virtue ethicist need not worry that playing a violent game will make it easier for us to commit real-world acts of cruelty, but may instead worry that it will be harder for us to develop real-world virtues. As McCormick puts it, by playing violent video games, “you do harm to yourself in that you erode your virtue, and you distance yourself from your goal of eudaimonia.”70 Virtue ethics may be the best hope we have for justifying the moral criticism of video games, but it certainly still has some problems. In Schulzke’s defense of violent video games, he first rejects both consequentialism and deontology as offering a useful groundwork for the moral criticism of games. However, Schulzke claims that a virtue ethicist should be somewhat in favor of violent video games. Playing violent video games is not all bad, morally speaking, as games could offer players a means to develop certain Aristotelian virtues.

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Schulzke reminds us that Aristotle was not opposed to violence as such, but rather only to “violence that is irreconcilable with virtue.”71 Schulzke notes that courage is the sort of virtue that is best exemplified in war, which is a point that Aristotle seems comfortable with as he once used the example of a soldier going into battle as an illustration of courage. So, Schulzke suggests that Aristotle might in fact be rather supportive of video games that offer moral choices. If virtues must be developed in practice, then moral-choice games might offer an excellent tool for such practice.72 However, there are four things to notice about Schulzke’s argument. First, and to be clear, Schulzke’s argument is not a rejection of virtue ethics. Instead, he offers an account of how a virtue ethicist might assess violent video games. Schulzke’s point that moral-choice games might offer players the means to practice the virtues only make sense if we have already adopted a virtue ethics perspective, at least broadly speaking. So what Schulzke offers should in fact be viewed either as a limited defense of virtue ethics or at least as consistent with virtue ethics. Second, if Schulzke is right that violent video games can offer one way to develop some virtues, then we should acknowledge that the argument cuts both ways: surely, they must also offer a way to develop some vices too. It would be quite mysterious why one could only develop virtues through video games, but never any vices. Third, is Schulzke right that Aristotle would be in support of moral-choice video games? I suspect that Schulzke has overstated Aristotle’s likely appreciation. Aristotle would be impressed by moral-choice games only if players made the right moral choices for the right reasons. There is no sense in which Aristotle would approve of the moral choices that players are forced to make in Grand Theft Auto where the options are sometimes between “bad” and “worse.” Finally, Schulzke’s defense of violence in video games hinges on the idea that some Aristotelian virtues can be meaningfully developed by playing a video game. However, the question is, which virtues precisely? It is not possible to develop courage by playing a video game because the player is never really in danger. It does not take courage for the player to guide their avatar through a virtual battlefield, not when the player knows that they can respawn or return to an earlier save-point. Think of how obnoxious it would be to say, “I know what it is like to be a soldier, I’ve played Call of Duty!” That being said, we can concede that a player can learn positive moral lessons about violence from playing some video games—a game like Spec Ops: The Line73 might be one example. At a certain point in Spec Ops: The Line, the player is forced to consider why they are enjoying playing a violent game. It is an interesting and powerful moment of self-reflection. But whatever positive moral lesson the player takes

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from such self-reflection, it seems unlikely that the lesson will be reinforced by playing hundreds of hours more of other violent games. Are there really that many Aristotelian virtues to be gained from playing so many violent games? Perhaps the problem is that the games we currently play are not particularly good tools for the cultivation of virtues. Perhaps future games will do a better job of this.74 But the main point is this: If you think that violent games can be an effective tool for learning positive moral lessons or developing some Aristotelian virtues, then you are thinking like a virtue ethicist. Garry Young has offered a more critical assessment of virtue ethics. Whether an individual develops a particular virtue or not depends in large part on the individual’s environment. I will not develop the virtue of courage if I live in a time of perpetual peace, nor would I develop the virtue of charity if I live in a place where no one is ever in need. Our development of virtues is responsive to the needs of our environment. With this in mind, Young points out that virtual worlds are distinct spaces from the actual world, and it might be that we develop one set of virtues in our virtual interactions and another set of virtues in our real-world interactions.75 Each game creates its own set of values, and thereby defines what counts as a virtue and what counts as a vice. What counts as a virtue in one space might be a vice in another. In some game world, it may be a virtue to be a Nietzschean übermensch who takes whatever he wants through overwhelming force.76 The player adapts to the values of the game and yet, by keeping firm about the distinction between the real world and the virtual world, avoids allowing one set of virtues to contaminate the other. So, according to Young, “whether my behavior within gamespace is held to be virtuous or not is irrelevant to its compatibility with what is typically thought of as virtuous in the actual world.”77 Moreover, Young’s account suggests an easy explanation of why players who engage in cruel acts in a game world that they would never condone in reality are untroubled by their virtual actions: because they have developed distinct sets of values for each world. Like Schulzke, Young does not reject the idea that virtues can be developed in response to our engagement with video games, but instead offers a sophisticated view of game morality where the player develops a set of in-game virtues that are constrained to the world of the game. It is not that the moral values of the game are limited to the rules enshrined in the game code, but that the moral values of the game are set by the fictional values of the game world. This sets up an interesting challenge for the virtue ethicist: if an action is held to be virtuous within some gamespace, then we should not criticize that action using a moral standard that is external to the standards of that gamespace.78 The tactic that Young employs

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here draws on the idea that games are separate from reality—as discussed in the previous chapter—however, Young’s argument avoids the criticisms of the separation thesis that was previously offered. If the player is genuinely able to develop distinct virtues (or vices) that are employed only in specific gamespaces, and never in their real lives, then this may be all the separation between games and reality that we need. Ultimately, Young’s point is that the moral criticism of a player’s virtual actions can be defused: no action in a video game can be realworld morally wrong if all we develop are fictional-world virtues and vices. Of course, not all permitted fictional actions in a video game are morally virtuous within that gamespace. For instance, if I have John Marston hogtie a villager to the railroad tracks in Red Dead Redemption, this is not an in-game moral virtue. It is still a vicious action even within the moral system of Red Dead Redemption. But this should not matter to our real-world morality according to Young. If the player is able to construct a distinct moral system that they apply only in the world of the game, then it should not matter whether that moral system is a virtuous one or a vicious one. Any particular fictional action may be in-gamevirtuous or in-game-vicious, but either way they are real-world-irrelevant. Meeting the challenge of defending virtue ethics against Young’s criticisms will take some work. In fact, making good on that defense will be the task of Chapters 4 and 5. In Chapter 4, I argue that players’ moral choices in video games are not as separate as Young’s account would lead us to believe. As we saw, Young holds that players adapt to the moral demands of different gamespaces, against which I will argue that players identify with the moral choices that they make in games in ways that opens them up to moral responsibility. Players may develop fictional moral systems to deal with the choices and situations that games force upon them, but that does not preclude the possibility that players’ moral choices are sometimes a genuine reflection of their real-world moral thinking. Then, in Chapter 5, I offer an account of the moral wrongness of fictional actions within a video game that meets the challenges set up by Young. In opposition to Young, I argue that we can harm our real-world moral character through performing acts of violence in video games. Specifically, we harm our moral character when our virtual actions serve to cultivate immoral desires that we actually possess. On my account, it is morally wrong to fantasize about immoral things that we really desire, and video games often serve as fantasies for players. However, this point cannot be fully appreciated until we first identify which virtual actions are genuinely morally problematic. It is to this topic that we should turn next.

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Free Will, Motivation, and the Limits of Moral Criticism1

The goal of this chapter is to identify which actions players can be held responsible for. Not all in-game actions should morally worry us. In Chapter 1, I stipulated that the kind of in-game actions that we are interested in are ones that are fictional, willful, and malicious. These in-game actions are interesting because they potentially say something about the player. But we need to be careful here not to leave this thought merely at the level of innuendo. “Your in-game actions say something about you” is an empty statement unless we can back it up with an explanation of why we should take a player’s in-game actions seriously and what your actions could possibly say about you. Now is the time to look at these ideas more closely, and specifically at the concept of the willful. By doing so, we will also address the first part of Young’s challenge to virtue ethics: Do gamers employ their own moral sensibilities and decision-making skills when choosing their gaming actions, or do gamers employ “fictional moralities”? The answer to this, I argue, will depend on how we think about moral responsibility regarding the players’ willful in-game actions. First, consider the related notion of voluntary actions. Many people share the intuition that an individual can only be held morally responsible for their voluntary actions—or, to put it another way, it seems wrong to hold someone accountable for an action that they had no control over. There might be exceptions to this rule, but for the most part it seems like a good rule. When we look at video games, we should immediately recognize that very few of our in-game actions are genuinely voluntary. Some games offer a greater sense of freedom than others. Minecraft is an open-world sandbox where players mine for resources that they can then use to build whatever structures in the game they wish. By contrast, Max Payne 3 is a third-person shooter that follows a rigidly linear storyline.2 Players progress from one battle to the next in a fixed

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narrative. In some games, players are given the freedom to decide in what order certain missions should be completed, while in most games, players are at least given the freedom to decide exactly how a certain battle will be fought. Even when a battle is a highly predictable set-piece—there are three bad guys in the room that have pinned Max Payne down and the player needs to shoot all of them before proceeding—games still give players the space to fill out the details of exactly how the battle unfolds. The important point, however, is that players often cannot choose whether to let the bad guys live or die. Instead, the player may only choose exactly how to kill the bad guys. On the whole, it seems like many of my in-game actions are not genuinely chosen. In this chapter, I want to reconsider the intuition that we can only be held morally responsible for things that we voluntarily choose. In fact, I suspect that this intuition might be too generous—that is, there might be some cases where a person can be held morally responsible for actions that they did not choose. I will reconsider these ideas by looking at one important philosophical debate about the nature of free will and moral responsibility. Are gamers genuinely free to make their own moral choices in video games? Is our freedom to make moral choices constrained in a morally relevant way in video games? The answers to these questions depend partly on whether players have genuine free will within video game worlds. In what follows, I will first describe the problem of free will and moral responsibility, and Harry Frankfurt’s account of compatibilism.3 I will then examine how Frankfurt’s compatibilist account can be fruitfully applied to moral choices in video games. In the end, we will find that, under the right conditions, our actions in games—both voluntary and involuntary—can tell us something about the player’s values and moral psychology.

4.1 The Limits of Virtual Choice The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim4 is an enormous game. With numerous cities, landscapes, and deep, dark places to explore and side quests to complete, the game is simply overwhelming. Players of Skyrim can easily spend over one hundred hours playing the game without making much progress in the main storyline. Additionally, the many ways in which the player can develop her player-character are mind-boggling. At the beginning of the game, the player is asked to select the race, gender, and physical appearance of the main character.

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Most fantasy RPG’s also require the player to select the character’s class at this point, which then pigeonholes the player into being a fighter, thief, mage, or whatever from the start. However, Skyrim departs from this convention. Instead of selecting one’s class at the beginning, the player is free to develop her fighting style has she plays, which offers even more freedom to choose exactly how to develop the player-character in response to the circumstances that one finds in the game. It seems like open-world games offer the player a considerable degree of choice, but it is also obvious that the player’s choices are not unlimited. For instance, Skyrim allows the player to wander the countryside at will, murder innocent civilians, and steal anything that is not nailed down. But the player cannot become a pacifist, or pursue a scientific study of the biology of frostbite spiders, or give up the adventuring life and open a bed and breakfast in Whiterun. Obviously, the reason for such limitations simply has to do with the technological limitations—there is only so much that can be programmed into the game. The degree of choice that the player is afforded in such games may be immense, but it has its limits. This raises important questions. With so many choices at my fingertips in Skyrim, including moral choices, am I somehow morally responsible for my in-game actions? Or are the limitations on my choices significant enough to distance me from moral responsibility? Of course, we should recognize that games like Skyrim are exceptional cases that offer a wide range of choices. Many games offer very little significant choice or none at all. For instance, in BioShock Infinite5 the protagonist is drawn into a battle between the fascist Founders and the rebel Vox Populi. However, by traveling through alternative realities, the player is required to fight on both sides of this conflict at different times. The player is never given the choice to align herself with one side or the other permanently (and certainly, the game makes it difficult to choose a side when the circumstances of the realities change dramatically). When I have no choices, or if none of the choices that I am given are what I really want to do, then how can I be held morally responsible for my actions?

4.2 Free Will and Determinism Let us start with a brief discussion of why philosophers are interested in free will and why it would be relevant to our understanding of morality. Does anyone ever act freely? Or are our actions somehow predetermined? These questions

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have concerned philosophers for millennia because they cut to the heart of some of the deepest concerns about our existence. Are we really in control? If we are not, then who (or what) is pulling the strings? And, can I really be held morally responsible for the things that I do if I am not in control of my own actions? While this is not the right place to examine these issues in detail, a broad outline will be helpful.6 Imagine that the past is an unbreakable chain of events that extends back in time from the present moment all the way to the very origins of the universe. The past is one enormously complex chain of events that leads up to this very moment and, more importantly, that chain of events cannot be changed. There are no alternative “pasts,” there is only one. The past is rigid, and no amount of willing that things were otherwise can change the past. We could say that the past is “determined.” What about the future? Is it also one unbreakable chain of events stretching forever onward ahead of us—that is, is the future also determined? Or, is the future made up of an infinite number of chains that lead in an infinite number of different possible directions? Free will is often broadly defined as the ability to choose to do otherwise. Against this, determinism can be thought of as a certain lack of this ability. If the future is structured like the past as one unbreakable chain of events, then no one can genuinely choose to do something other than they are predetermined to do. Alternatively, a person only has free will if she could have chosen to do otherwise—that is, if there genuinely were alternative choices available to the individual and it is within their ability to freely, willfully select some of those possibilities. Of course, there are some things that are genuinely impossible for me to choose—for instance, I cannot choose to turn into a dragon—but the fact that my choices are limited in this respect does not constitute a lack of free will. Setting aside my inability to choose the impossible, I have free will if I have the ability to choose among possible options that are genuinely available to me. Some philosophers believe that the future is structurally just like the past: the history of the universe is one unbreakable chain of predetermined events stretching in both directions, past and future. These philosophers—called determinists—might offer a few different reasons to explain why we should abandon our belief in free will. Some philosophers, driven by a religious belief in the existence of an all-knowing god, might insist that the future must be known to that god. Theological determinism in its simplest form presents us with a dichotomy: if an all-knowing god knows our future, then our future is already determined; on the other hand, if this god does not know what the future holds,

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then it is not “all-knowing.” Ultimately, the question here is, can your god be surprised? One way to avoid the puzzle is to simply deny that any gods are allknowing. But that is not an option for many religious people. If you want to believe in an all-knowing god, then you have to worry about whether or not it knows your future. Of course, atheists do not need to worry about this theological problem: if there are no gods, then there can be no all-knowing gods. But then atheists have another version of determinism to worry about. Physical determinism is the idea that we can explain everything that happens in the universe by appealing to nothing more than the causal laws of physics and that those laws form a “closed system”—that is, the only forces in the universe that have any causal effect are forces that can be explained in purely physical terms within the system. The past is a fixed chain of events, which can be described entirely in terms of the physical laws of cause and effect. And this includes our actions as well. We are simply physical beings that are caught in the tide of cause and effect just like all other physical things. Free will is often conceived of as some causal force that operates independently from the laws of physics. If that were true, then there would be two forces that control events in the world: the purely physical forces of cause and effect and the willful actions of beings like us. The problem here comes down to whether we can make sense of the idea that there is some force in the world that is free from the physical laws of cause and effect and yet is still able to have a causal influence on the physical world.7 If the laws of physics form a closed system, then there can be no other causal influence in the world other than the laws of physics. But then, if our actions are fully determined through application of physical laws, there can be no room for free will to have any causal influence in the world. If this is correct, then we never freely, willfully choose anything. All of our actions would be determined by the causal laws of physics, not by our willful choice to act. Being caught in the tide of cause and effect means that we are just along for the ride. It might feel like we make decisions. But the physical determinist will simply point out that appealing to what it feels like to make a decision does not solve the problem. If we live in a deterministic world, then we may feel like we are in control, even when we actually are not. It is not my intention here to try to defend one particular view of free will. Instead, the earlier description is merely intended to identify what the problem is. A more interesting concern, for our purposes, is to think about the moral consequences of determinism.

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4.3 Free Will and Moral Responsibility We saw previously that there is a widely held intuition that, when it comes to moral responsibilities, we cannot hold an individual responsible for an event that they had no control over. My moral responsibilities only extend as far as acts that I willingly commit or duties that I willingly neglect. For instance, if lightning hits the tree in my yard and the tree then topples over and crushes your car, I cannot be held morally responsible for the damage to your car. The damage to your car had nothing to do with any choice of mine—I neither willfully damaged your car nor did I neglect some duty to protect your car—so I cannot be held responsible. Even your car insurance company would likely chalk the event up to an “act of god,” for which neither you nor I can be held responsible. Now, suppose for a moment that some version of determinism is true: either there really does exist an all-knowing god that knows everything that we will do in the future, or the laws of physics are a closed system and are capable of fully explaining every observable event. Either way, no genuine alternatives are available for us to choose from. In that case, can we ever be held morally responsible for any of our actions or behaviors? If determinism is true, then it would seem to follow as a natural consequence that we cannot be morally responsible for our actions. This consequence would be a terrible blow to our understanding of morality because one of the fundamental concepts—the concept of moral responsibility— would need to be abandoned. All that we would be left with is cruel fate: if I am destined to steal your car tomorrow and it is beyond my control to choose to do otherwise, then how can you blame me? I am simply caught in the tide of fate just like you. Yet, some philosophers argue that even if determinism is true, we can still be held morally responsible, at least for some of our actions. This is a debate between so-called “compatibilists” and “incompatibilists.” Incompatibilism is the straightforward belief that if determinism is true, then moral responsibility is impossible, in just the way that I previously described. Alternatively, compatibilism is the belief that one can still be held morally responsible for one’s actions even though determinism is true—that is, moral responsibility is compatible with determinism. Compatibilism is not an easy or intuitive belief to hold.8 For one thing, it seems to demand that we give up on the intuition that individuals can only be held responsible for the actions that they willing undertake. So, for compatibilism to make sense, we need a good explanation of how it is that an individual can be held responsible for an action that they did not and could not choose. There are

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many different versions of compatibilism that have been the subject of much debate; but I want to focus on one particularly interesting version, namely Harry Frankfurt’s account. Frankfurt’s account of moral responsibility is officially neutral about whether or not determinism is true.9 But for the sake of argument, let us suppose that it is true—that we really have no free will. In that case, how can one be held morally responsible for one’s actions within a deterministic world? Frankfurt first says that we should distinguish between the freedom to act and the freedom to will: even if our actions are predetermined, our will is not.10 A person can willfully choose to want something even if that person cannot willfully act on that wanting. On this account, our free will does not allow us to choose how we act. Instead, it allows us to choose whether our actions are what we want. Frankfurt suggests that I can choose whether or not I identify myself with my actions even if my actions are predetermined. As illustration, Frankfurt offers the example of the unwilling drug addict, a person whose physical desire for a drug drives them to act in certain ways, but whose will is to act in other ways. This is a person who does not identify themselves with their actions. Their will is to avoid taking drugs, but they act in accordance with their physical addiction. Whether or not you find this example to be convincing, I believe that Frankfurt does point to a kind of experience that most people would be familiar with: the experience of feeling detached from ourselves, of feeling like we are out of control of our actions, of being consciously aware that we do not want to be a part of what we are doing and yet feeling like we are unable to stop. Sometimes we might find ourselves doing things that we think are uncharacteristic of ourselves—for instance, joining a group of friends in gossiping about a very close friend—or we might find ourselves doing things that we wish we would not do—for instance, shouting at a loved one who we do not genuinely wish to hurt. Think of those moments when you get swept up by the crowd and you participate in some event even while thinking to yourself, “This isn’t me.” According to Frankfurt, these are cases—regardless of how rare they might be—where our actions and our will come apart. Frankfurt’s account might seem like a shallow form of free will—and compared to the freedom to act, the freedom to choose what we want is shallow—but his point is that this freedom is sufficient to secure our moral responsibility. When we act with a free will in Frankfurt’s sense, we are doing exactly what we would do even if our actions were not predetermined.11 There would be no difference between the freely willed actions of an agent in a deterministic universe and the free actions of an agent in an indeterministic universe.

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Finally, an important point to observe in Frankfurt’s account is that our freedom to will is intimately connected to the concept of a person and ultimately also to our development of a sense of self. Part of what makes us human—part of what is “essential to being a person”—is our capacity to will.12 Our sense of self is partly constituted by our will, by an agent’s capacity to want and desire certain things even if those things are beyond our control to attain. Even if all of my actions are somehow predetermined, I can choose whether or not I identify myself with those actions. And that is all that is needed for genuine moral responsibility. Most of the time, I identify myself with my actions. But sometimes I do not. When my actions correspond with my will, we can say that my actions are my responsibility, that I can be held morally responsible for those actions.13 This is an intriguing proposal as an analysis of the problem of free will, even if it is not a widely accepted one.14 But that should not concern us. Regardless of whether Frankfurt’s theory offers us a helpful way of thinking about moral responsibility in reality, his theory seems to fit in the case of video games superbly.

4.4 Frankfurt’s Compatibilism in the Game World Many violent and immoral acts that players commit in video games are not freely chosen by the player. Video game worlds are highly deterministic, at least when we are talking about the main storyline of the game. The Grand Theft Auto games offer some excellent examples here. I will focus on two. In Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko Bellic undertakes the non-optional mission to help the Irish mob rob a bank—the “Three Leaf Clover” mission. Predictably, the robbery goes badly. When the police show up, Niko is required to shoot his way out in order to make his escape. However it is played, the mission is chaotic and scores of police officers are killed in the gunfight. When I first played through this mission, I was horrified. I felt awful about shooting police officers, even if I was merely pretending to shoot at virtual representations of police officers. The first time I played through this mission, I only lasted a few minutes before my character was killed. The reason why I played so poorly is because I refused to shoot at the police! I tried to sneak out of the fight without firing a shot. I quickly realized that this strategy was not an option. To complete the mission, I had to lead my gang members to safety, and they were not willing to go quietly. So, if I wanted to complete the game, then I had to resign myself to the fact that I had to shoot my way out. It took me a

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few attempts to finally complete the mission—the gang members that I had to protect kept stupidly running into harm’s way—but finally, I did it. Adopting a popular strategy, I threw grenades under the police cars and then aimed for headshots (usually unsuccessfully) from behind cover in the ensuing confusion. I felt deeply uncomfortable about shooting police officers in GTA IV. But am I morally responsible for the virtual murders that I committed in that mission? According to Frankfurt, we must consider two things to answer this question. First, we must consider whether I acted freely when carrying out those murders. Could I have chosen to do otherwise? For obvious reasons, I think not. The mission is a non-optional one. The player must complete the “Three Leaf Clover” mission in order to complete the game. Once players have committed themselves to completing the game, then they must also tacitly commit themselves to completing this mission. Also, it is not possible to control the behavior of the NPC gang members who all too willingly want a fight with the police. So, if completing the game requires the player to complete this mission, and the player cannot complete the mission without killing the police officers, then the player is not given the freedom to act otherwise. Of course, one could simply choose not to complete GTA IV. But that solution does not settle the moral question. My purpose in this chapter is to examine the morality of in-game actions. The interesting question is whether the player is morally responsible somehow for the actions that she performs in the game. But this question only arises when we play the game. If you choose not to play the game, then there are no in-game actions to talk about. Moreover, I suspect that most players refuse to complete a game only when they feel that they have been manipulated or pushed beyond their limits—however far that might be. Most gamers will suffer through a challenging mission for any number of reasons. Some players may push through an uncomfortable mission because the player’s overall enjoyment of the game is still quite high or because the player wishes to see how the game will resolve this difficult mission, or because the player is otherwise invested in the story. While some players will refuse to continue playing a game because of a disturbing mission, many do not. And it is the actions of these gamers that I am interested in explaining. For this reason, I will set aside the option of refusing to play. Given that my actions in the game were nonvoluntary, there is strong reason to believe that I did not act freely. But, according to Frankfurt’s theory, it is still an open question whether I am morally responsible for my actions or not. The second important consideration is, do I identify myself with those actions? Did I carry out those actions because they were what I wanted to do? In my case, the

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answer was strongly, No. I did not want to carry out that mission. I would have preferred to select some other nonviolent resolution. I was an unwilling player. When I played through that mission, I told myself, “This isn’t me shooting these officers, it is Niko Bellic.” Of course, that rationale is not true strictly speaking. It certainly was me who was pushing the buttons on the controller directing Niko through the killing spree. If I had put down the controller, Niko would have stopped shooting. So, my actions were certainly implicated in the event. But, importantly for Frankfurt, my will was not. I felt truly detached and distant from what was happening. From that detached and distant point of view, my experience of the game had changed. I was not playing the game as myself; instead I was playing the game as Niko. I was able to throw myself into the violence and carry off the mission successfully only because I was directing Niko to behave in a way that I thought was authentic for his character—but those actions where not authentic for me. Further, I could imagine that Niko felt the same way about the mission that I did. On one interpretation of the game, I felt detached and distant from the violence because Niko felt detached and distant at those moments too.15 Niko is being unwillingly sucked into a world of crime that he does not want, and he is being forced to protect his gang members with a sense of guilt and regret that is like my own. On Frankfurt’s account, I cannot be held morally responsible for those murders because Niko’s actions did not reflect my will (and on my interpretation, those actions do not reflect Niko’s will either). Similarly, consider what it is like (for some) to watch a movie or a television series where the protagonist is a “rough hero”16. A “rough hero” is somewhat like an “anti-hero” except that, where an antihero is a flawed character who tries to do good, the rough hero is simply a bad character, but one that the audience still sympathizes with.17 For instance, think of Breaking Bad (2008– 2013). The character of Walter White—a high school chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin—is fascinating to watch. For some viewers, the fascination stems from the sense of dread one feels as Walter get sucked deeper and deeper into a dangerous and dehumanizing world and an appreciation of the tension between Walter’s motives and his methods. One can watch Breaking Bad without endorsing the actions of Walter White, and one could even accept that some of his immoral actions are an authentic expression of his will and his desires. For me, the experience of playing through the “Three Leaf Clover” mission in GTA IV shares some similarities with watching Walter White commit a crime: I am imaginatively witnessing a crime taking place from the point of view of the protagonist, but I do not endorse the protagonist’s actions.18 In fact, I often

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felt frustrated that Walter could not find (or would not look) for some other resolution to his problems. The player who feels distant and detached from Niko and his actions can continue to play GTA IV in the same way that the viewer who does not endorse Walter White’s actions can continue to watch Breaking Bad. By contrast, imagine another player—call him Joe again—who plays through the “Three Leaf Clover” mission and who fully identifies with the actions of Niko. Suppose that Joe hates authority figures, holds a deep resentment toward the police, and has a long history of violent aggression in real life. When Joe plays GTA IV, he directs Niko to shoot the police because this really is what he wants to do in the game. Joe is a willing player.19 It is his will and his desire that Niko should shoot scores of police. In this case, there is no distinction between Joe’s actions and his will: they are the same thing. Insofar as Joe is doing what he wants to do in the game, then Joe can be held morally responsible for his in-game actions according to Frankfurt.20 It is important to notice the similarities and differences between willing players like Joe and unwilling players like me. For both of us, our actions were not freely chosen: we complete the same missions and commit the same acts. Regarding our actions, Joe and I behave in the same way. In fact, we can go further with this idea: imagine that Joe and I employ the same strategy in the game with the same rate of success. Perhaps our performances of the mission are indistinguishable. In that case, both of us play the game with the same level of violence and intensity and we achieve the same results. From the point of view of our actions, we are identical. But importantly, despite our similarities, there is still a morally relevant difference between Joe and I, which is the matter of our wills: Joe is doing what he wants to do in the game, but I am not. Another example, this time from Grand Theft Auto V, will help to illustrate the stark contrast between a willing player and an unwilling player. In this installment of the GTA series, the player is able to switch between three main playable characters: Michael, Franklin, and Trevor. All three characters commit numerous crimes. However, they do so for different reasons within the narrative of the game. Michael and Franklin are motivated partly by a sense of hubris and partly by a desire to build criminal empires for themselves. Trevor, on the other hand, is motivated by darkly sadistic forces. He genuinely enjoys violence for its own sake and shows little remorse when having to commit some of the worst crimes. In one notorious mission—“By the Book”—Trevor is required to torture a bound captive in order to gain information from him at the order of government agents. The methods of torture that the player is asked to choose from—waterboarding, electric shock, tooth extraction—are brutal. The captive

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screams, writhing in pain, tearfully begging for mercy. The mission is also nonoptional. Now consider the difference between a player who unwillingly forces themselves to complete this mission even though they do not want to and a player who willingly, gleefully plays through this mission because it is what he wants to do. The unwilling player feels an uncomfortable sense of conflict—she wants to complete the game, but she does not want to do this. Like watching a movie in which the viewer is made to witness an event that she does not want to witness, the player is carried along by the tide of the deterministic game, genuinely unable to choose to act otherwise. But her freedom to will provides her with a sense of detachment from the actions that her player-character is required to commit. When Trevor tortures his captive in GTA V, Trevor is the monster, not the unwilling player. The unwilling player does little more than witness Trevor’s monstrosity. By contrast, the willing player is not a mere witness to Trevor’s monstrous acts; he also cheers Trevor on. The willing player wants Trevor to act monstrously. He wants the scene to go exactly as it does. The distance between his will and Trevor’s actions breaks down—they are in sympathy. Gamers often defend violence in video games as merely harmless fun that carries no meaning beyond the fictional world of the game. Yet, this mission is deeply uncomfortable for many gamers to play, even some of the most hardened. Frankfurt’s account of free will offers a way to understand that discomfort: in these situations, the player feels a conflict between their freedom to act and their freedom to will. Unwilling players experience a sense of discomfort and yet can still push themselves through this with the knowledge that it is only a game. Willing players, on the other hand, feel no discomfort and may take glee in visualizing their fantasies through the game. I suspect that this distinction is something that most gamers are intuitively familiar with. It is easy to find discussion among gamers in blogs, magazines, and in chatrooms about the discomfort they felt about playing certain missions. Often this leads to much debate: Why did you feel uncomfortable about this mission while I did not? This makes me wonder, how typical is it that players struggle with certain missions— that is, what percentage of players are willing and what percentage are unwilling? Think about a mission like the “No Russian” mission in CoDMW2. Do most players join in on the bloodshed? Or do most players try to avoid shooting the civilians? What percentage of players skip the mission entirely? And what percentage of players gleefully repeat the mission for fun? Unfortunately, I do not have any empirical data on these questions. Despite this, I am willing to hypothesize that the number of unwilling players is quite high—and probably

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in the majority—even if they unwillingly participate in the massacre. This is a reasonable assumption to make when we consider how widely discussed and criticized this mission is. Likely the widespread discussion is because “No Russian” really hit a nerve with many players. The reason why players can be held morally responsible for their actions is the same whether we are talking about voluntary or involuntary actions: in either case, it is the player’s willful identification with those actions that raises the issue of moral responsibility. Because of the deterministic nature of video games, both the willing and the unwilling players are acting involuntarily. But in the end, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary is unimportant. The important distinction is the one between the willing player and the unwilling player. For the willing player, their actions say something about them. The question now is, what exactly do they say?

4.5 Moral Psychology and the Sense of Self If determinism is true in reality, then Frankfurt’s account of free will offers us a way to maintain a belief in the concept of moral responsibility: agents can be held morally responsible for their actions only to the extent that they identify their sense of self with the actions that they perform. But reality is not our concern. In the case of video games, it seems obvious that many of our actions are not freely undertaken. And yet we still have the freedom to identify ourselves with those actions in Frankfurt’s sense. In that case, Frankfurt gives us an excellent way to distinguish between willing and unwilling players. Moreover, the distinction between the willing and unwilling player gives us an answer to what it means to say that our in-game actions say something about us—specifically, whether we are willing or unwilling to perform some in-game action or not says something about our beliefs and values. Some decisions that we make and actions that we perform within games affect us deeply, while other decisions and actions do not. The difference ultimately comes down to the player’s moral psychology. An individual’s moral psychology is made up of all the cognitive apparatus—the concepts, decisionmaking strategies, and heuristics—that are employed in her moral decisionmaking. If an individual knowingly and consistently makes certain decisions that cause a considerable amount of needless suffering among those who are effected by her decisions, then this tendency is likely to be reflected somewhere in her moral psychology. Maybe this decision is due to the way that she

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conceptually misunderstands the relationship between her decisions and the suffering of others, or due to the way that she conceptualizes the value of other peoples’ suffering, or due to some faulty inference that she tends to draw, or due to some conditioned psychological response, or due to a limitation in her capacity to affectively sympathize with the suffering of others. Whatever the case may be, an individual’s moral psychology is the complex web of cognitive factors that play a role in her moral actions and her ability to make morally relevant choices. Video games are fascinating to think about in reference to moral psychology because they raise an important question: What role do fantasies play in an individual’s moral psychology? Can the in-game actions that a player identifies with in a game tell us something relevant about that player’s actual moral psychology? Consider the important role that imagination plays in our moral psychology. Imagination is a powerful human attribute that allows us, for example, to consider counterfactual possibilities, plan for future contingencies, and to simulate how we might feel about certain scenarios and situations if they were to become real. This makes imagination an important tool for moral decision-making. Before making a moral decision, we often imagine how certain scenarios might turn out in order to decide what we can morally live with. This practice suggests that, when we imaginatively run through possible scenarios, we employ our actual moral values, concepts, and sensibilities. As we saw previously, Young suggests that we may possess distinct moral concepts and values that we employ in imagination, which are separate from those that we employ in our real lives.21 But if this were true, then imagination would be a useless tool in moral decision-making. Additionally, our affective and aesthetic responses to works of narrative fiction often depend (in part) on our ability to recognize the moral significance of the events and scenarios that make up the fictional work.22 For instance, we feel outraged by John Marston’s unfair treatment at the hands of the government agents in Red Dead Redemption because we are employing our actual moral conception of fairness. Marston’s mistreatment might be fictional, but our moral response to his treatment is actual. Thus, our moral psychology is employed by our engagement with works of fiction. Remember that an important part of Frankfurt’s conception of free will concerns the way in which individuals maintain a sense of self, the actions that we identify with becoming part of that conception of self. On my interpretation of Frankfurt, our sense of self is partly made up by our moral psychology. In that case, when we identify some action with our sense of self, whether it is fictional or not, it is our actual moral psychology that is being employed in these cases.

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We need not completely deny Young’s idea that we develop distinct moral psychologies to deal with interactive fictions. Instead, we need to understand it in a more nuanced way. I would not deny that players develop fictional moralities that they attribute to the characters of a video game, or that players use those fictional moralities to make decisions in the game on the character’s behalf. This is very common. What I would deny, however, is that this is always the case. Sometimes players make moral decisions from their own point of view, not from that of the fictional character, and the moral decisions that players make in those cases are relevant for understanding the players’ real-world moral values. For illustration, consider again the difference between the willing and the unwilling player. The unwilling player goes through the motions because she has no other genuine options available to her. In playing the “Three Leaf Clover” mission, the unwilling player may think of her actions within the game as being authentic for the character of Niko Bellic, but not authentic for her. In that case, the unwilling player has developed a fictional moral psychology that she attributes to Niko, and she acts within the game in a way that is consistent with Niko’s fictional moral psychology.23 The moral psychology that she develops for Niko does not enter into her own moral psychology. This is part of what it means for the unwilling player to feel detached from Niko’s actions. By contrast, the willing player is acting within the game exactly in the way that he wants to act. The willing player identifies with the actions of Niko because those actions fit in with the willing player’s values. A natural way to explain this is to say that the willing player is making moral choices within the game based on his own actual moral psychology. When playing GTA IV, the unwilling player may be trying to imagine what Niko’s moral psychology is like and to do her best to make moral choices using her fictional sense of morality. But the willing player is not encumbered in the same way.

4.6 Imagining of Oneself and Imagining of Others Before moving on, I will consider one possible objection to the account offered earlier. Potentially one way to diminish the argument here would be to object that there is a distinction between imagining that I am doing something and imagining that some fictional character is doing something. One might hold that the former is morally suspicious while the latter is not. Further one might object that, when playing a video game, I am always engaged in the latter—that is, I always imagine that some fictional character is acting within the game, not that

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I am the one who is acting within the game. Niko Bellic’s morally reprehensible actions do not reflect on me because they are his actions, not mine. The player controls a character whose identity is distinct from that of the player.24 Even in the case of first-person perspective games where the player-character’s identity is underspecified, the protagonist still typically has some background story that distinguishes the identity of the player-character from that of the player. It may be morally questionable for me to fantasize about actually participating in immoral things myself, but that is not what I am doing when playing a video game. Rather, I am imagining that some character who is distinct from myself is performing the action. In this sense, it is very much like passively watching Breaking Bad. This objection holds some plausibility because the distinction is a genuine one and the moral implications different. So, let us consider this in more detail. First, the distinction being invoked is that between imagining de se (“of oneself ”) and imagining de re (“in itself ”).25 The distinction has important applications. When watching a television series like Breaking Bad, the viewer is prompted to imagine that Walter White participates in many immoral and criminal activities. For many viewers, the experience of watching Breaking Bad is multifaceted: the viewer may sympathize with Walter’s plight, and yet refuse to condone his actions. One may emotionally respond to Breaking Bad with a mixture of hope (that Walter succeeds), frustration (at Walter’s stubbornness), horror (at Walter’s indifference and selfishness), amusement (at the banality of the comedic scenes), titillation (toward Walter’s murderous impulses), and satisfaction (when Walter exacts his revenge). Ultimately, and importantly, the viewer may enjoy this complex emotional experience (partly) because of the viewer’s ability to distance herself from the moral implications of Walter’s actions. We can hope that Walter succeeds because his success is not our fault. It is Walter who is in control of his actions and his bad choices and is therefore responsible. The viewer is merely an imaginary witness to those actions. This is an instance of imagining de re—that is, imagining in itself that someone is doing something (which happens to be immoral). Some philosophers have argued that there is nothing morally wrong with imagining de re.26 However, imagining de se is different and potentially open to different problems. Imagining de se is when I imagine that I am doing something (moral, immoral, or whatever), where I am in control of my actions and choices. Whether de se imagining is morally problematic or not is a different matter from that of de re imagining, and the potential problems with imagining de se are especially

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compounded when we consider imagining with enjoyment. For instance, consider the death of Jane in Breaking Bad.27 Jane was the girlfriend of Walter’s partner in his burgeoning drug empire, Jesse Pinkman, yet Walter and Jane are often at odds. Both care about Jesse, but they have differing views of what is best for him. After an important deal nearly goes wrong, Walter withholds a significant payment of money from Jesse. In response, Jane hatches a plan to blackmail Walter, unless Walter pays the money to Jesse. This pushes Walter and Jane from being uncomfortable allies to bitter foes. Later, Walter finds Jesse and Jane asleep after getting high on heroin. Walter unsuccessfully tries to wake Jesse and in the process accidentally rolls Jane onto her back. She vomits and begins to choke. Though Walter could roll her back onto her side and save her, he does nothing and instead merely watches her die. Jane’s death scene is painful to watch, yet it is riveting. The episode in which her death appears has been widely praised by fans and critics. Coming in the penultimate episode of the season, it creates a palpable tension for the viewer. Additionally, the scene exemplifies the complexity of Walter’s intentions: while Walter unintentionally causes Jane to roll onto her back, he also intentionally does not save her.28 Of course, all the praise for that episode is only justifiable because it is fiction. Not only is it fiction, but additionally the typical viewer engages with the work through de re imagining. The viewer can enjoy the complex moral tension of Walter’s participation in Jane’s death because the viewer is a mere observer. But now imagine what this scene would be like if we were to engage in an analogous instance of de se imagining. To make the case analogous, we must consider what it would be like imagine ourselves being in the position of Walter and acting as he did and to enjoy the imagining. While the first point is fairly straightforward, the second point needs some clarification: What would it mean to enjoy the imagining? One could perhaps enjoy imagining inhabiting Walter’s perspective in several ways: a sadist might enjoy watching helpless people suffering, a zealot might enjoy watching a drug addict suffer the consequences of their addiction, or an aesthete might enjoy contemplating the psychological complexity of Walter from the inside. While there may be important differences between these, each shares one feature in common: to enjoy imaginatively participating in the death of a helpless woman requires one to place one’s own reasons for enjoyment above the life of that woman. Even for the aesthete, this is morally problematic. While there is certainly more that could be said about this case, or about the moral implications of imagining de se more generally, the brief outline I have offered here is sufficient for our purposes: de se imagining poses additional challenges to our understanding of the ethics of fiction beyond those of de re imagining.

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What interests us here is how we might apply this distinction to understanding the video game player’s imaginative engagement with games. Should the player’s engagement with a video game count as de re imagining or de se imagining? We might think that this depends on whether the player views the action from the first-person or third-person perspective. Games that feature a first-person perspective might allow the player (or perhaps even intentionally prompt the player) to imagine that it is the player who occupies the avatar’s space within the game. In many ways, players’ imaginative engagement with first-person and third-person games may differ. For instance, Berys Gaut claims that players’ imaginative identification with a player-character may be stronger in cases of first-person games where personal characteristics of the player-character are only minimally specified. Such games “consistently ground a sense that one is directly participating in the fictional world.”29 However, Gaut’s aim is not to argue that imaginative identification only happens under certain conditions—he is somewhat cautious about his claim. Rather, Gaut’s concern is to establish that games allow the player a sense that they are directly participating in the actions and events that take place within the fictional world of the game and that certain factors relating to the design and control of the avatar can impact that experience. Gaut allows that imaginative identification with the player-character can happen for characters that are thickly specified and for games that offer a third-person perspective.30 For instance, think of the way that players identify strongly with their avatars in World of Warcraft. While this is a case where the player can design the avatar themselves—and therefore take greater ownership of it—the point holds even for games where the player does not design their own avatar. It is likely that many players’ appreciation of Red Dead Redemption is partly due to their identification with the character of John Marston—or at least, identification with his plight, the injustice he faces, or his distrust of the government. While this is not an example of identification in the strong sense—players do not think “I am John Marston”—it is still an example of an important form of identification—specifically, the sense that John Marston represents or symbolizes something for the player, something that the player values. It is an identification of values rather than an identification of the self. Still, Gaut’s point is that the player’s imaginative identification with their avatar will likely be stronger in thinly characterized, first-person games. While Gaut is right to be cautious here, I think we need to be a little more cautious. I am unsure whether players feel a greater sense of engagement or participation in first-person games rather than third-person games. In fact, I am not even sure how we might verify that claim. If it were true that one is

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more engaging than the other, then we might expect one to dominate the other in game sales; yet it is clear that both first- and third-person games are being produced and are commercially successful. It is likely that game developers select one sort of perspective rather than the other depending on the kind of story that the developer wants to tell or the kind of experience that the developer wants to provide. Ultimately, we do not need to settle this debate. In fact, I suggest that it is a distraction. Our primary concern is the ethics of imaginative engagement with video games, and the distinction between first-person and third-person perspective, I suggest, is ethically irrelevant. First, the interactivity of video games cuts across the distinction between first-person and third-person perspective, which is a point that Gaut acknowledges. What matters for Gaut is just that players have a sense of participation in the game, and this is the fundamental point for the ethics of gaming too. Because games are interactive, the player is always in (some) control of the actions and choices of the player-character. Players may deal with this in different ways. Some players identify themselves (in Frankfurt’s sense) with the actions of the player-character, as argued earlier, while other players disassociate themselves from the player-character and their actions. But notice too that the player’s identification or disassociation does not follow the distinction between the first- and third-person perspectives. Some players identify strongly with their avatar in third-person games just as some players disassociate themselves from the actions and choices that they make in first-person games. For instance, one might think of one’s avatar in World of Warcraft (third-person) as a symbolic extension of oneself, while disassociating oneself from the moral choices and actions of the player-character in BioShock31 (first-person). What matters for us is that the interactivity of these games does not allow the player to disassociate themselves so fully that they engage with the fiction in a way that is analogous to passive media. Playing GTA IV—even when one disassociates oneself from the moral choices and actions of Niko Bellic—is not like watching Breaking Bad. And however much I might disassociate myself from my actions in the “Three Leaf Clover” mission, they are still my actions. I might tell myself that, “this is what Niko needs to do to survive in the game,” but the important point to notice is that the interactivity of games makes this self-justification necessary where no such need for self-justification arises when consuming passive media. Importantly, this point can be extended to the original objection and suggests the way in which that objection could be answered. There may be different and more complex issues to consider when thinking about the ethical implications

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of de se imagining, but the sort of Frankfurt-identification defended earlier can happen in de re imagining just as well. Certainly, the experience of consuming passive media—like watching Breaking Bad—differs from that of consuming interactive media in an important respect: the viewer has no control. Moreover, the viewer may feel that they have no control when consuming passive media and that feeling of helplessness influences the viewer’s affective response. When watching Breaking Bad, I often experienced a sense of dread partly because I was incapable of intervention. However, this lack of agency in the fiction of Breaking Bad would not inhibit the viewer’s ability to identify with Walter White in Frankfurt’s sense. Some viewers—perhaps wannabe drug lords—may feel that Walter represents them, captures their values, and acts in ways that they endorse. Such identification does not require de se imagining. And yet, the willful identification with the actions of Walter White is open to moral scrutiny regardless. This may be a general point about understanding the role of the hero in any sort of fiction: the fictional heroes that we look up to are the ones that we (at least partially) identify with. When one’s heroes are unambiguously wholesome—like Superman—then identifying with the hero seems unproblematic. But when one’s heroes are morally questionable rough heroes—like Walter White—then one’s identification opens the door to moral scrutiny. In summary, we do not need to deny the distinction between de re and de se imagining. Instead, to respond to this objection we only need to acknowledge that players sometimes identify with their avatars and their actions in Frankfurt’s sense, while at other times players will disassociate themselves from their avatars and their actions. The distinction between the first-person and third-person perspectives may play some role in this, but it is not decisive, and it is likely a matter of taste for the individual player. What matters morally is something more personal to the psychology of the individual: the motivations that drive this sense of identification.

4.7 Conclusion If what I have argued in this chapter is correct, then the implications are farreaching: players express their identities through games, and our identities include our moral values and sensibilities. When we take pleasure in the virtual representation of cruel and malicious acts, and we identify ourselves with the perpetration of those acts, then we must accept that such virtual acts express

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something about our actual moral psychology. Of course, morality is a complex affair and there are likely to be many other relevant variables to consider; yet the actions that we identify with our sense of self are still part of us. The things that we fantasize about make up part of our identities and are not untouched by our moral psychology. In the next chapter, we will try to fill out this picture a bit more. The main questions that we will consider are these: What is it that motivates the player to do the things that she does within the game? And, what is it that makes a player’s in-game actions morally wrong? And what is the moral status of fantasies?

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Virtual Immoral Fantasies

The goal of this chapter is to make good on the promise to defend a virtue ethics account of moral criticism. The fundamental challenge to understanding the ethics of violence in video games is that they are ultimately fictional representations of violence. In Chapter 2, I argued against the amoralist’s claim that actions that are represented in video games are not proper objects of moral concern because they are fictional. I argued that the ways in which we engage with works of fiction are not as separate from reality as we might think. Our reasons for engaging with certain ideas, even when represented in a fiction, are open to moral scrutiny. However, the argument presented in Chapter 2 was incomplete. Without the background in ethical theories that we reviewed in Chapter 3, we were unable to explain why our engagement with works of fiction can be relevant to morality. Then, in Chapter 4, I argued that players can be held morally responsible for actions they perform in games, even when those actions are involuntary. What matters, morally speaking, is not the availability of alternative choices, but rather the player’s willingness. The willing player goes along with the violence in a game because it is what the player wants to do, and this willingness can tell us something important about the player’s moral psychology. However, against my previous arguments, the skeptic may still insist that a player’s willingness to engage in some virtual violence tells us nothing of substance about the player’s actual moral sensibilities. At best, we might think that a player’s actions in some game reveals nothing more than the player’s taste in games. We cannot morally criticize players for the things that they do in games (even those things that they do willingly) because the actions represented in games are still ultimately fictions. They do not really happen; they are only imaginary. The fact that some player is willing to engage in a piece of fictional imagining is of no genuine moral consequence, says that skeptic. In other words, keep your morals out of my imagination.

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This, I think, is a fascinating philosophical challenge because it offers a special case of a more general question: is it ever morally wrong to fantasize about immoral things? The natural and intuitive belief is that there can be nothing morally wrong with imagining immoral things, either in fiction or in our everyday fantasies. What happens in my head causes no harm to anyone else. It is my business and no one else’s. But, is this intuition right? Are there any moral constraints on imagination? Even if imagination causes no harm to others, could it cause harm to myself? And does my imagination reflect anything morally relevant about me—like my moral character or my values? What makes this question interesting in the present context is the matter of enjoyment. It is not just that we tolerate imagining immoral things in fiction (in games, novels, and films), but that we take some enjoyment from doing so. Why would this be? In some cases, the consumer might tolerate being exposed to immoral ideas or events in works of fiction, but only so that we might see the conflict resolved. We can watch the villain saying and doing awful things just so long as they get their due in the end. In these cases, the enjoyment that the consumer experiences likely results from the satisfaction of seeing the bad guy finally get what they deserve. But there are also those cases where the consumer enjoys the wrongdoing itself. Sometimes we root for the train robber (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [1969]), or the mafia boss (The Sopranos [1999–2006]), or the murderer (Hannibal [2013–2015]). In some cases, we are cheering them on because we view them as antiheroes—people who are trying to do the right thing, but do it in unscrupulous ways. Think of the television series Dexter (2006–2013), which follows the deeds of a serial killer whose moral code restricts him to hunting only other killers. We might feel like Dexter’s victims are getting what they deserve while at the same time recognize the wrongness of Dexter’s actions. Still, we cheer him on because he means well—in some odd sense. Perhaps some fans even grudgingly endorse his actions. We cheer on antiheroes when we see them as essentially doing what is right, however wrongly they might do it. In other cases, we might not cheer on the bad guy so much as we sympathize with them. Many of the young street-level drug dealers portrayed in The Wire (2002–2008) are kids living in a hopeless situation. We might deplore what they are doing—and therefore resist seeing them as antiheroes—but we might also see something of ourselves in their actions and motives if only we too found ourselves in a similar situation. In these cases, our attitude toward these characters is not one of grudging endorsement of their criminal activities, but rather an acknowledgement of their humanity. Finally, in still other cases—like those cases Eaton describes as “rough heroes”—we might root for the bad guy

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just because.1 However horrific his actions are, we want to see Hannibal Lecter escape at the end of Silence of the Lambs (1991). We want there to be a sequel. We do not want to see him caught or killed. He is too interesting of a character to lose. The same can be said of video games. While there may be many instances where the player may enjoy violence only to the extent that it is a necessary means to an end, there are still other instances where the violence is clearly the end itself that the player enjoys. This is particularly noticeable in sandbox games. After the player sets aside all of the missions and side quests, the remaining play is enjoyed for its own sake. So, is it morally wrong to enjoy imagining immoral things? Some philosophers argue that it can never be morally wrong for consumers to entertain an immoral fiction. Some argue that “it’s just a story” or “it’s just a game.” As was discussed in Chapter 2, most versions of the amoralist defense exhibit a common feature: they maintain that the contents of imagining are safely bracketed out from one’s real-world beliefs and attitudes.2 Some who employ this sort of defense tend to focus solely on the idea that fiction is a kind of imaginative play in which the contents of imagining can be entertained without being endorsed by the consumer. And “endorsement” means something like assenting to or believing in the real-world truth of some proposition. Despite my objections to the fictionalist position in Chapter 2, defending games through fictionalism is still intuitively quite appealing. So, I will offer a further argument here: the “just a story” defense only appears to work if we disregard the reasons why individuals engage with certain fantasies. The defense requires us to treat acts of fictive imagining as psychologically isolated mental acts that have no lasting impact on an individual’s mental life. When an individual’s motivations, and specifically their desires, to engage in fictive imagining are considered, space opens up to offer a more robust moral criticism of fictive imagining. Or, so I will argue. In this chapter, I argue that it is morally wrong for players to enact violent fantasies in video games willingly because doing so contributes to the player’s cultivation of a vicious moral character.3 By willingly enacting violence in a video game, the players’ values and desires are actively refined and reinforced. It is not just that video games offer players the chance to act out a fantasy, but by acting out the fantasy and reveling in it, games give players the chance to develop their fantasies. The important point is that players do not acquire immoral beliefs by playing games, but rather that playing games under the right psychological circumstances contributes to the cultivation of immoral desires. The cultivation of immoral desires itself is morally problematic, not because it necessarily leads

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to immoral or unwarranted behaviors, but because merely harboring such desires can lead to the player’s own discontent. In summary, my argument is this: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Some desires are immoral to possess even when they are not acted upon. Desires can be cultivated, either in reality or through fantasy. It is morally wrong to cultivate an immoral desire. Video games can be used as a prop for one’s fantasies. As such, they can be used to cultivate desires, both moral and immoral. Therefore, it is morally wrong to play a video game when doing so serves to cultivate an immoral desire.

In this chapter, I will elaborate and defend each of these points in section 5.1. Then in section 5.2, I will address some possible objections. Before going much further, one clarification is needed. When thinking about these issues, it would be very easy to get distracted by concerns over the ethics of producing an immoral fiction. Here are two questions we could ask: Is it morally wrong for a game designer to prompt players to do immoral things in games, and is it morally wrong for players to do immoral things in games? It would be natural to think that we must answer the first question before we can answer the second; however, this is not the approach that I will adopt. In fact, I think it is the other way around: we can only understand what is morally troubling about the production of immoral fictions after we understand the moral implications for consumers. So, my focus in this chapter will be on the player’s moral culpability. I will address the moral criticism of the production of video games in Chapter 7.

5.1 Cultivating Immoral Desires through Fiction 5.1.1 The Morality of Desires The first premise in my argument is that (1) some desires are immoral to possess and this is true even when those desires are not acted upon in reality.4 This may seem unintuitive, or even old-fashioned,5 but some reflection reveals that the idea is neither odd nor terribly foreign to us. To get a handle on the wrongness of immoral desires, it will be helpful to contrast them with immoral beliefs. There is good prima facie reason to think that it is morally wrong to hold an immoral belief even when one never acts on it. Consider a person who holds racist beliefs

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but never acts upon them—imagine that it is simply an accident of circumstance that this person lives in such a closed and homogenous society that they never find themselves in a situation where they may act on their racist beliefs. This person’s failure to act on their beliefs is merely an accident, yet regardless of such contingencies, it seems morally wrong to hold racist beliefs.6 If this is right, then perhaps the same could be said of desires: it is prima facie morally wrong for one to possess an immoral desire even when it is not acted upon. The desire to commit an act of rape (or murder or pedophilia) is a bad desire to have, not because having the desire causes harm to others or even because it increases the potential that we might cause harm to others, but just because it is wrong to desire such things.7 The individual would be better off morally speaking without such desires. An appeal to prima facie reasons like those mentioned in the previous paragraph can appear compelling; however, such appeals are clearly insufficient. Indeed, there is equally good prima facie reason to believe that what goes on only in my mind should not be open to moral scrutiny. So, we need to do better than appeal to prima facie reasons. A fuller explanation requires us to address two questions: How can private mental states like desires be immoral? How can it be immoral merely to possess such desires even when they are not acted upon? Consequentialists, deontologists, and virtue ethicists will all have different stories to tell here. Consequentialists would need to tell a story about the likelihood of harmful consequences—that is, the consequentialist might say that the possession of an immoral desire is itself morally wrong insofar as it raises the potential likelihood of harm.8 Deontologists might argue that immoral desires diminish our capacity to treat others with respect. However, both the consequentialist and deontologist must wait for the right empirical evidence to justify either of these claims. Until then, the best that these theorists can say is: perhaps. Alternatively, a virtue ethicist would hold that the possession of an immoral desire is a strike against one’s moral character: our desires indicate something about our character, and the possession of an immoral desire indicates that the agent possesses a vicious character to some extent. The trouble for virtue ethics, however, is that many find the story that it has to tell about “doing harm to our character” to be vague and dissatisfying. The virtue ethicists may say that the development of a vicious moral character leads to unhappiness and a lack of fulfillment. But how does that work? And how could unactualized desires detract from our moral character? What is needed is a plausible story. Here is one possible (but brief) story that a virtue ethicist might tell, the basic point

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being that the constant need to suppress an immoral desire detracts from one’s fulfillment. First, any story that we wish to tell about the morality of desires will undoubtedly beg metaphysical questions about the nature of desires. What exactly are desires such that they can be of moral concern even when unactualized? This is a fascinating metaphysical question, however, I want to avoid getting bogged down in such questions when we can. And fortunately, we can avoid this question. It would be enough for our purposes to point to two incontestable and characteristic features of desires: they are motivational states with a distinctive phenomenology.9 First, desires are implicated as psychological reasons that motivate our actions. They drive us. We are not intellectually detached from our desires. Rather, desires are mental states that motivate us to act. Second, desires are felt and this feeling is quite distinctive. It would be difficult to describe what a desire feels like; however, it should be easily recognizable that it feels a certain way to desire something and that feeling is very different from other attitudinal states, like hoping, fearing, or believing. Some desires are strongly felt while others are less so. While some are defeasible, others can be overwhelming. Finally, having a desire does not necessitate that one must act on it. Desires motivate actions, but they can be suppressed and controlled. Now, consider desires that one does not act on. First, we might wonder, why does a person not act on their desires? There may be many different reasons depending on the circumstances. Some of those reasons might be morally relevant, others might not. And some of those morally relevant reasons might be praiseworthy, while others might be blameworthy. Of course, some people may fail to act on a desire simply because they never have the opportunity to act on it. These cases are not very interesting. For our purposes, the more interesting cases are those where an individual has the opportunity to act on their desires but does not because they actively suppress their desires.10 Suppressed desires are often cases where it takes an effort of will on the individuals’ part to control their impulse to act on some desire. Some people might suppress their desires if the actualization of that desire would conflict with the individual’s wider goals, beliefs, or values. For instance, consider the (probably familiar) desire to punch a rival co-worker. The desire may be a genuine one—that is, a desire that is not based on a passing irritation, but rather one that is based on a genuine disliking of the co-worker—and yet it is one that is (typically) suppressed. When such desires are genuine, why are they suppressed? Often the reason is because we recognize that our disliking of some individual is not a good reason to resort to violence. Most people (I hope) believe in the value of living in a civil society, one

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where needless violence is not tolerated. So, despite one’s strong dislike of some colleague, many suppress such desires because we recognize that it is unjust to treat others badly. Insofar as we suppress such desires because we recognize their wrongness, then our act of suppression is itself morally praiseworthy. However, other individuals might suppress the desire to punch a colleague not because they see the desire itself as wrong, but rather because they recognize that they would not get away with it. This sort of suppression is based on a fear of repercussions, and not out of a moral concern for oneself or others. As such, this is hardly morally praiseworthy. Either way, the general point here is that immoral desires are often suppressed, either for reasons that are recognizably motivated by good moral concerns or for reasons that are flimsy, unprincipled, and morally shallow. Finally, anyone who has had to suppress a desire knows one important truth: suppressed desires are dissatisfying. And this point is not unique to immoral desires. Desires that must be suppressed for whatever reason can be a source of dissatisfaction, sometimes bitterly so. It would be better for the individual’s sense of happiness not to have the desire rather than to have it and remain unsatisfied. If what I have said here is correct, then an explanation of the connection between the virtue ethicist’s conception of fulfillment and the possession of immoral desires presents itself: a fulfilled person is, among other things, one whose desires are largely attainable while a person whose desires must be suppressed is perpetually dissatisfied. If one’s unsatisfied desires are strong enough, the sense of dissatisfaction can be overwhelming. A dissatisfied person is not a happy and fulfilled person. Immoral desires are a clear source of frustration, at least for the individual who thwarts and suppresses them. So, it is not simply that one should avoid developing immoral desires to avoid the consequence of doing immoral things, but also to avoid the dissatisfaction and unhappiness that comes from possessing desires that must be suppressed.

5.1.2 Desires can be Cultivated The second premise in my argument is that (2) desires can be cultivated, either in reality or in our fantasies. The idea that desires can be cultivated should be obvious and not terribly controversial. Desires can be cultivated in the sense that they can be reinforced and refined by seeking out the desired contents. It is widely acknowledged that one’s taste in art (or food, or drink, or whatever) can be cultivated through practice. If tastes can be cultivated, then it is a small stretch to think that desires can be cultivated in an analogous fashion. Classical conditioning suggests an obvious psychological mechanism for this: if one’s

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engagement with some object is rewarded with pleasure consistently, then the association between pleasure and that object is reinforced. It is through the satisfaction of a desire that one cultivates and reinforces it. When a desire is satisfied, we may experience a temporary relief. But it is not as if the desire disappears, never to arise again. Instead, we condition ourselves to find satisfaction in that desire. It may be more controversial to think that desires can be cultivated through one’s fantasies; however, some reflection would suggest that this is likely one of the primary functions of fantasy. When one cannot pursue a desire in reality, then fantasy can offer a substitute. The use of pornography offers an obvious case. There seems to be an inherent link between pornographic fantasies and desires. If it were the case that our fantasies were entirely unconnected to our desires, then pornography likely would not exist. Many people turn to pornography as a way of discovering or “trying on” a sexual desire before pursuing the sexual act in reality.11 In these cases, the individual is using the fantasy that is presented in the work of pornography as a way of discovering what it is that they desire in reality. So, in addition to offering us a means to satisfy desires that might otherwise go unsatisfied, our fantasies also offer us the opportunity to explore new or yet-undiscovered desires. Our fantasies play a distinctive role in our mental lives—they do something for us. We are drawn to some fantasies, but not others. We select fantasies for particular reasons. And while this may not be true of all fantasies, it is true of some, perhaps those fantasies that are most important to us. Our fantasies are intimately connected to our desires—indeed, they are often indicative of our desires. Again, consider the obvious case of sexual fantasies: it is unsurprising that our sexual fantasies typically track our real desires. Imagine a heterosexual male who has a sizable collection of pornography, and imagine we discover that all the women depicted in his collection have blonde hair. It would be natural to conclude that he is attracted to blonde women in reality, not just in his fantasies. It is of course possible (and in fact, entirely common) for someone to fantasize about something that they would not want in reality. Many people fantasize about their own deaths, for instance. However, we do not thereby conclude that such people really desire to die. These are interesting examples to consider. However, the points I have made here are not contradicted by the observation that some individuals may fantasize about something that they would not desire in reality because my general point is not intended as a universal claim about all fantasies. Some of our fantasies track our actual desires even if others do not. The mere fact that an individual fantasizes about something does not itself indicate that

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the individual desires the contents of their fantasies. My point might be more clear when put like this: the fact that an individual desires something offers a good reason to explain why they fantasize about it. There is some link between fantasies and desires, even if the link is not a biconditional one.

5.1.3 The Morality of Cultivating Desires Premise (1) states that some desires are immoral to possess even when they are not acted upon, and Premise (2) states that desires can be cultivated. Of course, immoral desires can be cultivated just as well as moral ones. So, a conclusion that can be drawn from these two premises is that (3) the cultivation of a desire that one ought not to possess is itself immoral. If it is morally wrong to desire x, then surely it would be morally wrong to cultivate a desire for x. And again, it matters not whether we cultivate immoral desires in reality or through our fantasies. If it is morally wrong to cultivate an immoral desire, and desires can be cultivated either in reality or in our fantasies, then cultivating an immoral desire in fantasy is itself also morally wrong. However, we should not think that all fantasies are morally significant. Many of our fantasies are beyond our control. Sometimes we engage in fantasy passively—think of those cases where a thought arrives unbidden, and sometimes unwelcome. Passive fantasies are idle. Alternatively, active fantasies are those imagined scenarios that we return to time and again. These are the fantasies that we develop, refine, and relish—ones that take up a significant portion of our imaginative lives. What is distinctive of active fantasies is that we engage in them willfully. Intuitively there seems to be a morally relevant difference between active and passive fantasies. For instance, it may be one thing to passingly enjoy the idea of punching a rival in the face, but it is another thing to repeatedly dwell on the violent fantasy. Our willful engagement with some fantasies suggests a certain commitment to them, which in turn may indicate something about us—something about our character, our desires, or our fears. It is these sorts of fantasies—the active fantasies that we dwell on and develop— that should be the focus of our question.12 When we restrict our interest to active fantasies, we can ask, why would an individual repeatedly return to that fantasy? It is likely that individuals actively fantasize about the things that they do for some reason. Many tend to return to the same ideas or scenarios in their fantasies likely because their particular fantasies serve some need for them. Those needs might be very predictable (everyone likes to fantasize about being powerful, or successful, or sexually

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attractive) or those needs might be unique to the individual. Moreover, two individuals might fantasize about the same thing, and yet the fantasy might serve very different needs for each individual. Perhaps some people fantasize about having superpowers because they enjoy imagining themselves as beloved heroes, while others fantasize about having superpowers because they feel distinctly powerless in real life. As our needs change in life, so may our fantasies. We grow out of some fantasies when they no longer serve our needs. Additionally, the needs that our fantasies serve might be obvious to us, or they might be complex and difficult to fathom. Whatever those needs might be, my point is that we do not return to the same fantasies time and again simply by accident, nor do we grow out of fantasies simply because we have forgotten them. For some people, their fantasies serve dark desires. Consider again the case of Anders Breivik, the individual responsible for the summer camp massacre in Norway, which claimed the lives of seventy-seven people. In interviews, he has described how he used Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as a training tool in preparation for his attacks.13 Many gamers have played and enjoyed CoDMW2, and it is likely that the fantasies and desires that their play served for most gamers were innocent ones. But when Breivik plays CoDMW2, he does so motivated by immoral desires, ones that ought not to be cultivated. The important thing to notice here is that the contents of our fantasies do not necessarily indicate the kind of motivation that the fantasy serves, nor are our fantasies immoral by virtue of their content. Rather fantasies become morally problematic when they serve to cultivate immoral desires, and fantasizing about some content can serve to cultivate immoral desires for some people but not for others. The psychology of desire and fantasy is surely complex. What matters morally speaking, however, is whether one engages with some fantasy in order to cultivate an immoral desire. It is not morally problematic when gamers who are motivated by some innocent fantasy play CoDMW2, but it is morally problematic when someone like Breivik does. By satisfying an immoral desire through the fantasy, we do not thereby rid ourselves of our immoral desires. Rather we reinforce them, even if we might get some momentary relief from its satisfaction. If a fantasy serves to reinforce some immoral desire, then it should be open to moral scrutiny for that reason. It may be difficult to accept the idea that fantasies and desires can be immoral, or even that cultivating such desires can be wrong. The idea seems so unintuitive. Still, we should remember here that we are talking about “morality” in a fairly nuanced sense. Having adopted a virtue ethical account, fantasies and desires are “immoral” not in the sense that they lead directly to observable and quantifiable harms. Rather, virtue ethicists conceive of “harms” more broadly to include

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harm to oneself, and specifically harm to one’s character. For a virtue ethicist, an action is morally wrong when that action contributes to the cultivation of vices in our moral character; and this is bad in turn because the development of poor moral character leads one to live an unfulfilling and unhappy life. So, fantasies and desires are “immoral” when they detract from one’s fulfillment. However, this view of morality and the wrongness of desires and fantasies seems rather abstract. Is there any empirical evidence to support this view? I am unaware of any study in the social sciences that offers statistically significant data to either prove or disprove this point. Perhaps this is not the sort of thing that can be proven by collecting quantifiable data points in a laboratory setting. However, we may not need quantifiable data points to defend the claim. Common experience may give us the supporting evidence that we need. The general claim here is that fantasies and desires can detract from one’s fulfillment under the right circumstances. We may find the evidence for this claim by looking at the experience of unrequited love. Imagine a person who is desperately in love with someone who is either unavailable or uninterested. Suppose too that this case is not merely a brief and passing fascination, but a lasting infatuation. Being rejected or ignored by someone that one longs for can be devastating. A caring friend might suggest that it is best to forget and move on, and that is surely good advice. To continue to long for someone that is beyond reach does not lead to fulfillment, rather it can be torturous. Being unloved can lead to feelings of being unlovable. Unrequited love is such a common trope in music and poetry because it is such a powerful source of disappointment.14 Admittedly, such “evidence” is not quantifiable. However, we should therefore acknowledge that some truths are essentially unquantifiable, and yet they are no less true. The example of unrequited love offers one illustrative case where possessing an unsatisfied desire detracts from one’s fulfillment. Expanding on the story, the account defended here would hold that cultivating a desire for someone who is unattainable by fantasizing about them is a form of doing harm to oneself. There are surely differences between this case and the sort of desires one may cultivate through playing a video game, but nonetheless the case of unrequited love at least offers a plausible story about how the virtue ethicist could account for the harm done to oneself by fantasies and desires.

5.1.4 Video Games as a Prop for Fantasy I argued in Chapter 2 that many video games are works of fiction. Consumers engage with works of fiction by imagining that certain propositions or states of

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affairs are true within the world of the fiction, and the consumer must actively construct the world of the fiction in their imagination. Of course, the fictional world that one imaginatively constructs must be sensitive to the changes and challenges that are prompted by the video game. But this limitation on our imagination aside, works of fiction in essence function to guide the consumer’s imaginings about some fictional world. The active imaginative construction of a fictional world is precisely what we do in our fantasies, and we often use works of fiction to guide our fantasies. The use of real-world objects as props in our imaginative engagement with our fantasies is quite common. A child playing with blocks who imagines them to be a building being attacked by a dinosaur is engaged in a fantasy where the blocks function as a prop in the fantasy.15 Actors use props in a theatrical performance to lend the performance some realism, but the actors’ performance itself can also be viewed as an object that the audience uses as a prop in their own imaginative engagement. Live action role-playing (or LARPing) is philosophically interesting not only because it involves an imaginative engagement that draws heavily on the use of costumes, places, and objects but also because the imaginative construction of the fictional world is sustained by the coordinated efforts of a group of people in real-time. Finally, and perhaps most obviously, a primary function of pornography is to act as a prop for someone’s fantasy.16 When playing a video game, the player must similarly construct the fictional world of the game in their imagination. This may not be obvious because video games are often highly detailed—that is, video games determine certain details that the player is meant to imagine about the fictional world to a higher degree than many other forms of fiction. For comparison, consider reading a novel. For any novel, there will be numerous gaps that the reader must imaginatively fill in.17 Often the reader is not given details like the timbre of a character’s voice or the inflection of their speech, yet readers fill in these gaps automatically. When such gap-filling occurs, it would be undeniable that this happens by an act of imagination. By contrast, video games typically fill in many of these gaps. Their level of detail outstrips that of novels, at least as it concerns matters like the look or the sound of a character or an event. But despite this, the fictional world of the video game still needs to be imaginatively constructed by the player (and it still contains many fictional gaps). One reason for this that has been proposed concerns the player’s response: the player’s emotional and aesthetic responses to the game depend on the imaginative construction of the fictional world.18 It is only by imaginatively constructing the fictional world of the game that players can appreciate certain aspects of the game—for instance, those having to do with

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the narrative of the story. Players become emotionally invested in video game characters through imaginatively constructing the fictional world of the game. Players will sometimes return to an earlier save-point in a game so that they can save an NPC from an untimely death. Why would a player expend real-world time and effort in order to save a fictional character from a make-believe death? Because it matters to the player that this NPC should not die in the fiction. To take another example, many games give players the choice to follow one narrative path or another within the game. Players sometimes will choose one path, not because the chosen path will be easier or will provide better loot, but because the story would be more satisfying when told that way. In these cases, the player wants the fictional world to turn out a certain way because they have become emotionally invested in the world that they have imaginatively constructed. Works of fiction act as props to serve consumers’ fantasies, and video games can play this role too. Indeed, they can be particularly effective props that are capable of sustaining richly detailed fantasies for extended periods. When we think of video games as props for someone’s fantasies, it becomes easier to make sense of the observation I made previously that many individuals tend to return to the same settings, genres, and scenarios in their fantasies. Many players are devoted to certain genres and styles of games. While there are many genres of video games that I enjoy playing, I am typically drawn toward high-fantasy RPGs, like the games in the Dragon Age series. This is part of a long-term trend for me. As a teenager, I was an avid player of Dungeons and Dragons and I read many novels containing similar settings and themes. For over thirty years now, I have been drawn to this sort of fantasy. Surely, I am not unique for having a favorite genre of fiction. Perhaps your favorite genre of fiction is murder mysteries, or westerns, or World War II historical fictions, or steampunk. While most gamers enjoy a wide range of games, many players gravitate strongly to specific genres, and there are some players that specialize—that is, gamers who only play RPGs, first-person military shooters, or strategy games. It is likely that individuals are drawn to specific genres of fiction or games, not solely because they like the look of the game or because they enjoy the gameplay, but also for personal reasons having to do with the sense that this sort of fantasy is just more satisfying to the individual than any other. Why are some gamers strongly devoted to the Call of Duty games? Perhaps it has as much to do with the fantasy of being a heroic solider as it has to do with the aesthetic of the games and their gameplay. My point here is that works of fiction can act as a guide or a prop in one’s fantasy. However, whether a particular act of fantasizing is connected to or

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motivated by some desire is a contingent matter having to do with the individual psychology of the player. When playing Tomb Raider,19 the player engages with the fiction by imaginatively constructing the world of the game; however, it is a contingent matter whether the player has certain desires that are employed in their fantasy. Some players are motivated to play Tomb Raider out of a desire for an engaging story and an entertaining challenge, while others are motivated to play out of a desire to ogle Lara Croft. Certainly, not all players desire to ogle Lara Croft. But some do. And for those players, the fiction is a form of fantasizing that is indicative of the players’ desires.

5.1.5 Cultivating Desires in Video Games Premise (2) states that desires can be cultivated either in reality or through our fantasies, and Premise (4) states that video games can function as a prop for one’s fantasies. So, a conclusion that follows from these two premises is that (5) desires can be cultivated through playing a video game. In this respect, video games are no different from many other cultural products. Pornography is a cultural product that is created (typically) with the express purpose of engaging the consumer’s sexual arousal. The user cultivates their sexual desires through their use of pornography. By contrast, video games may be created with a considerably wider array of purposes in mind and may offer consumers the chance to engage with a wider range of desires. Yet despite this, video games function in the same way. Players cultivate a range of desires through the fantasy of a video game—like the desire to feel powerful, to feel like a hero, or to harm others.

5.1.6 Using Games to Cultivate Immoral Desires Premise (3) states that it is morally wrong to cultivate immoral desires, and Premise (5) states that desires can be cultivated through playing a video game. The final conclusion of my argument then is that (6) it is morally wrong to cultivate an immoral desire through playing a video game. Most gamers are decent people who commit violent and immoral acts in video games just because it is a bit of fun. But some gamers actually take it too far—they use games as a prop in a fantasy that allows them to cultivate an immoral desire. The gamer who cultivates an immoral desire through their gameplay is doing something different from the gamer who does not, and the difference is morally relevant.

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One fundamentally important aspect of my argument is this: we should not condemn players based only on an examination of a game’s contents or the player’s actions. Many video games (like many other forms of fiction) contain violence and the representation of immoral acts, some of which can be gruesome, vicious, and truly disturbing. But we should not morally condemn a player because the game they are playing contains such contents. One of the most important contributions that fiction can make to our lives is through its ability to help us come to grips with a range and depth of human experience. Fiction can help us to come to grips with the dark and horrific aspects of our lives safely. Through their interactivity and the potential richness of their storytelling, video games can excel at this. We should encourage game developers to explore all aspects of life—even the dark and nasty parts—and certainly we should not fault them for doing so. And yet we still have every right to criticize the player when their imaginative engagement with a video game serves to cultivate an immoral desire. Understandably, we feel a sense of moral revulsion toward a player’s in-game actions when there is a suspicion that the player has gone too far.20 Anders Breivik did not develop his immoral desire to indiscriminately harm others because he played CoDMW2, but he intentionally played CoDMW2 in order to develop and refine that desire. My claim is that players can be held morally responsible for their virtual actions under the right conditions, but I have not argued that certain moral standards or behaviors can be forced onto players. The theory I have defended here is a moral one, not a political one. I am not calling for the banning of video games, or the monitoring of players’ actions, or the enforcement of “the right” kind of moral code. I would not wish to live in a world of thought-police, one where the power of the state can be used to intervene in a player’s virtual actions. My view is that players should reflect on their own behavior. Armed with a clear account of what makes a virtual action right or wrong, it is players ourselves who should examine why we make the choices that we do and whether such actions are benefiting or harming us.

5.2 Objections In the remainder of this chapter, I will attempt to anticipate and address some objections. Through my reply to these objections, it is my hope that additional details about the argument defended here and its implications will become clearer.

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5.2.1 “Not All Gamers” First, a skeptic might object that my argument cannot be generalized because not all gamers are motivated by dark, sinister desires when they perform violent acts within a game. Each year, millions of players worldwide spend many hours playing violent video games and not all of these players are willing to carry out violent acts in games because they derive some sadistic pleasure from doing so. I agree. It is entirely true that not all gamers are virtual sadists. But that objection is irrelevant. My arguments here are not aimed at all gamers. If research into video games has taught me anything, it has at least taught me that there are very few universal claims that we can make about all gamers. I am not arguing that it is categorically morally wrong for any person under any circumstances to enjoy imagining violence. What matters morally speaking is whether the desire being served by our fantasy is an immoral one or not. My argument is not a universal one and it is not meant to be. My argument effectively identifies the circumstances under which a player’s actions can be morally problematic, even though those actions are fictional. Most gamers are decent people with innocent motivations who are just seeking a bit of fun, and that is great for them. But some gamers in fact derive sadistic pleasure from performing violent acts in games. Some gamers turn to violent fictions, not because they want to let off some harmless steam, but because it helps to feed their desire to see people suffer. Some gamers are virtual sadists. We should not allow the virtual sadists to hide among the decent gamers by failing to recognize the wrongness of their immoral desires. Perhaps the virtual sadists that I have in mind are rare. Perhaps they are statistical outliers. Perhaps they are so few in number that they pose only an insignificant threat to public safety. Perhaps. To my knowledge, there is no empirical evidence available that can tell us how rare or how common virtual sadism is. But more importantly, morality is not a numbers game. It matters not one bit to my argument how widespread virtual sadism might be. What matters is that it happens. We do not need to wait for the number of virtual sadists to hit some universally agreed upon standard of significance before we can morally criticize and condemn them. If something is wrong, then it does not matter how many people do it. Murderers are statistically rare and yet this does not stop us from condemning murder.

5.2.2 Desires are not Chosen One of the central premises of my argument is that (1) some desires are immoral to possess. Against this, a skeptic might offer two objections. First, one might

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object that desires are not the sort of thing that one can either choose to have or not, and individuals can only be held morally responsible for choices that are within their control. On this account, desires are just a brute fact about our psychology. No one deliberately chooses to desire some things but not others. So, it seems wrong to morally criticize someone for a thing that is beyond their control. In response to this objection, I will make two brief points. First, it is not clear to me that the notion of choice is as important here as many would believe. Setting aside Frankfurt’s nuanced conception of choice,21 in fact we can be held morally accountable for some actions that we do not choose—specifically we can be held morally responsible for such things as negligence and ignorance. Suppose an individual grows up in a deeply racist society. That individual might make choices that perpetuate the racist attitudes of their society out of a sense of custom—a sense of, “this is how we have always done it”—and not because they have made any deliberate choice. And perhaps that individual is unreflective and therefore unaware that their actions are contributing to the perpetuation of racism. Nevertheless, this lack of awareness does not matter at all. A racist act is still a racist act even when the perpetrator does not acknowledge it—indeed, many racist acts are never acknowledged as such given the systematic nature of racism. The more general point here is that individuals who are ignorant of the ways in which their actions harm others can still be held morally responsible for their actions. We might concede that their responsibility is somewhat diminished. We might not wish to condemn the negligent or ignorant individual with the full weight of moral responsibility— after all, they are doing what they have learned from their society—but we can still chastise the individual to some extent. For instance, individuals can be held responsible for failing to be more reflective about their society’s values, or for failing to recognize the humanity of all people, or for failing to recognize the moral relevance of the suffering that their actions have caused. If beliefs or attitudes that one has adopted through negligence or ignorance are open to moral criticism even though they are not deliberately chosen, then so too should be desires. So, the concern that desires are not the sort of things that one can freely choose is less important than we might think. Second, even if we insist that choice does matter, the objection can be addressed by simply acknowledging that desires can be cultivated, and cultivating a desire surely is a choice. This point forces my argument to retreat somewhat: we might insist that one cannot be held morally responsible for merely possessing an immoral desire, but we can still hold an individual responsible for cultivating that desire. Choosing to cultivate an immoral desire, which must be perpetually

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suppressed, is irresponsible as it is damaging to the prospects of one’s happiness and fulfillment. So, our retreat position is still strong enough to defend my argument.

5.2.3 Better to Fantasize than to Act A second objection to (1) would be that it is obviously better for an agent to satisfy an immoral desire in fantasy than in reality, so agents should not be held morally blameworthy for fantasizing about immoral things. This is a sentiment that many people share. The idea is that, if you possess an immoral desire, you are doing a good thing when you restrict your pursuit of that desire to the harmless realm of fiction. Many people think of fiction as a place to relieve oneself of one’s desires—that fantasy acts as a sort of catharsis.22 And if we did not relieve ourselves of our immoral desires in our fantasies, then our need to satisfy the desire may spillover into reality. So, we should in fact praise people who pursue their immoral desires in their fantasies. This objection may seem intuitive, but it is a weak objection. The problem is that the objection shifts the focus of the argument from the cultivation of immoral desires to their satisfaction. We should not be so worried about finding out what is the best way to satisfy an immoral desire; instead, we should caution against the cultivation of immoral desires. Even if it were better for a person to satisfy an immoral desire in fantasy than in reality, it would be even better if the individual lacked the immoral desire in the first place. We should want to do whatever we can to avoid cultivating immoral desires. So, if satisfying an immoral desire in fantasy is one way to cultivate that desire, then we ought not to fantasize about it.

5.2.4 I-Desires Finally, one assumption that I make is that the desires that influence the player’s actions in a game are the same sort of desires that influence the things we do in real life. It is for this reason that I think we can look at the way that someone plays a game and draw some hypotheses about what they might actually desire, especially when we look at the player’s long-term playing habits. But it is possible that the desires that influence my game playing are not of the same psychological kind as the everyday desires that I experience in real life. Some philosophers argue instead that there is a distinct sort of desire that is operative in our engagement with works of fiction, which they call “i-desires.”23 These are

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desires that are in a sense imaginary, or more accurately, they are cases where the object of our desire is some character or event within a fiction. Some hold that our aesthetic and emotional responses to works of fiction require that we have desires that are related to the fiction. For instance, players of The Walking Dead24 do not possess the desire that Clementine should be safe in real life because she is a fictional character. Rather, what the player really desires is that Clementine should be safe in the fiction. This subtle move is in fact quite powerful because it means that I can i-desire something that I would not genuinely desire—that is, I can desire that something should happen in the fiction that I would not wish to happen in reality. For instance, if I am watching a slasher film, I might desire in the fiction that the axe murderer should have many victims because it would heighten my fear and enjoyment of the film. But this does not mean that I desire that axe murderers should be successful in reality. Or, I might desire in the fiction that the whiny, annoying teenager should be one of the killer’s victims. But this would obviously be a terrible thing for me to desire in reality. I-desires are restricted to the realm of fiction. This notion of i-desires would present a problem for my view because if the operative desires in my game playing were always i-desires, then these appear to be sufficiently bracketed from reality such that my cultivation of an i-desire would have no impact on my real desires or on my moral character. Recently, Nele van de Mosselaer has defended such a view.25 On van de Mosselaer’s account, we must recognize a distinction between the player’s realworld desire to perform well in the game and the player’s i-desires that pertain to the realm of the fiction. Video games are complex objects that are made up of fictional worlds as well as rules and gameplay.26 Players may possess desires for the fictional world to play out in some way, but these are i-desires—it is the desire that such-and-such should be true within the world of the fiction. Alternatively, games also set up challenges for the player—puzzles to solve and bosses to beat. According to van de Mosselaer, the desires that players express regarding the gameplay are real-world desires. Importantly, this view of i-desires protects players from moral scrutiny. If the player desires to kill their opponent because such an action is required to win the game, then this is a real-world desire that pertains to the gameplay, and it is therefore morally innocent. Alternatively, if the player desires to kill their opponent because they want to see that opponent dead in the fiction, then this is an i-desire, which, on van de Mosselaer’s account, is not the player’s own desire. Rather, it is a desire that is constructed from the point of view of the player’s imagined perspective within the gameworld. As she says:

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Players do not act violently in games because they really want to be violent, nor because they want to pretend or vividly imagine being violent. Rather, they perform violent in-game acts either because they play the game as a challenge without too much regard for its fictional world, or because they imaginatively take on the role of a non-existent character and form desire-like imaginings on the basis of a fictional context. If they are gameplay desires, the player’s desires have little to do with the immoral actions that are represented in the game’s fictional world. If they are i-desires, immoral in-game desires only have moral significance within the world of the fiction and are not felt outside of this world.27

While the notion of i-desires is plausible—there may be i-desires in the way that these philosophers describe28—we should not decide too hastily that the operative desire in any particular instance of imaginative engagement is an i-desire. Some of the time the operative mental state may be an i-desire, while at other times it may be a genuine desire. My disagreement with van de Mosselaer’s account in particular is that the binary distinction between gameplay desires and i-desires is too neat. I contend instead that players often develop genuine, real-world desires for certain values or actions to appear in works of fiction. Thus, on my view, there are (at least) three sorts of cases: real-world desires pertaining to the gameplay, i-desires pertaining to the fiction, and real-world desires that pertain to the fiction. While van de Mosselaer’s account is able to address the first two cases, her account is unable to address the third. Here are three examples of these sorts of cases. First, we should acknowledge the obvious point that players’ aesthetic and emotional responses to games are influenced by both i-desires and genuine desires. Suppose that when playing Red Dead Redemption, the player wishes that John Marston should pursue a romantic relationship with Bonnie MacFarlane. Is this an i-desire or a real-world desire? I think the answer here depends on the player. For some players, this might be an i-desire—it might be that the player wishes that John should pursue Bonnie because they feel that it would be a satisfying storyline within the fiction—but for other players, the same wish may be the result of a genuine desire—it might be that the player wishes that John should pursue Bonnie because the player finds Bonnie to be desirable.29 When the John-and-Bonnie relationship does not materialize in the game, the player may experience disappointment, which may be due either to an i-desire (because the fiction did not turn out the way that the player wanted) or a genuine desire (because the player’s genuine attraction to Bonnie goes unfulfilled). Second, players are often required to make narrative choices within games. In some cases, this choice does not impact the gameplay or the player’s long-term

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strategic goals. For instance, at one point in Grand Theft Auto IV, the player must choose to side with either Dwayne or Playboy X. Apart from the immediate choice of completing one mission rather than another, this choice has no longterm impact on the game—the player gains no advantage in completing the game either way. Regardless of who the player chooses, the story of the game eventually continues along the same path. In these sorts of cases, the player’s choices are purely narrative choices, not strategic choices. The player is free to choose one NPC over another out of an interest to develop their interpretation of the story. Suppose the player chooses to align with Dwayne—a reformed convict who has recently been released from prison—because the player imagines that Niko would more naturally sympathize with Dwayne’s struggles. After all, we are told at the beginning of GTA IV that Niko wants to leave his former life behind; so, it would be believable that Niko would feel some common bond with Dwayne. This choice is based on the i-desire to see certain events unfold in the fiction for the sake of achieving a satisfying interpretation of the story. Alternatively, suppose that the player chooses to align with Playboy X because the player likes to think of themselves in reality as the sort of slick gangster that Playboy X represents. This choice is not based on an i-desire, but is instead based on the player’s genuine desire to see their own values and meanings reflected in the world of the game. This is not a strategic choice having to do with the gameplay; nor is it a choice that is neatly bracketed within the fictional narrative of the game. Rather, it is a choice to shape the gameworld in such a way that it fits the player’s real-world desires and values. One final example would be the way that players go about constructing their avatars. Many games offer players the option to customize their avatar. Players can choose the gender, race, and minute details of the avatar’s physical appearance. For some players, this can be a lengthy process that requires deep concentration. When I constructed my avatar for Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, I was surprised to realize that the process took nearly two hours. While some of the choices available to players during the construction phase can have some impact on the gameplay (for instance, in Skyrim, different races will have different natural abilities), most choices do not. The numerous minor differences between all the options for facial features makes no difference to the gameplay whatsoever. And yet many players spend a considerable amount of time on avatar construction because they feel like they need to “get it right.” Players will sometimes construct their avatar in a certain way out of the i-desire to tell a particular kind of story. However, many players spend time constructing their avatar out of the genuine desire to see a certain kind of avatar as a representation of their real-world

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selves. For support, data collected by Bessière, Seay, and Kiesler suggests that certain psychological types of players are aiming to construct an idealized version of themselves in the game world.30 The use of games to support this kind of re-imagination of oneself seems hardly surprising—it is often one the key selling points of RPG gaming.31 While it may be true that we sometimes desire things in video games that we would not desire in reality, the examples described in this chapter suggest that we should not think that the fictional worlds of video games are completely untouched by our genuine desires. Even if many desires pertaining to the narrative are properly i-desires, some are not.

5.3 Conclusion Is it morally wrong for players to perform violent acts in video games? Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. What matters, morally speaking, is not the content of the fictional act that the player performs. Rather, what matters is the player’s motivation for performing that act. Gamers are typically motivated to perform violent acts in video games for reasons that are familiar to most players. Sometimes it is because violence is required to win the game or to gain an advantage. Other times players perform acts of violence simply out of curiosity to explore the world of the game. And sometimes players perform vicious acts simply to gross out their friends. These reasons are innocent, even if some are immature. No harm is meant. After all, violence in games is fun. But some people are motivated to perform acts of violence in video games because there is something about the violence itself that the player is drawn to. Some players fantasize about violence, whether that is sexual, physical, or psychological violence. For these players, the violence in the game is what they want to see in reality. The game is not an innocent form of entertainment for them, one that offers a harmless way of blowing off steam. Rather, for the degenerate player, the game becomes an object that they use to develop, refine, and reinforce their darker desires. These players do not let off steam. They build it up. I suggest that this is part of the reason why we find games like Ethnic Cleansing—the white supremacist first-person shooter—to be so disgusting. It is not simply wrong for the designer to have produced such a game, but it is also wrong for the player to enjoy playing it. If one plays Ethnic Cleansing with enjoyment, then there is strong reason to believe that this player enjoys fantasizing about racially motivated violence.

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I am not suggesting that a person becomes racist just by playing Ethnic Cleansing any more than I would say that one becomes a heroic soldier just by playing Call of Duty. Games do not change us into something that we are not already. Instead, I am saying that players select and enjoy games that play into the fantasies that the player finds compelling. The gamer who finds Ethnic Cleansing to be a compelling fantasy is someone who is comfortable with racially motivate violence, and playing that game will contribute to their development of a racist ideology. It is not “just a game.” It is a fantasy about how some people want to see the real world, and engaging with that fantasy does not harmlessly purge the player of it. Our fantasies are a part of our character, and our pretend play offers a way to engage and reinforce our fantasies. As Kurt Vonnegut puts it, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”32

6

Virtue Ethics on the Gamer’s Dilemma

In an influential essay, “The Gamer’s Dilemma,” Morgan Luck introduced a troubling problem that has generated much discussion. The dilemma goes like this. Gamers often defend violence in games by appealing to the lack of realworld harms. The thought is that there is nothing wrong with performing acts of violence in a game because no one is actually harmed. Imagine a player who willfully commits an act of murder in a game: no matter how vicious, gruesome, or unjust the action might be, it is imaginary. Therefore, it should be morally permissible for gamers to perform such acts. On this line of thinking, there is a strong relationship between moral permissibility and harm. The relationship roughly follows the broadly liberal idea that anything that does not demonstrably cause harm must be permitted. As John Stuart Mill once put it, “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”1 The problem Luck points out, however, is that the same argument could be used to defend other sorts of virtual actions. For instance, imagine a game that allowed players to perform acts of virtual pedophilia. This too is an imaginary act within the game and, like acts of virtual murder, no one is actually harmed by virtual pedophilia. So, if we think there is nothing wrong with performing acts of virtual murder because no one is harmed, then we should similarly think that there is nothing wrong with performing acts of virtual pedophilia because no one is harmed. Many find this conclusion to be troubling. The idea that a game could allow players to perform acts of virtual pedophilia seems like a step too far. But Luck’s point is that, if the lack of real-world harm is good enough to defend one, then it should be good enough to defend the other. The gamer’s dilemma is a notoriously tricky one that is not easily resolved. Since the appearance of Luck’s argument, the dilemma has generated much philosophical discussion. Philosophers have tried out many different ways of addressing the dilemma. In this chapter, I explore how the account of virtue

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ethics that I defend in Chapter 5 may offer a resolution. In section 6.1, I will spell out in more detail the problem that the dilemma poses. In sections 6.2 and 6.3, I will briefly outline some of the recent attempts at its resolution starting with my own previous attempt. Then in section 6.4, I will examine how a virtue ethical account might address the gamer’s dilemma.

6.1 The Gamer’s Dilemma Luck suggests that the dilemma can be expressed as an inconsistent triad of propositions, like this: (1) Virtual murder is permissible. (2) There is no relevant difference between virtual murder and virtual child molestation. (3) Virtual child molestation is impermissible.2 Premise (1) is typically defended on the grounds that virtual murder causes no direct real-world harm and it is meant to capture a common attitude widely held and often explicitly defended by gamers. While it is unclear whether gamers believe that all virtual murders are morally permissible, it is at least clear that a wide range of virtual murders are thought to be.3 Premise (2) operates as an intuition, one that finds some support in the recognition that both virtual murder and virtual pedophilia have the same fictional status. They are both acts that are represented as taking place in some fictional world. As such, it seems reasonable to presume that the ethical status of one fictional act should be equivalent to the ethical status of the other fictional act. Finally, Premise (3) is an unspoken belief. Despite this, the acceptance of (3) seems near universal. The dilemma ultimately is that it seems very difficult at the outset to deny the truth of any of these premises; and yet, the three premises taken together are obviously logically inconsistent. We must reject one, but we do not want to reject any. There are a few further points that need to be picked apart here to understand the dilemma clearly. First, a central part of Luck’s dilemma is the claim that virtual murder and virtual pedophilia are morally equivalent in some important respect—or, as it is expressed in Premise (2), there is no relevant difference between the two that would justify a moral difference. This point in particular needs to be understood carefully. Of course, in reality murder and pedophilia are not the same thing. They are both heinous crimes, but they are not equivalent. But Premise (2) is not a claim about real-world murder and real-world pedophilia.

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Rather, it is a claim about virtual murder and virtual pedophilia in single-player games, which are actions that are ultimately fictional. A second point to recognize is that Luck’s dilemma is put in terms of permissibility. We should not confuse “moral permissibility” with “moral rightness.” The binary concepts of permissible and impermissible do not exactly cover the same ground as the binary concepts of right and wrong. Typically, when we describe something as “morally impermissible,” we mean that there are moral reasons to prohibit or to condemn some action. Roughly speaking, that which is “morally impermissible” is “morally wrong.” But the same is not true of the concepts “morally permissible” and “morally right.” To say that some action is “morally permissible” is not to say that the action is morally right. Rather, actions that are morally permissible are just those actions that we have no moral reason to prohibit or condemn (perhaps for reasons having to do with Mill’s harm principle). So, when gamers think that virtual murder is morally permissible, no one is saying that it is morally right to commit acts of virtual murder. A final point is that not all killings count as murders, neither in games nor in reality. Consider acts of killing in self-defense in reality: while such a killing is certainly regrettable, it is both part of our law and part of our moral thinking that killing in self-defense may be morally permissible (at least, in the right circumstances). By definition, “murder” is an unjustified killing; so, killing in self-defense is not an instance of “murder.”4 When Luck talks about “virtual murder,” what he means is representations of killings in a game that would count as “murder” if they were performed in real life.5 Similarly, when Luck talks about “virtual pedophilia,” he means, representations of sexual acts that would count as “pedophilia” if they were performed in real life. This is important. When we compare virtual murder to virtual pedophilia, we should be careful not to confuse self-defense with murder. If we did, then it would be easy to resolve the dilemma. We could simply say that some instances of murder—like, killing in self-defense—are morally permissible in real life while no instances of pedophilia are morally permissible in real life; so, obviously there is a morally relevant distinction between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia. But this line of argument is based on a misidentification of “killing in self-defense” with “murder.” When we correctly think of “murder” as only referring to “unjustified killings,” then the gamer’s dilemma arises in full force. Broadly speaking, there are two routes one could take to resolve the dilemma: the conservative route and the revisionist route. A conservative resolution to the dilemma would seek to preserve the common intuition that virtual murder and

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virtual pedophilia are not morally equivalent (that is, reject Premise [2]). The challenge for the conservative account, then, is to explain why. Alternatively, one could argue that common intuitions are wrong and thus pursue a revisionist resolution. Revisionists could go in either of two further directions: either one could argue that virtual murder is in fact morally wrong contrary to popular opinion (reject Premise [1]), or that virtual pedophilia is in fact morally permissible contrary to common sentiment (reject Premise [3]). A primary aim of Luck’s essay is to demonstrate the difficulty of taking the conservative route. Luck considers and rejects five strategies to reject Premise (2).6 I will discuss each here briefly. The first is the “social acceptability” strategy.7 One might claim that the morally relevant difference between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia is simply explained by a difference in social acceptability. It just happens to be the case that there is a strong social taboo against pedophilia in our society that extends even to works of fiction, while there is no taboo against murder in fiction. This strategy is very appealing. Indeed, I think it is impossible to deny the difference in cultural tolerance. However, Luck (correctly) argues that this strategy does not address the dilemma. The difference in cultural tolerance offers an anthropological explanation of why many treat virtual murder differently from virtual pedophilia, but that difference does not offer a philosophical justification of why we should treat virtual murder differently from virtual pedophilia. If we ought to hold that virtual murder is morally permissible while virtual pedophilia is not, then we need some justification for this normative claim. The second strategy that Luck considers is the notion of “significant likelihoods.”8 Luck asks us to suppose that indulging in acts of virtual pedophilia raises the likelihood for one to engage in real-world acts of pedophilia while we also suppose that the same is not true for virtual murder. If this were true, then we could offer a consequentialist argument to address the gamer’s dilemma: it is wrong to indulge in virtual pedophilia because it will more likely lead to significant real-world harms, while it is not wrong to indulge in virtual murder because it is not likely to lead to real-world harms. So, the morally relevant difference comes down to a difference in the likelihood of real harm. In response, Luck argues that the effectiveness of this strategy is ultimately an empirical matter. What we need is clear evidence that engaging in acts of virtual murder does not raise the likelihood of real-world violence, while engaging in acts of virtual pedophilia does raise such likelihood significantly. However, Luck points out that that there is little empirical evidence to support these claims and some empirical evidence to suggest that the opposite of these is actually true. Against

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the idea that virtual pedophilia would lead to an increase in actual pedophilia, some theorists have argued that allowing pedophiles access to virtual child pornography might reduce the chances of their committing actual assaults on children.9 And against the idea that virtual murder does not lead to an increase in real-world violence, Luck points to the many empirical studies that purport to show that violence in video games may lead to an increase in actual violence.10 So, the truth of this argument’s premises is questionable. Third, Luck considers an Aristotelian argument, which aims to show that players cause themselves harm to their character by participating in virtual pedophilia, but not in the case of virtual murder.11 The argument is that players regularly perform acts of virtual murder simply because they wish to complete the game and enjoy the competition. Players do not find any intrinsic enjoyment to committing acts of virtual murder. By contrast, players must find some intrinsic enjoyment to committing acts of virtual pedophilia. So, the argument is that the player is indulging in an activity that harms their moral character in the case of virtual pedophilia, while virtual murder does not have the same detrimental effect. Against this potential resolution, Luck suggests, first, that one could imagine a game that requires the player to commit an act of virtual pedophilia in order to complete it. Luck thinks that it is unlikely that the player would go along with this. Virtual pedophilia intuitively seems intrinsically wrong regardless of whether or not it is associated with real-world harms. Second, Luck suggests that it is naïve to think that players do not intrinsically enjoy virtual murder. Over the decades, video games have become more explicit and graphic in their depictions of death and violence. It is unlikely that the industry would pour so much attention into the development of better graphics unless players liked it. Fourth, some might claim that virtual pedophilia is morally impermissible because one group—that is, children—is being unfairly singled out for harm.12 As Luck notes, there is some intuitive appeal to this solution: a video game in which the player only murdered Jews or homosexuals would likely not be tolerated. So it seems that “unfairly singling out a group for harm is, in itself, additionally harmful.”13 But against this, Luck objects that “this argument seems to suggest that if a computer game allowed players to molest people of all different age groups, including children, it would be morally permissible to play such a game,”14 which seems absurd. Finally, one might hold that harming children, even virtually, is morally impermissible because of the “special status of children.”15 This argument holds that harming a child is worse than harming an adult, and so the virtual murder of an adult would be morally permissible while the virtual sexual assault of a

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child is not. Against this, Luck claims that it is not clear that child sexual assault is a worse offense than adult murder. Such comparisons seem difficult to justify because we are drawing a comparison across two variables. To even out the comparison, we should compare the moral wrongness of child murder to that of adult murder on one side, and compare child sexual assault to adult sexual assault on the other. When we are comparing like crimes with like crimes, then we might rightly hold that child murder is a worse offense than adult murder, and that child sexual assault is a worse offense than adult sexual assault due to the special moral status of children. But that is not the comparison that is at issue in the gamer’s dilemma.

6.2 The Gamer’s Dilemma as Child Pornography The way I want to resolve the gamer’s dilemma is to take the conservative route and find a way to reject Premise (2). In a previous essay, I argued that the morally relevant difference between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia is that the latter counts as an instance of child pornography, which is already morally reprehensible, while the former does not.16 My thinking was that if we had video games that allowed players to act out scenarios of virtual pedophilia with the same level of graphic detail as we currently see with virtual murder, then such graphic representations would obviously be pornographic.17 Added to this, players take some pleasure in acting out virtual murder; so, if we imagined a player who analogously took pleasure in acting out virtual pedophilia, this fact about the player must surely be morally worrisome. The idea that it is morally wrong to take pleasure in graphic representations of sexual acts involving children may seem straightforward enough. However, the snag in this argument is that we still need to explain why virtual child pornography is morally reprehensible. It is easy to identify the moral wrongness of actual child pornography: any visual depiction of a child performing a sexual act is necessarily evidence of child abuse, which is the justification for the legal prohibition on child pornography in the United States.18 All instances of actual child pornography had to have been produced through the use of force, coercion, or manipulation. However, when the prohibition on child pornography is framed as a protection against child abuse, it becomes difficult to explain why virtual child pornography should be similarly banned. Virtual child pornography is not equivalent to actual child pornography because the imagery is computergenerated and no child was harmed in the making of the images.

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When faced with this point, surely the right question to ask is this: What sort of harms would count? Philosophers typically accept the intuition that the digital children depicted in video games cannot be harmed because they are not the sort of entities that can suffer harm. So, we cannot resolve the dilemma by looking for some distinction that relies on harms that are suffered by actual children. A different sort of harm to consider would be harm to the interests of a group. Typically, a group comes to harm when some action or state of affairs diminishes their interests. For instance, it has been argued by some that pornography can cause harm to women as a group.19 The claim is that women as a group are harmed insofar as pornography contributes negatively to individual women’s ability to be taken seriously and to be shown genuine respect in everyday circumstances—things which are clearly in any individual woman’s interest. Mainstream pornography harms all women by reinforcing the unequal status of women through its depiction of women as being sexually submissive objects for the enjoyment of men. This sexual inequality has the knock-on effect of reinforcing the inequality and subordination of women’s position in society generally by encouraging both men and women to think of women as naturally inferior and to think of men as naturally superior. Moreover, pornography sexualizes this inequality—that is, submissiveness becomes a quality that makes women sexy, and dominance (and even violence) becomes a quality that makes men sexy. This sort of view might offer the right model to look for the indirect harm of virtual pedophilia. Even if virtual pedophilia does not directly cause harm to any actual child, we might think that it causes harm indirectly to some group. However, Neil Levy points out that we cannot apply this account to virtual pedophilia straightforwardly.20 The issue, according to Levy, concerns the status of children generally compared to the status of adults. Part of the problem with mainstream pornography is that there is no real reason why women must be depicted as subordinate to men. Works of pornography fail to achieve egalitarianism when relationships of male dominance and female submission are central to their appeal.21 However, it is a contingent fact about some pornography that the depicted relationship is one of male dominance and female submission. It doesn’t have to be that way. On the other hand, children are not equal to adults in many important respects. For instance, children have both greater protections (e.g., prohibitions against violence and neglect) and fewer privileges (e.g., they cannot vote in elections, drive cars, or drink alcohol). More importantly, children are clearly unequal to adults in the case of sexual relations: children cannot be equal to adults in their capacity to offer consent.

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As such, child pornography necessarily depicts relationships of inequality. Up to this point, Levy’s argument is unobjectionable; however, the final move in his argument seems counterintuitive. Levy does not argue that virtual child pornography harms children as a group, but instead he suggests (somewhat tentatively) that virtual child pornography harms women as a group. Put roughly, the argument is that the sexualization of inequality harms women as a group, and child pornography (virtual or not) necessarily sexualizes inequality; so, child pornography (virtual or not) is harmful to women as a group. As Levy says: Obtaining equal status for all women requires, inter alia, a new sexuality: a sexuality in which inequality is not a condition of sexual pleasure for men or women. It requires that sexual relations be conducted between equals. But since child pornography is necessarily an eroticization of inequality, allowing it undermines efforts to forge this new sexuality. Perhaps, then, it is because of harm to actual women, and not children, that virtual child pornography is objectionable.22

In the pornography-based account that I had previously defended, I had argued that virtual pedophilia is impermissible in video games while virtual murder is permissible because the former necessarily involves the sexualization of inequality, which is a cause of indirect harm, while virtual murder does not cause any indirect harms. However, this line of argument required me to follow Levy in saying that the harm inflicted by virtual pedophilia concerned the sexualization of inequality for women. One might intuitively think that the wrongness of virtual pedophilia had to do with some harm that was suffered by children as a group (whether directly or indirectly). But this argument is hard to make, as Levy points out. The pornography-based account is therefore counterintuitive. It identifies some harm, but it seems to identify the wrong sort of harm. Some philosophers have criticized my pornography-based account for exactly this reason. Stephanie Patridge argues that my previous attempt “technically” resolves the dilemma, but it does so for the wrong reason.23 Patridge agrees with the notion that women suffer from the sexualization of inequality generally; however, she rejects the idea that this harm perpetuated against women is a moral reason to condemn sexual representations of virtual children. As Patridge says, I do not think that those of us who are interested in resolving the gamer’s dilemma as it is posed by Luck will be entirely satisfied with . . . Bartel’s resolution. This is so because, rather than telling us what is distinctively wrong with . . . virtual child sexual assault, Bartel points us in the direction of an indirect harm, the harm that such images cause to some other kind of entity, namely women. It is

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precisely this move that makes Bartel’s resolution less than satisfying. Though I think that Levy may very well be right to claim that virtual images that sexualize children harm women because they sexualize inequality, those of us who are interested in Luck’s version of the gamer’s dilemma feel its pull because we think that there is something particularly egregious about it specifically because it involves our virtually sexually assaulting children. Since, Bartel’s analysis does not make essential reference to the role that children play in our moral assessment, his resolution seems to rely on the wrong kind of moral reason.24

Others have attacked formal aspects of my argument. Morgan Luck and Nathan Ellerby argue that my previous account only partially resolves the dilemma.25 They accept my claim that the graphic representation of sexual acts involving virtual children may be morally wrong because it is an instance of child pornography26; however, they claim that this explains only some cases of virtual pedophilia. The pornography account hangs on the idea that virtual pedophilia necessarily involves the graphic representation of sexual acts involving children; however, they offer the example of a hypothetical game where the pedophilic act happens “off screen”—where the screen fades to black and the act is not directly shown, though one can infer from the context what has happened. In this case, it clearly cannot count as a graphic representation of child pornography as no image is seen; yet, they suggest that most would still be disgusted by the idea of off-screen virtual pedophilia. Even if the pornography-based account is narrowly able to address games that involve the graphic representation of pedophilic acts, it cannot address broader cases, which seem to draw on the same intuition that drives the dilemma.27 Additionally, Luck and Ellerby argue that, even if it were accepted that virtual pedophilia differed from virtual murder with respect to the pornographic function of the former, we still need an argument to demonstrate why this difference should allow us to permit virtual murder while prohibiting virtual pedophilia.28 On reflection, I now concede that my previous solution to the dilemma is insufficient. Patridge is right that the indirect harm I previously identified (following Levy’s account) is unintuitive and disappointing, and Luck and Ellerby are right that off-screen acts would likely trigger the same moral revulsion. While the pornography-based account may offer a formal resolution to a narrow reading of the gamer’s dilemma, it is unsatisfying. In hindsight, I believe that I was driven to defend the pornography-based account partly because I was concerned with identifying some quantifiable harm. I now believe that this concern is unnecessary. My intention here is to suggest a different resolution to the dilemma, one that is not dependent on the notion of quantifiable harms.

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Before turning to that discussion, I will briefly survey some other theorists’ attempts to address the gamer’s dilemma.

6.3 Other Attempts on the Gamer’s Dilemma Many other philosophers have sought to address Luck’s dilemma. A brief review of the work of other philosophers will be instructive, as it will provide us with a better sense of what a resolution to the dilemma would require. As previously mentioned, there are two routes one could take to resolve the dilemma. A conservative resolution to the dilemma would seek to preserve the common intuition that virtual murder and virtual pedophilia are not morally equivalent and thus reject Premise (2), while the revisionist would argue that common intuitions are wrong and thus reject either Premise (1) or Premise (3). John Tillson offers a revisionary resolution to the dilemma.29 Tillson accepts the moral equivalence between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia—Premise (2)—and argues for the rejection of Premise (1). Both virtual murder and virtual pedophilia are impermissible on Tillson’s account as both are “pro tanto wrong.” Tillson invites us to imagine a case where a Devious Super Geek creates a program that includes characters that resemble people that he actually knows in real life. Tillson claims that the harm inflicted on these characters by the Devious Super Geek would be morally wrong because it is disrespectful to the actual individuals. This limited claim seems right. However, by arguing through increasingly depersonalizing cases, Tillson claims that, just as it would be morally wrong to commit acts of virtual violence against a character that is modeled after a real person, it would also be morally wrong to commit acts of virtual violence against characters that are modeled after real-world morally salient categories. What Tillson has in mind are cases where characters in the game are modeled after “imaginary members of real groups of people,” examples being “the homeless, immigrants, prostitutes, children, women, or Jewish people.”30 As Luck notes, singling out one group for harm seems intuitively wrong; so, the intuition that Tillson is drawing on here seems to be on intuitive footing. However, Tillson further extends his account to more general categories like “humanity” or even “possessing the capacity to suffer.”31 The surprising result from Tillson is that all forms of virtual violence show disrespect to these more general categories, so all forms of virtual violence are morally wrong, even violence against zombies and aliens. Tillson’s account is interesting and provocative, though it is rather extreme. Though there may be some pro tanto reasons to commit some acts of virtual

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violence on Tillson’s account—reasons like self-defense, or resisting fascism32— any form of voluntary and malicious violence is impermissible, contrary to Premise (1). The consequence of this is that most gamers are guilty of at least some morally impermissible virtual actions, in which case, we ought to revise much of our thinking about gaming. That is a high price to pay. My intention in this chapter is to reject the moral equivalence claim and thereby avoid either of the revisionary strategies. Rami Ali seeks to dissolve the dilemma rather than to resolve it—that is, Ali seeks to demonstrate that the dilemma rests on a false assumption and therefore needs no resolution.33 While many theorists have sought to reject Premise (2) by finding a morally relevant distinction between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia, Ali argues that the initial assumptions that drive the dilemma— the assumptions that (1) virtual murder is morally permissible while (3) virtual pedophilia is not—are false. Ali offers a strong interpretation of these assumptions: that all virtual murders are morally permissible while all virtual pedophilia is morally impermissible.34 Ali rejects both of these, arguing that in fact some virtual murders are impermissible and that we could imagine some hypothetical cases where virtual pedophilia would be permissible. Ali’s argument hinges on what he describes as the “appropriate engagement with the in-game context.”35 Games that contain a narrative will contextualize the player’s actions within the story of the game. For instance, the difference between an act of self-defense in a game and an act of cold-blooded murder is determined by the context of the story. A player who is appropriately engaged with the in-game context will carry out actions in the game based on considerations that pertain to its narrative. Conversely, players will sometimes carry out actions in a game that have little to do with the narrative of the story. Ali says, “Imagine a morally degenerate gamer who fantasizes about murdering others, notices that he resembles Nathan Drake [from Uncharted36], and so plays the game with the sole purpose of enacting his fantasies. We can imagine that the gamer entirely disregards the narrative, perhaps muting the game and skipping any story sequences.”37 Within the narrative of the game, some act of violence might be contextualized as an act of self-defense for Nathan Drake; but, because the morally degenerate gamer is killing for reasons that differ from those of Drake, this act of violence is an instance of virtual murder for the player. For the morally degenerate player, their actions fall outside of the range of appropriate engagement. Ali’s morally degenerate gamers do something wrong when they use a game as a tool to enjoy an immoral fantasy; though, Ali does not explain how such virtual actions can be morally wrong.38

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So, how does Ali’s account dissolve the dilemma? Ali suggests that it is possible to imagine a game where the appropriately engaged player must perform an act of virtual pedophilia, and yet such cases would be morally permissible. Ali asks us to imagine a hypothetical game in the style of God of War.39 The God of War games, Ali reminds us, are quite bloody. Kratos often commits acts of violence that are contextualized within the games’ narratives as morally questionable. But this is in keeping with Greek mythology. The gods of the Homeric poems are often morally imperfect, vengeful, and cruel. Ali then offers the following case: consider the possibility of a future iteration depicting Kratos committing pedophilia. The God of War games already contain scenes in which the gamer controls Kratos as he has sex off-screen, and we can imagine that in this instance Kratos, by way of cruelly punishing (as is typical of Kratos) a human colluding with the Olympians, takes his young son or daughter and molests the child. There is no question that what Kratos does is wrong. Yet is it equally clear that what the gamer does [by controlling Kratos] is wrong?40

Being a hypothetical example, it is difficult to know what gamers would make of it. My expectation is that most gamers would be disgusted by Kratos’ actions and would feel conflicted about having been forced to do something so repulsive. But I also expect that most gamers would not blame the player who chose to go along with the act if it was required by the game, just as Ali suggests. Ali’s example is a potent one. If Ali is right about these two cases (the case of the morally degenerate player who fantasizes about really committing murder while playing Uncharted and the case of the pedophilic Kratos), then clearly it is possible to imagine counterexamples that seem to contradict the main assumptions driving the gamer’s dilemma. Against Premise (1), some acts of virtual murder are morally questionable (e.g., those of the degenerate gamer); and against Premise (3), some acts of virtual pedophilia are morally permissible (e.g., pedophilic Kratos). However, I do not believe these counterexamples really dissolve the dilemma. Before explaining why, I will briefly note that I have no objection to Ali’s suggestion that some acts of virtual murder are morally impermissible. I have argued as much in Chapters 4 and 5. Ali’s account of virtual murder is entirely consistent with my views. So, the example of the morally degenerate gamer is not one that raises any issues for my account. In fact, it is the sort of case that my account is designed to address. Instead, the problem here is that Ali’s interpretation of the initial assumptions is too strong. The gamer’s dilemma does not get its force from the intuition that all virtual murder is morally permissible while all virtual pedophilia is morally

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impermissible. Rather, the dilemma gets its force from the weaker intuition that there is some difference between the defensibility of virtual murder and the defensibility of analogous cases of virtual pedophilia. Luck’s dilemma should not be understood as a universal claim about all virtual murder and all virtual pedophilia. Instead, the dilemma should be understood, first, as the intuition that virtual murder and virtual pedophilia are not on an equal moral footing and; second, as the claim that we cannot defend this intuition by appealing to the lack of real-world harms. The main challenge of Luck’s dilemma is that there are cases of virtual murder that many gamers feel are morally permissible (even though others are morally impermissible) where an analogous case of virtual pedophilia would be morally impermissible (even though others are morally permissible).41 What gets the dilemma going is the intuition that there are genuine cases where there is some discrepancy between the permissibility of two virtual acts that appear otherwise analogous. The dilemma would be dissolved in the sense that Ali wants if we could show that all cases of morally permissible virtual murder are analogous to morally permissible cases of virtual pedophilia, and that all cases of morally impermissible virtual murder are analogous to morally impermissible cases of virtual pedophilia. But these are not shown by Ali’s examples. So, the main point of the pedophilic Kratos example (showing purportedly that the player does nothing wrong by carrying out this act of virtual pedophilia) does little to dissolve the dilemma. Turning now to other conservative attempts at resolving the dilemma, Stephanie Patridge rejects Premise (2) because she argues that we have prima facie moral reasons to condemn games that allow players to commit acts of virtual pedophilia.42 Patridge’s argument is that virtual pedophilia is an act where one targets children for sexual abuse because they are children. Sadly, this virtual action is reflective of real violence that children suffer in the actual world, which is part of the game’s “incorrigible social meaning.” Patridge’s account makes use of two concepts that can be teased apart—targeted violence and incorrigible social meaning. The notion of targeted violence is the idea that some individual is being targeted for violence for reasons that are morally irrelevant; while the notion of incorrigible social meaning is (as discussed in section 1.6) the idea that some imagery carries a certain meaning within a specific social context that is difficult to ignore and not easily changed. With this in mind, Patridge suggests that a game that allows players to perform acts of virtual pedophilia would thereby reproduce an unjust aspect of our actual moral reality by allowing gamers to target virtual children for the same reason that actual children are targeted. But, how exactly does this distinguish virtual pedophilia from virtual murder such that the former is impermissible while the latter is not?

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On my interpretation, Patridge seeks to address the dilemma by appealing to the notion of incorrigible social meaning. While the two concepts identified earlier appear central to Patridge’s account, it is unclear to me that Patridge needs the notion of targeted violence in order to address the dilemma. Rather, the notion of social meaning is the important one. Some games might allow players to target characters for reasons that we think carry little social meaning and would therefore raise little (or no) moral concern. For instance, Young asks whether it would be morally wrong to play a game that allows one to target balding men for ridicule.43 While such a game might be mean-spirited, it likely would not raise much moral concern. Rather, targeted violence becomes morally problematic on Patridge’s account only when it demonstrates insensitivity to the social meaning of the representation. Moreover, some untargeted violence seems to be open to moral scrutiny too. For instance, imagine a “torture porn” video game where the main character derives some sexual pleasure from torturing random victims to death, and where the victims’ appearance and identifying attributes (their age, gender, and race) are randomly generated. Perhaps the game features the Marquis de Sade as the main character and roughly follows the story of The 120 Days of Sodom. In such a game, the violence would be untargeted; and yet, the game still seems to be worthy of some moral concern. Thus, it seems as though the notion of social meaning is doing all the work for Patridge’s account. With this clarification in mind, we should interpret Patridge’s account as the claim that virtual pedophilia is morally impermissible not because it is a form of targeted violence, but because it employs some insensitive social meaning, while the “run-of-the-mill” violence that we typically find in first-person shooters is morally permissible because it is not (necessarily) insensitive.44 In section 1.6, I had suggested that Patridge’s account of incorrigible social meaning does not clearly delineate the morally worrying cases of violence in games that we should want to account for from those that are not morally worrying. I suggested that “social meaning” can be interpreted narrowly to refer to cases of violence that are related to some historical injustice or it can be interpreted broadly to refer to issues that reflect our own moral reality. Here it seems plausible to apply either interpretation to the case of child sexual assault— it is a historical injustice that children have been targets of sexual assault because of their status as children, and this is certainly an issue that reflects our moral reality. So, virtual pedophilia is among the morally impermissible cases no matter which interpretation we choose on Patridge’s account. Despite this, the general criticism I offered previously still applies. While it is fortunate that we can count virtual pedophilia among the morally condemnable virtual actions, we are still

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in need of a clear account of the distinction between the condemnable and the tolerable. As it stands, Patridge’s account puts virtual pedophilia on the correct side of this distinction, but it offers no further help in drawing that distinction. Lastly, Garry Young situates his resolution of the dilemma within an anti-realist moral framework.45 Young defends a metaethical theory he calls constructive ecumenical expressivism, or CEE. I will briefly detail the defining features of CEE. First, Young’s theory is expressivist, meaning that all moral statements— like “Murder is wrong”—are little more than expressions of some psychological attitude or emotional state. There is no objective fact of the matter that “murder is wrong” according to an expressivist. There is only the fact that the speaker holds a negative attitude toward murder. Second, Young’s theory is ecumenical, meaning that moral utterances do not merely express an affective attitude of approval or disapproval, but also express some moral beliefs.46 Specifically, they express beliefs about supposed ethical properties and their realization in various instances. As Young explains it, the ecumenical expressivist takes statements like “Murder is wrong” to express both the belief that acts of murder realize some property (call it, p) and the affective attitude of disapproval.47 However, it is important to Young’s account that individuals merely believe that some wrongmaking property is realized in some action. So, it is not that murder is wrong because p really is realized in all instances of murder, but rather just because one believes that p is realized in all instances of murder.48 One caveat here is that individuals must be consistent in their beliefs.49 One cannot believe by fiat both p and not-p. Finally, Young’s metaethical theory is constructive, in the sense that the various moral statements that individuals give voice to can be taken to form a social norm.50 It is a widespread belief that “Murder is wrong.” The widespread acceptance of this belief creates its own social norm, which takes on a form of objectivity.51 Although the belief that “Murder is wrong” has achieved consensus, it is likely that individuals will disapprove of murder for different reasons. Or, to put it another way, while individuals believe that all instances of murder realize some property, p, which is the source of their moral disapproval, that property could be any number of unlikeable things. Kantians may believe that p is the property of disrespecting humanity, consequentialists may believe that p is the property of decreasing happiness, and natural law theorists may believe that p is the property of violating God’s law. According to Young’s constructivism, individuals may disagree about the ultimate basis of morality—that is, they may disagree about what constitutes p—but may still agree that “Murder is wrong.” This level of agreement is all that is needed for the weight of their combined judgments about the wrongness of murder to create its own social norm.

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How does this metaethical approach resolve the gamer’s dilemma? Given Young’s moral anti-realism, his account does not seek to identify some difference between the properties of virtual murder and virtual pedophilia that makes the former permissible and the latter impermissible. Ultimately, because the antirealist claims that there are no moral facts, there can be no real moral difference between the two. Instead, Young suggests that the dilemma can be resolved if we merely identify why it is that gamers tend to believe in the moral asymmetry between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia. The answer Young gives is that the gamer who believes that there is a moral asymmetry between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia just happens to believe that virtual pedophilia realizes some morally wrong-making property that virtual murder does not realize.52 This gamer would believe that p is a morally wrong-making property, that virtual pedophilia realizes p, and that virtual murder does not. As there are no moral facts for the anti-realist, these beliefs are actually false; but this is irrelevant. The main point for Young is just that the gamer believes them to be true. Moreover, it just happens to be a fact of our society that most people believe that virtual pedophilia is morally impermissible, while most people also believe that virtual murder is morally permissible. The reasons that individuals may give for their beliefs may differ—that is, they may offer different conceptions of what makes some actions morally good and other actions morally bad—but most of us nonetheless happen to land on the same belief—that virtual pedophilia is morally impermissible. Young also offers a positive argument to explain away the moral concern for some cases of virtual pedophilia. Young argues that there can be a kind of pleasure in taboo enactment.53 A common theme between Ali, Patridge, Tillson, and I is that each of us worries (to some extent) that a player’s attitude toward their virtual actions may be indicative of the player’s real-world attitudes (though each of us would identify different circumstances under which this would hold). However, Young argues that one might enact something that would be heinous in the real world—like virtual pedophilia—and take pleasure from the virtual action simply because it is exciting to break taboos. So, Young claims that enactments of virtual pedophilia are not necessarily motivated by the player’s real-world attitudes toward such real-world actions, and it can therefore be morally permissible when the player is motivated by taboo-breaking desires. While Young’s account offers a sophisticated version of an anti-realist theory, it still misses the mark. The gamer’s dilemma is a dilemma because it uncovers an inconsistency in an individual’s moral reasoning—namely, that the lack of real-world harm is good enough to defend virtual murder, but it is not good

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enough to defend virtual pedophilia. Ultimately, the dilemma is a conflict of an individual’s reasons. It matters not at all whether an individual situates their reasons in a realist or an anti-realist moral framework if they are inconsistent about their reasons. It may happen to be the case that most people believe that virtual murder is permissible and also believe that virtual pedophilia is impermissible; but importantly, these people individually have their reasons. As long as the individual is being inconsistent about their reasons, then they are again confronted with the dilemma. Imagine a hypothetical gamer named Smith, who believes that any action that realizes p is morally wrong. As a form of moral anti-realism, Young’s account must hold that there is no truth to the matter about the wrongness of p. All that really matters here is that Smith believes that p is a wrong-making moral property. Suppose that Smith intuitively believes that virtual pedophilia realizes p, but that virtual murder does not realize p. Then Morgan Luck comes along and points out to Smith that there is no relevant difference between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia. If there is no morally relevant difference, then Smith cannot go on believing that virtual pedophilia realizes p while virtual murder does not. Now Smith is in a bind. Smith is being inconsistent about her reasons. When faced with Luck’s argument, Smith could continue to believe in the moral asymmetry between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia only if she were able to find some morally relevant difference between the two. Alternatively, if Smith cannot locate some morally relevant difference between the two, then she must accept for the sake of consistency either that both actions realize p and are therefore morally impermissible, or that both actions fail to realize p and are therefore morally permissible. The anti-realist can insist that there is no truth to the matter about the moral value of p, but that would not help Smith resolve the dilemma.

6.4 A Virtue Ethical Account of the Gamer’s Dilemma In Chapter 4, I argued that the virtual actions that one identifies with are those that are open to moral scrutiny; and in Chapter 5, I argued that it is morally wrong to commit acts of willfully malicious violence in games when doing so serves to cultivate some immoral desire. This account of the ethics of virtual actions—one that examines an individual player’s own motives for committing acts of virtual violence—can offer us a way to address the gamer’s dilemma. The account I propose here is situated within a virtue ethical framework, one

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that holds that our reasons for enjoying some fantasy reveals something about our moral character. Additionally, this proposal does not seek to distinguish the impermissibility of virtual pedophilia from the permissibility of virtual murder by identifying some distinctive form of harm. Relying on the notion of harm has gotten many theorists into trouble—myself included. The resolution to the gamer’s dilemma that I now want to propose goes like this: the morally relevant difference between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia is that imagining pedophilia with enjoyment is impermissible because the virtual act cannot be contextualized by redeeming motivations while analogous instances of virtual murder can be so contextualized.54 At the heart of this proposal is a concern for the player’s motivation to perform some virtual act, the claim that some motivations are morally redeeming while others are not, and the claim that virtual pedophilia differs from virtual murder according to the kinds of motivations that can redeem one but not the other. Each of these points will need some further unpacking. According to my virtue ethical account of virtual actions, we must explain why players willfully commit malicious fictional acts within games by referring to the player’s own motivations. An important upshot of this account is that two players could perform exactly the same action in a game, but these actions will have different meanings and different moral values depending on the players’ motivations. Players may be motivated to perform violent and immoral virtual actions for any number of reasons (as previously noted). Our virtual actions are morally praiseworthy or morally blameworthy depending on whether our motives are praiseworthy or blameworthy. Violence of any kind is always prima facie morally wrong, but some violence can be redeemed by having the right motivation, and this is true in life as well as our virtual actions. Some motivations for our actions are morally condemnable, while other motivations are morally redeeming. Consider first the morally redeeming motivations. To commit an act of violence in self-defense is regrettable, but not morally wrong. Other motivations that may redeem an act of violence would be killing enemy combatants in a just war, resisting injustice through violence, or fighting to protect the innocent.55 In fact, violence can even be redeemed for the sake of competition in sports, so long as the level of violence is not egregious. When playing a video game, similar sorts of considerations (or, at least, their virtual analogs) often play a role in the player’s motivation; and in those cases, the player’s virtual actions should be understood through the context of the redeeming motivation. But clearly, other kinds of motivations leave acts of violence morally unredeemable—motivations like the desire to dominate,

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humiliate, destroy, or to cause pain sadistically. In real life, violent acts that were motivated by such desires would be unambiguously heinous; and I hold that virtual acts that are motivated by such desires are similarly immoral, though of course their immorality is proportional to their status as virtual actions. To take one illustrative example, think about the civil war between the Imperial forces and the Stormcloaks in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. On the continent of Tamriel, the Imperial forces are one of the largest political groups. At the start of the game, the Empire controls roughly one-third of the continent, including the northern-most province of Skyrim, which is home to a race of tall and fairhaired people called the Nords. The Stormcloaks are a rebellious force within the province that wishes to see Skyrim secede from the Empire. They are loyal to the charismatic leader Ulfric Stormcloak who believes that the Empire has given up too much when it surrendered to the Thalmor years earlier at the end of the Great War. One of the main complaints of the Stormcloaks is that the Thalmor demanded an end to the worship of Talos, a religious practice that is central to the Nords. The Stormcloaks are therefore painted as champions of religious freedom and anti-imperialism; yet they also offer a quite nationalistic view of Skyrim, one that projects a “Skyrim for the Nords” attitude. The player has the option to choose a side in the coming civil war—to join the Stormcloaks or the Imperials—or to remaining neutral. Suppose that a player chose to align themselves with the Stormcloaks. We might wonder, what motivated that choice? There may be any number of considerations. Some players might choose to align with the Stormcloaks for reasons that only have to do with strategy or a desire for some in-game reward. Perhaps the player believes that the game would be easier if they aligned with the Stormcloaks (though, it’s not), or that the loot would be better (it isn’t). These reasons are likely morally irrelevant as they are purely ludic motivations.56 The player’s motivations become morally relevant when they are an expression of the player’s actual values—that is, when the player identifies with such motives as an expression of what the player really wants. So, while many in-game reasons to align with the Stormcloaks offer little insight into the player’s actual values, other motivations clearly express the player’s values.57 Some players might choose to align with the Stormcloaks because they are motivated by an anti-colonialist or anti-imperialist sentiment. Others might choose to align with the Stormcloaks out of sympathy for their fight for religious freedom. Motivations like these are redeeming motives as anticolonialism and religious freedom are generally good things. However, imagine a player who aligns with the Stormcloaks out of sympathy for their nationalistic ideology. The player who is motivated to keep Skyrim for the Nords out of some

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ideology of racial purity is not acting from praiseworthy motivations. Granted, some players might choose to act out their vision of Stormcloak nationalism in the game simply as a form of play and not as a genuine expression of sympathy for a nationalistic ideology. The player who decides “On this playthrough, I’m going to pretend that my character is a committed Nord nationalist” may see their choice as merely part of the fiction. Choosing to align with the Stormcloaks does not thereby make one a white nationalist. But my point, to put it without much subtlety, is that the player who is genuinely a white nationalist in real life and who chooses to align with the Stormcloaks specifically out of sympathy for their racist ideology is not making an innocent choice. The motivation for their choice is in keeping with their real-world values. Their actions in the game are fictional, but their motivations are not. The player’s choice here is a reflection of an unredeemable motivation. And insofar as the player’s motives are morally reprehensible, then the player’s in-game actions are similarly reprehensible. Finally, the crucial move in my account is the claim that virtual pedophilia differs from virtual murder with respect to redeemable motivations. The point here is that the range of redeemable motivations for virtual murder is relatively wider than the range of redeemable motivations for virtual pedophilia. Selfdefense is a redeemable motivation for violence, but certainly not for sexual assault. There is no analogous way in which such motivations could justify virtual pedophilia. This is not to say that it is conceptually impossible to construct a case of virtual pedophilia that can be justified by some peculiar and unique redeeming motivation—as Ali’s example of the sadistic Kratos demonstrates—but the point is that one would be very hard-pressed to find cases that can be redeemed. Of course, as Ali, Patridge, and Tillson have remarked, some virtual murders are indefensible too, which I also accept. The point here is not that all virtual murders can be contextualized by some redeeming motivation. Rather, the point is that the sort of motivations that are sufficient to redeem virtual murder are not always able to redeem analogous acts of virtual pedophilia. When thinking of virtual pedophilia, we should always ask, “what would motivate someone to do that?” My claim is that the range of redeeming answers to that question will be much narrower than if we were asking about virtual murder. If this analysis is right, then we can justify the asymmetry between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia and can reject Premise (2) of the dilemma. Players intuitively believe that some virtual murders are morally permissible in a game while analogous cases of virtual pedophilia are not because they are intuitively sensitive to a concern about the asymmetry of the redeeming motivations between the two. Players are not blind to the meaning and representational

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contents of their virtual actions. Although players are often motivated by purely ludic concerns, much of our aesthetic and affective response to games depends on our recognition of what our actions represent. Players would not engage with a game that featured virtual pedophilia in the same way that they engage with ordinary violent games because there is something more sinister about performing an act of virtual pedophilia. Gamers not only think that virtual murder causes no real-world harm but also often defend virtual murder on the grounds that “I don’t mean anything by it.” On the other hand, the belief that virtual pedophilia is morally impermissible is grounded in the intuitive worry that the player who performs such an act really does mean something by it. To make sense of this asymmetry of intuitions, I claim that we should look at the underlying motives; and when we do so, we will find that it is easier to find redeeming motivations for virtual murder than it is to find redeeming motivations for virtual pedophilia.

7

Criticizing Games

What is morally interesting about video games is the way that they function as vehicles of one’s fantasies and how such fantasies can play a role in the development of the player’s moral character. I argued in Chapter 5 that one’s fantasies are tied to one’s moral character in such a way that we can criticize players for the fantasies that they entertain. On my account, it is morally wrong to perform a virtual action in a video game when doing so serves the cultivation of an immoral desire. The account of virtual ethics that I offer here is playerfocused rather than content-focused—that is, it is the player’s actions themselves that are the primary object of moral evaluation. Violence in games, and virtual representations of immoral actions more generally, are largely a matter of the player’s personal responsibility. This player-focused approach to the ethical criticism of video games is preferable to a content-focused approach, as I argued in section 1.6. A contentfocused approach treats the contents of games themselves as bearers of moral meaning and value. However, such accounts often stumble over the particularities of how individual players engage with games and contextualize their play. In some case, the content-focused approach is unable to capture genuinely worrisome cases of morally relevant gameplay. The degenerate gamer is doing something wrong even though there may be nothing specifically notable about the content of the game they are playing. In other cases, the content-focused approach may be excessively moralizing. We saw previously that Ostritsch condemns the “No Russian” mission of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as inappropriate because there is nothing within the content of the game that would justifiably contextualize the inclusion of that mission.1 However, many players consume violent games with a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of them. Even challenging missions like “No Russian” have some value when they serve to prompt the player to engage in some critical reflection. Focusing solely on the

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content of CoDMW2 without taking into account the player’s response and engagement with it misses something important. Despite these issues, the content-focused approach also has a certain appeal. Games are not created in a vacuum, they do not fall out of trees, and they are rarely created by accident. Rather, games are created by people who have specific ideas, intentions, and motivations. They are designed, produced, and sold with specific audiences in mind, and they are often reflective of the places and times at which they are produced. For instance, the old-school arcade game Missile Command2 is a game where the player must defend six cities against a barrage of ballistic missiles. It is very much a Cold War era game, one that reflects the fears of many people during that time. The contents of a game are intentionally designed by someone— typically someone who thought that the inclusion of that specific content would be worthwhile for players to engage with. So, the content-focused approach allows us to question and critique the intentions and motives of game producers. In this concluding chapter, I want to circle back around to consider what a player-focused approach might contribute to the ethical criticism of game contents. Broadly, my view is that we should not criticize a game based solely on its content. Yet, the player-focused approach defended earlier opens up a specific line of criticism for the contents of games: we may criticize games for the kinds of fantasies that they are designed to foster. To a considerable degree, players may project their idiosyncratic fantasies onto games, much like a Rorschach test. Game designers cannot possibly anticipate all of the fantasies that players might project onto the games that they produce, and therefore cannot be held responsible for a player’s misuse of some game. Anders Breivik may have played CoDMW2 as a way of preparing himself for his atrocity, but the game designers likely did not anticipate that any player would use their game in that way. So, we should not condemn game designers for what they cannot anticipate. However, this does not mean that game designers are entirely off the hook. Games impose limits on what the player is able to imagine. Sometimes those limits are very narrow. The narrowness of the afforded fantasy may not rise to the level of outright prescription, but it need not rise to that level to invoke moral criticism. I argue that game developers can be held morally responsible for the contents of games when they limit the range of moral imagination to fantasies that one ought not to enjoy. While the general account I defended previously holds that the primary locus of moral responsibility concerns the player’s imaginative engagement, game designers can be held accountable in the limited sense that they are responsible for producing fictions that limit the range of the player’s moral imagination.

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The argument here proceeds as follows. Games always underspecify the content of one’s imaginative engagement. Some game contents can be interpreted broadly and can thus support a wide range of imaginative engagement. However, other contents are more prescriptive and therefore support a narrower range of imaginative engagement. We can criticize the content of games for the narrowness of the imaginative engagement that they invite, particularly when the prescribed imaginings would be associated with the cultivation of immoral desires. So, the contents of a game are morally problematic, and therefore open to criticism, when its contents prescribe imaginings that narrow the player’s engagement to fantasies that cultivate immoral desires.

7.1 Fiction and Incompleteness The first step in my argument is to think about the prescriptive nature of fictive imagining and the specificity of works of fiction. Many philosophers claim that one’s imaginative engagement with a fictional world is constrained by the depicted content of the fiction.3 Certain imaginings are prescribed by works of fiction, and the consumer’s beliefs about what is true in the fiction is thereby constrained by the author’s prescriptions. This is no less true for games than it is for any other works of fiction. For instance, we know a lot about Senua from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.4 We know the color of her hair and eyes, the complexion of her skin, and the tragic story of how she came to Helheim; and we know these things because the game designers prescribed them. It would be contradictory for the player to imagine that Senua is a man, or an elf, or is just passing through Helheim on her way to her summer holiday in Mallorca. While the fictional world of Hellblade is imaginary, and therefore there is no real-world truth to the matter, these imaginings directly contradict what we have been explicitly shown in the game. Of course, players can ignore these determinate contents and imagine of Senua whatever they wish. But, then we are not talking about the game’s contents anymore. Rather, we are back within the idiosyncratic imagination of the player. Game designers enjoy a lot of control over the contents of their fictional worlds. However, insofar as video games are works of fiction, they are necessarily incomplete. Games prompt players to engage in various acts of imagining. Players are typically asked to imagine settings, characters, scenarios, and states of affairs; and because video games are interactive, they also invite players to imagine enactive possibilities—that is, players imagine ways of moving through

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the world, of confronting challenges, and resolving problems. All works of fiction, including video games, are limited in what sorts of things their creators can prescribe consumers to imagine. This is known as “fictional incompleteness.”5 Thinking again of Hellblade, there is much that we know about Senua, but there is also much that we don’t know. How old is Senua? What is her height and weight? How many scars does she have? The game itself prompts us to imagine many things about Senua, but these questions are not answered in the game either directly or indirectly. This is not a problem; nor is it unique to Hellblade. All works of fiction are rife with gaps. All are necessarily incomplete. This is simply because it is impossible for the creator of any work of fiction to answer every question and fill out every detail of their fictional world. Some gaps in a work of fiction are minor (for instance, how many scars does Senua have?) while other gaps are significant (for instance, is Helheim a real place in the game world, or is Senua hallucinating it all?). Some gaps are dependent on the nature of the medium used to tell the story. For instance, novels often leave out information about the timbre of the characters’ voices; however, these details are typically filled out in the medium of film. The incompleteness of fiction can be exploited to achieve certain effects in storytelling. For instance, the television series Lost (2004–2010) intentionally leaves major plot points unexplained in order to allow for multiple interpretations of the story. Typically, the gaps in a work of fiction are unproblematic, until they have some impact on the coherence of the plot. How should we understand the nature of fictional incompleteness? For Walton, to describe a work of fiction as “incomplete” is to say that some questions that one could ask about the fictional world have no determinate answer. (In fact, when Walton describes this aspect of fiction, he uses the terms “incompleteness” and “indeterminacy” interchangeably.6) In this sense, fictional worlds stand in contrast to the philosophical notion of “possible worlds.”7 When we engage in modal reasoning, we often conjure up what-if scenarios where we imagine some possible world. For instance, imagine a world in which Richard Nixon did not resign from the Presidency. Such a world is possible, meaning that the resignation of Nixon was an historical contingency. Events could have turned out different from how they actually turned out. A possible world in which Nixon did not resign would be similar to our own world in many respects, but it would also be different from our world in other respects. What is important, however, is that possible worlds are complete: for any meaningful question that one could ask about that world, there would be a determinate answer.8 By contrast, many meaningful questions about fictional worlds do not have determinate answers.

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For instance, think of the question, “How many scars does Senua have?” This question ought to have an answer, but it does not. The game designers stipulated that it is true in the fictional world of Hellblade that Senua has scars, but the exact number of her scars is not made determinately true. Similarly, we know from the Harry Potter stories that Ron Weasley has freckles on his face, but we do not know determinately how many.9 These gaps in the fiction are indeterminate because we cannot find a definitive answer in the work. With this in mind, there is a three-part distinction to notice about the kind of gaps that one finds in a work of fiction: some gaps can be filled in by inference, some gaps effectively become filled in through the consumer’s imaginative engagement, and some gaps are essentially indeterminate. Let us consider the first sort, gaps that are filled by inference. These are cases where questions that might arise about works of fiction can be answered indirectly by drawing inferences about what has been determinately stated in the fiction.10 For instance, imagine a work of fiction where two characters engaged in a romantic affair years before the events of the story. It may never be directly stated that the two characters were lovers, and yet this truth within the fiction can—and oftentimes should— be inferred from other propositions that are explicitly stated in the fiction. The second sort of indeterminate propositions are those that effectively become fixed through the consumer’s imaginative engagement. For instance, when reading a novel, readers often imagine the sound of the characters’ voices. Perhaps some character sounds to the reader as if they speak with a certain accent, or possess a distinctive timbre, or speak with a certain cadence; yet such specifics are rarely described in detail. More commonly, readers will picture the physical appearance of characters in a novel in more detail than is prescribed by the text. In The Lord of the Rings, Boromir is described as “a tall man with a fair and noble face, dark-haired and grey-eyed, proud and stern of glance.”11 Such a description leaves an awful lot to the imagination of the reader. What is interesting here is that, through the act of engaging imaginatively with the fiction, the reader cannot help but to fill in some of the gaps. The Lord of the Rings is an enormous novel with dozens of characters moving in and out of the narrative.12 It would be both boring and rather taxing for the reader to keep up with the comings and goings of every character if they remained as little more than general abstractions in our imaginations. Finally, the essentially indeterminate propositions are those that cannot be resolved by inference and are typically not resolved through the consumer’s imaginative engagement. For instance, in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), the gangsters Jules and Vincent retrieve a briefcase for their boss,

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Marsellus Wallace. Whenever any character in the film opens the briefcase, they are transfixed and awed by what they find; however, the viewer never sees the contents of the briefcase. So, what is in the briefcase? This question is never answered for the viewer. Moreover, the answer cannot be inferred from the fiction nor is it (typically) filled in through the consumer’s imaginative engagement. Instead, the contents of the briefcase are essentially indeterminate. Propositions like these remain unresolved. I suspect that most fans, if they ever consider the number of Ron Weasley’s freckles, or the number of Senua’s scars, simply dismiss these questions with a shrug. Whatever the number, it doesn’t really matter. Essentially indeterminate propositions can be filled in by fiat, but any answer one chooses is ultimately arbitrary. The indeterminate propositions of a work all stand in contrast to the work’s determinate propositions. The determinate propositions are those that are made true by the author’s act of stipulating certain truths within the fictional world. The truth of such propositions is not open to debate. When Tolkien describes Boromir as “dark-haired and grey-eyed,” the reader’s engagement with The Lord of the Rings is so constrained. The determinate propositions of a fiction have the effect of narrowing what can be imagined to be true in the fiction. Determinate propositions fix the primary contents of the work, limit the range of inferences one can draw, and provide a framework for how indeterminate propositions may be imaginatively filled out.

7.2 Incompleteness in Video Games Video games are incomplete in a number of different respects that are unique to the medium of games. For one, games are incomplete without the input of the player.13 The game presents a world that stands at the crux of some conflict, as a puzzle that must be solved or a quest that must be completed. That conflict remains incomplete until the player fills in those gaps. Another way in which games are incomplete regards the infinite variety of choices and actions that they offer. Open-world games like Elder Scrolls: Skyrim offer the player an enormous number of choices to make. Of course, in many of those cases, selecting one choice necessarily forecloses on another choice. When designing my character, I cannot choose to be both a Nord and a Khajiit; or, when some villagers ask my character to clear the nearby mines of frostbite spiders, I cannot both choose to help the villagers and not choose to help them. Considering the size of Skyrim’s world and the number of choices I am able to make, the game offers an infinite

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variety of playthroughs. These forms of incompleteness are surely familiar to anyone who has spent any time playing video games. Another form of incompleteness that may not be so obvious has to do with the relationship between the character’s actions and the player’s motivations. The player-character of any game is itself incomplete as it lacks the motivation to act. This must be supplied by the player. My character in Skyrim has no will of its own. Whether my character chooses to study magic or to become a master assassin, it is my will that drives this choice. Moreover, we should recognize that the incompleteness of the player-character’s motivation is not the same thing as the incompleteness of the player-character’s actions. Certainly, these are related, but filling out the actions of the player-character does not exhaust the story we might tell about the player-character’s psychology. Rather, it adds an important level of detail. The goals, desires, and motivations that the player attributes to their character explain the character’s actions within the fiction. Thus, the incompleteness of the player-character’s motivation is a distinct form of incompleteness from those mentioned previously. While the story and conflict of the game world is itself completed by the actions of the player, so too is the internal psychology and identity of the player-character. For instance, consider the moral psychology of the player-character in BioShock Infinite. Booker DeWitt is a former Pinkerton agent who has been sent on a mission to the floating city of Columbia to find a young woman named Elizabeth. As the mystery of her background unfolds, Booker is drawn into a deeper battle over the fate of Columbia. In the course of this, Booker uncovers the deeply racist structure of the city’s society. In a non-optional event early in the game’s narrative, Booker witnesses an incident where an interracial couple is displayed on a fairground stage. They are accused of engaging in a relationship, which is illegal in the segregated city. They are shackled, appear to have been beaten, and are heckled by the hostile (white) crowd. The player is given the choice to have Booker participate in the persecution of the couple or to take their side and fight back. Ultimately, this choice has no effect on the story or the battle that quickly follows. This is interesting because, as it is a choice that carries no in-game consequences, the player is free to choose how Booker responds with no worry about how their choice may affect the gameplay. BioShock Infinite differs from the series’ two earlier games in this respect. Both BioShock and BioShock 214 tie the player’s moral choices to different outcomes that influence the way in which later battles unfold, meaning that the player’s moral choices must always be weighed against pragmatic decisions about strategy and opportunity. By contrast, BioShock Infinite avoids this muddying of the moral choice. The

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player is free to make a choice without any pragmatic concern. So, does Booker sympathize with the racist faction of Columbia or does he recoil against it? This is a free moral choice that is left up to the player.15 Importantly for our purposes, this choice does not merely concern one event within the game, but rather is a choice about how the player envisions the internal motivations of Booker. Is Booker sickened by the racism that he finds in Columbia? Or is Booker himself also racist? Or does Booker go along with the crowd because he doesn’t want to blow his cover? Regardless of whatever choice the player eventually makes, the important point is that the player’s choice is not really just about the action that Booker takes in this moment. Instead, it is a choice about how to fill out the moral psychology of Booker. The episode from BioShock Infinite described here is a binary forced choice that makes certain demands of the player. The episode forces the player to consider a question about Booker’s motivations, and the player is required to answer. The game itself does not tell us how Booker ought to respond or what should motivate his actions. The internal psychology of Booker is indeterminate without the player’s input. However, it is not entirely a blank slate. There are certain determinate facts about Booker that we learn throughout the course of the game. Many of these constrain what the player can justifiably imagine about Booker’s motivations. So, the determinate contents not only constrain the imagined actions and events that take place within the fictional world of the game, but they also constrain the ways in which one might imagine the psychological motivations of our characters.

7.3 Enactive Possibilities and Psychological Motivations Some games are gappy enough that they can be interpreted broadly, and thus can support a wide range of imaginative engagements. For instance, consider the many first-person perspective games where the player’s avatar is never seen directly: the physical appearance of the player-character is indeterminate. The player may imagine that the avatar looks just like the player themselves or that the avatar looks very different. Or perhaps the player imagines nothing at all about the appearance of the avatar. In many games that employ a first-person perspective, the only physically identifying characteristic one sees is a pair of hands. But what is the avatar’s gender? Or race? Or sexuality? Insofar as a game is indeterminate about some question, the player has the space to imagine whatever they wish, or to imagine nothing at all. However, insofar as the contents

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of a game are determinate, such contents are prescriptive of what one should imagine. The determinate contents of a game are necessarily fixed and have the effect of limiting the available range of the player’s imaginative engagement. This distinction becomes morally relevant to the criticism of game contents when we consider both the enactive possibilities that games allow and the need to fill out the avatar’s psychological motivations. We will begin first with a discussion of enactive possibilities. Games permit only certain kinds of actions. The ways in which the player can interact with the world of the fiction is limited only to those affordances that the game designer has sanctioned. For instance, the games Portal and Portal 216 are puzzle-platformers where the player must navigate their way through a space by using a “portal gun” that creates interdimensional wormholes on flat surfaces. The player must determine the best way to position the portals in order to quickly and safely move through the landscape. The Portal games offer the player a novel way of solving spatial puzzles, but it also limits the player’s actions considerably. Players are able to run, jump, and operate the portal gun; but players are not able put the gun down and freehand climb through the environment, or throw rubble and furniture at the attacking bots. To escape a room and avoid being killed by the bots, the player’s actions are limited to those sanctioned by the game. Moreover, such actions are often permitted only in certain circumstances. Portals can only be positioned on flat, matte white surfaces. Such limitations restrict the range of actions that one can take, but also limit the range of possibilities that one can imagine taking. When confronted with a challenge, the player must imagine what sort of strategies might work given the affordances and limitations of the gameplay. How is this morally relevant? One way in which the contents of a game can be criticized is when the game limits the range of enactive possibilities to ones that would be morally wrong to desire.17 Remember, “enactive possibilities” describe a certain kind of imaginative act. When players strategize about how to complete a level, the player must imaginatively develop a plan before putting that plan into action. This act of imagining how to move through a world and complete a challenge is what I am calling the “enactive possibilities” of the game. Players contextualize the meaning of their own actions within a game only to the extent that its enactive possibilities allow. When games limit the range of enactive possibilities to ones that would be morally wrong to desire, the player’s imaginative engagement is similarly limited. For instance, consider the Japanese video game RapeLay.18 In this game, the player controls a man who is reported to the police by a young woman who witnesses him groping another woman on

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a crowded subway. The man gets revenge on the girl and her family by hunting down and raping the mother and her two daughters. The enactive possibilities of the game are extremely narrow—it is a point-and-click game. The only plans and actions that the player can imagine are those that would eventually result in the sexual assault and psychological torture of three women. It is difficult to play RapeLay and imagine oneself to be planning anything other than rape. Thus, the content of the game is morally problematic (partly) because it limits the range of one’s imaginative engagement to actions that one ought not to desire, actions that one ought to induce moral disgust. However, we should also acknowledge that this point must be sensitive to context and to wider narrative considerations. Many games limit the range of enactive possibilities to ones that ought not to be desired and yet, in some cases, this constraint may lead to positive aesthetic and moral results. It can be valuable and productive to be morally challenged, to be shaken out of one’s certainties and forced to reflect on our values and assumptions. For instance, the Mass Effect games force players to make numerous moral choices, many of which can lead to a genuine sense of conflict for the player. One such choice concerns the fate of the “heretic geth” in Mass Effect 2.19 The geth are a race of sentient and artificially intelligent synthetic beings in the Mass Effect universe, many of which fight on the side of the player-character. The heretic geth have contracted a virus that leads them to revere the enemy forces. The player has the choice to reprogram the virus, which would lead the heretic geth to give up their beliefs and join the player-character, or to face the heretics in battle. The choice effectively is between brainwashing the heretics or destroying them. Neither option is clearly “good.” This episode is often discussed by gamers as one of the more difficult moral choices to make, which is a testament to its value. The sense of moral conflict that this choice provokes is part of its value, at least insofar as it produces genuine moral reflection. Thus, in this particular case, limiting the range of enactive possibilities to only two undesirable plans is a positive aspect of the game. The moral here is that any criticism of a game’s narrow enactive possibilities must take the wider narrative and context into account. A second way in which the gaps of fictional incompleteness become morally relevant are those cases where the contents of a game constrain the ways in which the player may fill out the avatar’s psychological motivations. This follows closely from the limitations of enactive possibilities. While games clearly limit the range of actions that one can imagine taking, games also limit the range of desires and psychological motivations that can be sustained by the game. Certainly, some games are more narrowly constrained than others when it comes to filling out

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the player-character’s motivations. In this context, consider once again the “No Russian” mission in CoDMW2. The player-character is required to go along with the massacre of innocent civilians in a crowded airport, though the player has the choice either to join in on the bloodshed or to fire their weapon at the ceiling without killing anyone. The game does not include a voice-over, so the player is given no internal cues about how they should feel about the mission. The psychological motivations of the player-character are indeterminate and must therefore be supplied by the player. In this case, the fictional incompleteness of the game could support a fairly wide range of imagined psychological motivations due to the lack of contextualizing cues. For instance, the player could imagine that the player-character is sickened by the mission; or that they view the mission through the coldly pragmatic logic of the “greater good”; or that they are indifferent to the suffering of the innocents and care only about getting the job done; or that they are a sociopath who in fact enjoys carrying out the massacre. Each of these imagined motivations are entirely consistent with the determinate contents of the game. Despite its horrific violence, the “No Russian” mission can support a wide range of imagined psychological motivations, from the innocent to the sociopathic. However, the same cannot be said for a game like RapeLay. I argued previously that the narrow enactive possibilities of RapeLay make it difficult for players to imagine themselves planning anything other than rape. The same point applies when thinking of the range of psychological motivations that the game can sustain: there is no innocent psychological motivation to commit rape. The nature of the game’s determinate contents narrows the player’s imaginative engagement to enactive possibilities that one ought not to desire and to psychological motivations that one ought not to sympathize with. This player-focused account of the criticism of games is preferable to contentfocused accounts because it captures what is morally salient about games that contain difficult contents while avoiding over-moralizing. The claim here is not that depictions of violence, cruelty, and immorality lead to immoral desires. Nor is it that all depictions of violence, cruelty, and immorality are problematic. Nor is it that it is morally wrong for game designers to invite players to perform any virtual immoral act in a game. We go too far in the direction of over-moralizing when we condemn all forms of video game violence; however, we equally go too far in the direction of under-moralizing when we fail to condemn violence that is egregious, cynical, and indulges in the worst parts of our desires. We strike the right balance when we criticize game contents that limit the player’s imaginative engagement to fantasies that ought not to be entertained.

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7.4 Conclusion Throughout this book, I have sought to argue that it can be morally wrong to engage in virtual violence and immorality under certain circumstances—specifically, when participating in fictional, willful, and malicious violence that serves to cultivate an immoral desire. Despite this, I would still insist that engaging in virtual violence and immorality under morally innocent circumstances can be a valuable experience, and even a morally enlightening one. Superficially, violence is exciting. The ability to defeat a foe in an unambiguous fight-to-the-death can be quite satisfying. When my fictional foe lies dead, there is no question that I got the better of them. Additionally, violence is strongly motivating. Racing games are fun, but racing against death offers a greater sense of urgency. In the Tomb Raider games, Lara Croft often finds herself in situations where she must outrun an overwhelming foe while navigating a crumbling landscape. Lara is not racing for a trophy, but rather for survival. When playing through these scenes, I often want to slow down and appreciate the stunning visuals, but I don’t have the time when Lara’s life is on the line. Perhaps, too, we enjoy violence because it offers us a safe way of facing our fears. There is obvious value to be had in giving players the freedom to choose whether to engage in violence or not. In some games, players are given no choice but to engage in violence—for instance, in games like Hellblade, For Honor,20 and the Max Payne games, the player can only progress through the game by killing one’s foes. Other games give the player the option to complete missions through stealth with a minimum of bloodshed—for instance, games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dishonored, and the Assassin’s Creed21 games. Granting players the option to choose how to complete a mission offers considerable value to the player’s imaginative engagement. Moments of choice offer the player the chance to consider explicitly what kind of person one wants the player-character to be. If players only have the option to be the hero, to be morally upright, to behave themselves, then the value of choosing to do right over wrong becomes lost. It is difficult to appreciate the value, complexity, and sacrifice that goodness demands when it is always forced upon us. We do not develop the virtues for free. They must be fought for. The willingness to do the right thing becomes meaningful when one has the freedom to choose to do otherwise. Finally, there is in fact quite a lot of value to be gained from willfully perpetrating violent and immoral acts in games, from taking on the role of a criminal or a killer. When we view the world through the eyes of someone with a different value system, we have the opportunity to learn about the strengths and

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weaknesses of our own values. We may come to appreciate the resilience of our own values, or we may come to realize that they are superficial. More importantly, taking on the role of the villain affords us the opportunity to develop sympathy and an appreciation of the complexity and fragility of humanity. We come to recognize the plight of characters with difficult problems and no easy solutions. Niko Bellic is a fascinating character, not because he is a gangster, but because he doesn’t want to be one. However, none of these benefits come from the cultivation of immoral desires. Players who willfully perform malicious acts of fictional violence are failing to develop sympathy and strengthen their understanding of their own values. Such players may be exercising their freedom to choose, yet some choices are genuinely the wrong ones. The possession of an immoral desire is a source of frustration. While one may act out one’s immoral desires in fantasy, such desires must be continually suppressed in real life. If the desire is felt strongly enough, one feels a sense of disappointment and dissatisfaction. Existentialist philosophers have long noted the role that dissatisfaction plays in the experience of Weltschmerz (or, “world-weariness”) and Buddhist philosophers have long recommended an avoidance of desire. These philosophers are not wrong. A dissatisfied person is not a fulfilled person. The account I have defended here aims to explain how players’ virtual actions can be open to moral criticism; how it can be morally wrong to perform acts of violence and virtual cruelty in a video game. I have argued that it is not the content of the player’s actions that are morally problematic, but instead it is the player’s own psychological motives for performing such actions. However, we can additionally criticize game designers for creating works of fiction that narrow the players’ imaginative engagement to actions and scenarios that ought not to be desired. When we morally criticize games and game playing, we should not simply ask, “What does the game allow me to do?” We should also ask, “Why do you want to do that?” In the end, my goal is neither to restrict players from doing what they want, nor to condemn game designers from producing challenging games. Rather, my goal is to argue for a deeper and more reflective engagement with games. Games are a source of great value and enjoyment, and they can be a source of introspection and self-understanding too.

Notes Preface 1 For a brief history of video game violence and the surrounding debate, see Kocurek (2012).

Chapter 1 1 Blizzard Entertainment (2004). 2 For instance, Simon (2000: 7) suggests that sportsmanship is not a “formal” rule of any game; he claims rather that values like sportsmanship are overarching norms or principles that are “internal to the idea of sport.” 3 I take this terminology of “affordances” to mean roughly “things one can do in a game” from Tavinor (2009: 80–81). 4 Cf. Simon (2000), who distinguishes between “formalist” and “internalist” conceptions of the rules of sports. For Simon, a “formalist” is someone who believes that the rules of a game are only those that are explicitly spelled out, as one might find in an official rulebook. Formalists struggle to explain sportsmanship according to Simon. Formalists also face difficulties when unique circumstances of some action in a game requires and interpretation of the rules. Simon contrasts formalism with what he calls “internalism,” which is the idea that all games have an unspoken internal logic or an ethos. On this view, players who genuinely care about playing games fairly will be bound to expectations of sportsmanship, and interpretations of rules typically aim for consistency with the internal logic of the game. While Simon’s distinction is certainly helpful when dealing with sports, I prefer to contrast “internalism” with “externalism” in the case of video games, as I believe this distinction brings out more clearly the nature of the issue. 5 See Luck (2009b), McCormick (2001), and Ryland (2019). 6 Illusion (2002). 7 National Alliance (2002). 8 Luck (2009a). 9 See for instance, Ali (2015), Bartel (2012a), Kjeldgaard-Christiansen (2019), Luck and Ellerby (2013), Patridge (2013), Reeves (2018), Seddon (2013), Tillson (2018), and Young (2013b and 2016).

158 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33

34 35

Notes This account of propaganda was proposed by Ross (2002). McCormick (2001: 278). McCormick (2001: 285). McCormick (2001: 284). McCormick (2001: 284). Rockstar North (2013). Nintendo (1985). Media Molecule (2008). Namco (2004). Infinity Ward (2009). This is a point made by Errant Signal, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSB n77_h_6Q. Cf. Sicart (2009) on the potential for games to act as vehicles of moral reflection. Ali (2015). Ali (2015: 269). Ali (2015: 269). Eidos Montreal (2011). Arkane Studios (2012). Rockstar North (2004). Rockstar San Diego (2010). But not all games are responsive to the player’s moral choices. In some games, the player’s moral choices have no impact on the narrative or the gameplay. For instance, this is the case with BioShock Infinite. This is not to say that such games render all moral choices meaningless. Rather, it means that the player’s moral choice need not be subject to any pragmatic or strategic considerations. BioWare (2009). Ali (2015: 269). Ali (2015: 271). Of course, philosophers could construct atypical examples. Imagine that I wager a bet that my brother will lose in an upcoming boss battle. In that situation, my brother’s killing the boss would have an effect on me. While this example has the form of a counterexample, it misses the broader point. Guerilla Games (2017). Strangely, Red Dead Redemption allows players to commit many dishonorable acts within the game, except for one very obvious case: the player cannot direct Marston to cheat on his wife. Numerous prostitutes proposition Marston throughout the game, and an obvious attraction develops between Marston and Bonnie MacFarlane, an important NPC character within the main storyline. Continuing this trend, sex is surprisingly absent from Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Studios 2018). These cases offer an interesting asymmetry between violence and (nonviolent) sex. All kinds of violence is permissible in games, but sex is rarely allowed. For discussion, see Brathwaite (2007).

Notes 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60 61 62

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Cf. Coeckelbergh (2007). Goerger (2017). Naughty Dog (2013). Goerger (2017: 96). For instance, see Tavinor (2009: 167–68). Goerger (2017: 103). Raz (2001). Raz (2001: 54). Goerger (2017: 104). We should also keep in mind that endorsement is not the same thing as propaganda. While it is likely true that propaganda necessarily functions as an endorsement, the reverse is not true. It is possible for some forms of expression to endorse a belief or set of values, but that does not necessarily make that form of expression an instance of propaganda. As I previously noted (section 1.2, fn 10), my view of propaganda follows Ross, who holds that “propaganda is an epistemically defective message used with the intention to persuade a socially significant group of people on behalf of a political institution, organization, or cause” (2002: 24). However, my broader point here is that, while a video game may endorse certain actions, beliefs, or values, it is uncommon for such endorsements to rise to the level of propaganda. Specifically, video games that are typical of those commercial available are rarely made on behalf of a political institution, organization, or cause. So, Ethnic Cleansing would clearly fit Ross’ definition of propaganda, but Call of Duty would not, even though both games can be seen as endorsing sets of (very different) values. Ostritsch (2017). This will be examined in more detail in section 3.2.1. Ostritsch (2017: 119). Ostritsch (2017: 118). Ostritsch (2017: 125), emphasis in the original. Ostritsch (2017: 124). Previously discussed in section 1.4. Ostritsch (2017: 124–25). Sicart (2009). Specifically, Sicart identifies Juul’s (2005) account, which will be discussed briefly here in section 2.2. See also Aarseth (2001) and Salen and Zimmerman (2004) for the foundations of the ontological approach. Cf. Juul (2005). Sicart (2009: 33). Rockstar North (2003). Sicart (2009: 51–52). Ubisoft (2003). Sicart (2009: 21–22 and 37; see also 29–30). Pajitnov (1985).

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63 Sicart (2009: 49). 64 Sicart (2009: 49). On the ethics of boxing, it is unsurprising that there has been much discussion among philosophers of sport. Readers interested in this topic might begin with Simon, Torres, and Hager (2015, especially Ch. 8), which offers an excellent introduction to the ethics of sport. For more detailed discussion, see Davis (1995), Dixon (2016), and Lewandowski (2007). 65 Patridge (2011). See also Patridge (2008 and 2013). 66 Patridge (2011: 308). 67 Patridge (2011: 304). 68 This point may not only apply to American game designers, but may also be extended to game designers globally. Certainly, we should expect American game designers to be sensitive to American’s anxieties about mass shootings; but additionally, it is reasonable to expect the same level of sensitivity even from nonAmerican game designers out of solidarity, especially as many games enjoy a global marketplace. As Patridge says: “In a globalized marketplace, game designers have a substantive moral duty to understand the incorrigible social meanings of the representations that they employ, which means that they have a duty to understand the cultures in which their products will be marketed” (2011: 311). 69 My main targets here are Gooskens (2010) and Schulzke (2010). To a lesser degree, van de Mosselaer (forthcoming) and Young (2013a) also make some appeal to fictionalist considerations. 70 My main target here is Young (2013a), though to a lesser extent I am also aiming at accounts of the ethics of gaming that follow Suits (2014). Also, one quick apology: the term “ludologist” has a somewhat tortured history in game studies. By using this term, I do not mean to invoke comparison to the bankrupt “ludology vs narratology” debate. For discussion, see Aarseth (2014). 71 We will briefly return to this thought in section 5.1.3. 72 See especially Young (2013a and 2016). 73 Young (2013a). 74 Frankfurt (1971). 75 Specifically Ali (2015), Patridge (2013), Tillson (2018), and Young (2016). 76 Bartel (2012a).

Chapter 2 1 See Ostritsch (2017) and Patridge (2011) for discussion of what motivates amoralism. 2 For discussion, see Young (2013b and 2015). 3 Cf. Young (2013b: 20–22).

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4 At least, this is true when we are talking about representational paintings, and not abstract paintings like those of Jackson Pollock. Of course, we should talk about representational paintings because those are the ones that are analogous to video games. 5 Juul (2005: 13–15) and Tavinor (2009: 95). 6 Serious Games Interactive (2013). 7 See for instance Thomas (2015) and Klepek (2015). 8 I am largely following Tavinor (2009: 44–51) on this point. For further discussion, see also Aarseth (2001) and Seddon (2013). 9 The example is Gooskens’ (2010: 61). 10 While the focus of my argument is on video games that involve fictional representations of violent and immoral acts, I do not mean to imply that all video games are works of fiction. While I am tempted to think that the vast majority of games are works of fictions, or at least involve the notion of fiction in some minimal sense, it is at least plausible that some video games are not fictions at all. For instance, it is likely that very little is added to our understanding and appreciation of a game like Tetris by conceiving of it as a work of fiction. Nonetheless, my analysis here applies to any video game where our engagement with it demands some engagement with it as a work of fiction. 11 Walton (1990). Nothing about my account hangs on the acceptance of Walton’s account—or at least, I believe that the arguments I defend here can be applied to other theories of fiction with only minor revisions. For competing accounts of fiction, see Currie (1990), Friend (2012 and 2017), Lamarque and Olsen (2002), Matravers (2014), and Stock (2017). 12 The nature of truth-in-fiction has been widely discussed beginning with Lewis (1978). For a broad overview of the topic, see Woodward (2011). 13 Lamarque and Olsen (2002: 43). 14 But see Bartel (2012b) and Holliday (2017) for discussion of consumers’ complicated reactions to historical inaccuracies in works of fiction. 15 Cooke (2014: 319). See also Cooke (2012). 16 Gooskens (2010) and Schulzke (2010). As a matter of terminology, Gooskens often uses the term “virtual” when it might be more helpful to use the term “fictional.” Gooskens makes the point early in his essay that some virtual actions are not fictional, as discussed previously, which makes it clear that Gooskens is conscious of the distinction. So, his use of the term “virtual” invites some confusion. To avoid this, I will use the term “fictional” in place of “virtual” when discussing Gooskens’ argument. Additionally, Schulzke does not appeal to the notion of fiction explicitly in his essay; however, it is the separateness of fiction that underwrites his arguments. 17 Rockstar North (2008). 18 See also Young (2016: 118–19).

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19 Gooskens (2010: 66–68). 20 Gooskens (2010: 69–75). Young (2013a) suggests a similar point. 21 Gooskens (2010: 66–67). If it sounds weird to say that I am seeing my grandfather, then read Walton’s (1984) essay on the transparency of photographs. 22 A similar point is made by Wollheim (1980: 205–26), though he refers to it as “twofoldness.” The idea of twofoldness is meant to capture the unique experience one has when looking at an image and paying attention to the relationship between the subject of the image and the physicality of the image. Think about looking at a painting that achieves a realistic sense of three-dimensionality—the viewer can be aware of the three-dimensionality of the subject while at the same time being aware of the two-dimensionality of the painting. 23 Schulzke (2010: 128). 24 Cf. Gaut (1998: 194) and Patridge (2011). 25 My argument here closely follows Gaut (1998). For criticism of Gaut’s theory, see Cooke (2014), Eaton (2012b), Jacobson (1997), and Kieran (2003). For a recent, but limited, defense, see Paris (2019). 26 For a helpful overview of the many definitions that have been offered by theorists, see Juul (2005: 29–36) and Salen and Zimmerman (2004: 73–80). 27 Suits (2014: 36). 28 Juul (2005: 34). For my part, I question whether we can compare sports like soccer and tennis to video game representations of soccer and tennis. For more on this point, see Bartel (2018). 29 Juul (2005: 36). 30 Juul (2005: 39). 31 Gygax and Arneson (1974). 32 Juul (2005: 43), my emphasis. 33 Perhaps a better and more charitable interpretation would be that Juul has in mind something like a cluster theory of games. Generally, a cluster theory is the idea that some ontological category is associated with a number of non-necessary features where having enough of those features would suffice for membership in the category. Objects that contain all typical features of the category are regarded as “paradigmatic” examples, while objects that only contain a few of the typical features may be regarded as members of the category, but only as atypical examples, or as borderline cases at best. There is some reason to think that this is what Juul has in mind. Although he does not explicitly invoke the notion of a cluster theory, he does describe Dungeons and Dragons as a borderline case. So, reading Juul as defending a cluster theory of games might make better sense of his intentions; however, it does not solve the problem. It is still highly unintuitive to think of Dungeons and Dragons as a borderline case of a game. 34 Mojang (2011). 35 Maxis (2000).

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36 This may depend on how one interprets the notion of “outcomes.” Certainly, most open-ended games contain missions or tasks one can pursue. Some might regard these as “outcomes” in a minimal sense. However, my understanding of Juul’s point is that his notion of “outcomes” refers to games that contain a win-state—that state where a game is finished and a winner can be declared. There is no such thing as finally winning in open-ended games, and so these games lack a quantifiable outcome in Juul’s sense. 37 Abbott (1949). 38 Cramer (1963). 39 Gruhl and Weir (2016). 40 Huizinga (1955: 13). 41 Caillois (1979: 9–10). 42 Salen and Zimmerman (2004: 80). 43 Huizinga (1955: 10). 44 For comparison, think of Suits’ notion of the “lusory attitude” (2014: 40–43). 45 See Nguyen (2017) for a helpful overview of the debate. 46 Lagny (2005). 47 See Young (2013a: 119–25). To be fair, Young is not strictly speaking defending amoralism. His position is more nuanced than that. However, I include his account as an example here because Young is critical of the sort of moralism that I aim to defend, and he clearly draws on the magic circle defense to argue for his point. 48 Young (2013a: 124). 49 The most common being the claims that social justice critics are taking the game too seriously and that politically informed criticism fails to be “objective” in some sense. For my part, I don’t see that social justice critics are treating games too seriously, but rather are treating games with the same seriousness that we would expect of any cultural object. And I suspect that accusations against the “objectivity” of social justice critics are predicated on the assumption that game criticism should focus solely on gameplay mechanics, which is an unjustifiably narrow conception of game criticism. 50 Cf. Simon (2000: 4–5): “strategic fouling” may be a convention of basketball, but its status as a convention does not make it good. 51 For instance, see Scruton (1998).

Chapter 3 1 My presentation of these will follow a thematic order rather than an historical order. 2 For examples, see Ayer (1936: Ch. 6), Hume (1975a, b), Mackie (1977), Prinz (2007), and Russell (1960). Also, see Garry Young (2013a, 2016) for an example of how to apply an expressivist theory to video games.

164 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14

Notes Ayer (1936: 141–42). Ayer (1936: 143). Russell (1960: 310–11). For instance, see Coeckelbergh (2007), McCormick (2001), Patridge (2011), and Sicart (2009). Bentham (1907) and Mill (1962). While this objection comes in many forms, Moore’s objection (1903) is a historically important one. Some consequentialist seem to accept a skeptical view of rights (e.g., Frey 1984). For instance, see Frey (1977) on act consequentialism and Hooker (1990) on rule consequentialism. The primary sources are Kant’s Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals and Critique of Practical Reason. I am using Ellington’s (1993 [1785]) translation of the Grounding and Gregor’s (2015 [1788]) translation of the Critique. Kant (1993: 421). The page numberings for Kant refers to the marginal page numbers. Kant (1993: 429). Kant (1996: 8:425–430). As Kant says, “Every individual . . . has not only a right but even the strictest duty to truthfulness in statements that he cannot avoid, though they may harm himself or others. Thus in telling the truth he himself does not, strictly speaking, do the harm to the one who suffers it; instead, an accident causes the harm. For he is not at all free to choose in the matter, because truthfulness (if he must speak) is an unconditional duty” (1996: 8:428). I do not wish to defend Kant on this point, but I do want to offer two quick remarks, if only to make Kant’s idea here seem less bizarre. First, Kant’s motive for holding such a strict belief is a reasonable one. Kant worries that, if we allow ourselves to lie whenever it suits us, then we must universally accept all lies to be permissible according to the Universal Law Formulation of the Categorical Imperative. But if we were to do that, then practices such as making promises and agreeing to contracts would all be meaningless because such practices depend on the reliability of truth-telling. We have a duty to tell the truth even when it harms us, as can certainly happen when we make a promise or sign a contractual agreement. Second, we should keep in mind our current cultural context. It would not be an exaggeration to say that a large portion of modern law and politics has been influenced by consequentialist thinking. So, when someone who was raised in a largely consequentialist society hears Kant saying that we always have a duty to speak the truth even when it leads to bad consequences, such a statement will likely sound preposterous. When considering the plausibility of any ethical theory, we should acknowledge that our negative responses to new ideas may be due to the fact that we are not unbiased judges.

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15 This view of ethics is not exclusive to Western philosophy. Concern for the development of moral character and human excellence plays an important role in Confucian philosophy as well as Buddhist and Daoist ethics. Interested readers might begin with Angle and Slote’s (2013) collection of essays, which offers a robust exploration of Confucianism as virtue ethics, and some discussion in relation to Buddhist and Daoist ethics. 16 The primary source from Aristotle is his Nicomachean Ethics. I am using Broadie and Rowe’s (2002) translation. 17 The renewed interest in virtue ethics began around the mid-twentieth century due to the work of Anscombe (1958), Foot (2002), and Hursthouse (1999). 18 Cf. Nichomachean Ethics (1103a15-1103b26). Aristotle claims that “none of the excellences of character comes about in us by nature” (1103a18-19). Rather, we must become habituated toward them by practicing acts associated with the virtues: “we become just by doing just things, moderate by doing moderate things, and courageous by doing courageous things” (1103b1-2). 19 For instance, Aristotle indicates the link between emotional response and the development of virtues in a brief discussion of courage, where he says, “through acting as we do in frightening situations, and through becoming habituated to fearing or being confident, that some of us become courageous and some of us cowardly” (1103b16-18). 20 For a brief virtue ethical account of the wrongness of values that one does not act on, see Goerger (2017: 100–101). 21 Though to be fair, many consequentialist and deontologists try to account for virtues and moral character. Some have even proposed “virtue consequentialism.” See for instance Hurka (1993). 22 This is a point that will be defended explicitly in Chapter 5. See also Bartel and Cremaldi (2018), Gaut (1998), and Patridge (2011). 23 Cf. Foot (2002: 11–14). 24 A common thought is that Joe might in fact be morally better off than Bob. The idea is that Bob does not struggle against dark desires like Joe does. Joe’s desires afford him the opportunity to struggle and overcome something, which is an opportunity that Bob misses. And the fact that Joe resists his desires shows that Joe possesses moral fortitude. So, Joe is morally better off than Bob because his struggles allow him to build moral character. This is a somewhat odd and paradoxical thought, but it is a common one that has its roots in Christian ethics—it is a version of the idea of righteous suffering that we get from the Biblical story of Job. In response, the only point I will make is that the concept of righteous suffering and the development of moral fortitude is not contradictory to virtue ethics, but instead can best be explained by virtue ethics. If you think that it is a good thing to build moral character through suffering, then Aristotle would agree with you.

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25 However, Hursthouse (1991) addresses this worry and offers an example of how virtue ethics can aide in moral decision-making even in difficult cases like abortion. 26 Cf. Barlett, Anderson, and Swing (2009) and Ferguson (2007) on hand-eye coordination and Adachi and Willoughby (2013) on problem solving. 27 Knight (2015). 28 Vaughan (2019). 29 Vidal (2013). 30 Kelly (2016). 31 For discussion, see Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter (2009, especially Ch. 8). 32 Johnson and Brooke (1999). 33 Sutter (2012). 34 Two recent essays—a meta-analysis by Ferguson (2007) and a literature review by Barlett, Anderson, and Swing (2009)—together offer an excellent review of the existing literature as well as contrasting outlooks on the interpretation of the evidence. 35 American Psychological Association (2015). 36 Anderson and Bushman (2001), Ballard and Wiest (1996), and Fleming and Rockwood (2001). 37 Carnagey and Anderson (2005). 38 For instance, Williams and Skoric (2005) find no support for any long-term increase in aggression while Anderson et al. (2003) do. Using a quite different methodology, Cunningham, Engelstätter, and Ward (2016) analyze crime statistics alongside video game sales and find no short-term or medium-term correlation between the sale of violent video games and the incidences of real-world crimes. 39 Barlett, Anderson, and Swing (2009: 378–79). 40 Barlett, Anderson, and Swing (2009: 379). 41 Ferguson et al. (2008), and Valadez and Ferguson (2012). 42 Ferguson (2007). 43 Ferguson (2007) and Ferguson et al. (2008). See also Wiegman and van Schie (1998). 44 Ferguson et al. (2008). 45 Ferguson et al. (2008: 315). 46 Schulzke (2010: 130–31). See also Young (2013a: Ch. 5). 47 McCormick (2001: 280). 48 Waddington (2007: 123). 49 Popper (1968). 50 Waddington (2007: 123). 51 Waddington (2007: 123). 52 Like that of Wiegman and van Schie (1998) and Williams and Skoric’s (2005). For additional empirical studies published after Waddington’s essay, see also

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55 56 57

58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

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Cunningham, Engelstätter, and Ward (2016), Ferguson (2007), Ferguson et al. (2008), and Valadez and Ferguson (2012). Cf. McCormick (2001: 282–83) and Young (2013a: Ch. 4). Kant (1963: 239). Whether it is true that animals do not deserve a similar sort of respect that humanity does or whether it is truly morally permissible to treat animals merely as a means to an end is not a point that we need to worry about here. My own feeling is that Kant is wrong on both points. But that topic is not the subject of this book. The point here is only that Kant believed this to be true. Kant (1963: 240). McCormick (2001: 283). But, see my argument that we in fact can have moral obligations to mere representations, in section 2.1. While Waddington (2007) argues against McCormick that the Kantian theory does not deserve to be dismissed so quickly, both Schulzke (2010) and Young (2013a: Ch. 4) broadly agree with McCormick. See also Tillson’s (2018) more recent defense of a Kantian account. See Goeger’s (2017) criticisms of the “contamination thesis.” McCormick (2001: 283–84). McCormick (2001: 282). See Ryland (2019: 110–12) for criticism. McCormick (2001: 282). For discussion, see Simon, Torres, and Hager (2015: Ch. 3) and Suits (2014: Ch. 4). McCormick (2001: 282–83). Ryland (2019). Ryland (2019: 112). Ryland (2019: 111–13). But, see Simon (2000) for a defense of sportsmanship as a moral value. See Young (2013a: 45–47) for further discussion of possible limitations of this position. Which is a point that is stressed by Slote (1992: Ch. 1) as an advantage of virtue ethics. McCormick (2001: 285). Schulzke (2010: 130). Schulzke (2010: 130). Yager Development (2012). See for instance Flanagan (2009) and Flanagan and Nissenbaum (2014) for an account of how games can be developed to instill positive values. Young (2013a: 93–97). Young (2013a: 94). Young (2013a: 94). Young (2013a: 95).

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Chapter 4 1 Parts of this chapter previously appeared in Bartel (2015). Reprinted by permission from Springer Nature: Springer, Ethics and Information Technology 17 (4), “Free Will and Moral Responsibility in Video Games,” Christopher Bartel, 2015. 2 Rockstar Studios (2012). 3 Frankfurt (1971). See also his (1988: Chapters 1–8). 4 Bethesda Game Studios (2011). 5 Irrational Games (2013). 6 There are many good texts available on the debates over free will. The interested reader should look at Pereboom (2004 and 2009), Pettit (2001), Pink (2004), and van Inwagen (1983, 2017). 7 This is the main problem facing Cartesian dualism, which was first pointed out to Descartes by Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia in correspondence. See Zedler (1989) for discussion. 8 Though, there is some debate among philosophers about which doctrine really is the most intuitive. See Nahmias et al. (2006) and Nichols and Knobe (2007). 9 Frankfurt (1971: 20). 10 Frankfurt (1971: 14–15). 11 Frankfurt (1971: 18–20). 12 Frankfurt (1971: 10). 13 Certainly, there is more than can be said about Frankfurt’s account of moral responsibility—for instance, Frankfurt cautions that we need to distinguish between being “fully” responsible and being “solely” responsible (1971: 20, fn. 10; see also Frankfurt’s 1988, Ch. 8)—but this level of detail is not necessary for my purposes here. 14 For criticism, see Pereboom (2004: Ch. 4), Pettit (2001: Ch. 3), Pink (2004: Ch. 5), van Inwagen (1978). 15 But, see Tavinor (2017) for discussion of how complicated it can be to understand player motivation in reference to game interpretation. 16 This term comes from Eaton (2010 and 2012b). For discussion, see Carroll (2013) and Clavel-Vazquez (2018). See also Kieran (2003). 17 A. W. Eaton (2010: 516) defines rough heroes in contrast to antiheroes like this: “Like the Antihero, the Rough Hero is a flawed protagonist. But whereas the Antihero’s flaws are ultimately moderate and need not be of a moral nature, the Rough Hero’s flaws are always moral, conspicuous and grievous; he is most often a murderer, but he might also be a rapist or child molester. Further, whereas the Antihero’s moral flaws (if she’s got any) are isolable from a basically good core, the Rough Hero’s moral failings are an integral part of his personality. We cannot

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write off the Rough Hero’s misdeeds as the result misfortune, weakness, folly or ignorance; he usually fully intends to do bad and feels little or no remorse about his crimes. The Rough Hero is fundamentally morally corrupt but at the same time he is still a hero; that is, a sympathetic protagonist whom we are supposed to like and perhaps even admire.” The main difference between watching Breaking Bad and playing the “Three Leaf Clover” mission is that, in the former, I am merely a passive observer with no sense of responsibility for what I am witnessing; while in the latter, I have some sense of agency, which gives rise to feelings of responsibility. Ali makes a similar point when he suggests that a “morally degenerate gamer who fantasizes about murdering others” is in the wrong if they use a video game as a way of simulating their fantasies (2015: 269). What Ali’s account is lacking, however, is an explanation of why such a player is in the wrong. Also, Patridge (2008: 196) considers a similar sort of case. Cf. Frankfurt’s comment on the moral responsibility of the “willing addict” (1971: 19–20). Section 3.2.3. For discussion of this point, see Carroll (1998) and Walton (1994). Cf. Sicart (2009). Except for those unique cases where the player-character is intentionally modeled after a recognizable real-world actor or athlete. It must be very odd for Alex Morgan to control her own avatar in FIFA 16, or for Ellen Page to play Beyond: Two Souls, or for Aaron Staton to play L.A. Noire. But these cases are so rare that we need not worry about them. The idea of de se imagining is defended by Currie (1997) and Walton (1990). For discussion, see Alward (2006) and Stock (2012). Cooke (2012, 2014). “Phoenix,” Season Two, May 24, 2009. We could quibble about whether Walter’s actions should count as a “murder” or a “killing,” and there is a long philosophical debate about the potential moral difference between “killing” and “letting die.” See Foot (2002: Ch. 2) and Thomson (1976) for the classic introductions to the debate. Does Walter’s inaction count as a “murder,” even if it is a passive one? I don’t know. At least we could say this: while Walter did not intentionally kill Jane, he did intentionally refuse to help. And passively and knowingly withholding assistance would constitute criminal negligence. Walter is certainly implicated in Jane’s death, whether he is a murderer or not. Gaut (2010: 225; see also 277–81). Gaut (2010: 280–81). 2K Boston/2K Australia (2007).

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Chapter 5 1 Eaton (2010, 2012b). 2 Cf. Gooskens (2010), Schulzke (2010), and van de Mosselaer (forthcoming). 3 As we saw in Chapter 2, McCormick (2001) defends a virtue ethical account of video game violence, but the account offered there does not sufficiently fill out the details of how exactly virtual actions can be wrong. John Tillson (2018) also hints at the account that I develop here, but ultimately rejects the Aristotelian approach. The account I offer here has its origins in a previous essay, Bartel and Cremaldi (2018). 4 Cf. Gaut (1998: esp. 187). For discussion of Gaut’s account, see Patridge (2008). 5 In fact, the idea that it can be immoral to possess some desires is an old idea. Reference to it can be found in the works of ancient Greek philosophers, in the invocation of Buddhist philosophers to rid ourselves of all desire, and in the Biblical admonition that a man who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart (Matthew 5:28). Admittedly, some of the ancient sources can seem woefully prudish, as when we read of Augustine chastising himself for having had a sexual dream (Confessions, Book X, Ch. 30). While it is my intention to defend the idea that it can be immoral to possess some desires, it is not my intention to defend prudishness. 6 Cf. Goerger (2017: 101) and Neu (2012: 23). 7 Cf. Tavinor (2009: 161) suggests that imagined content has a “moral relevance,” which is “borne out by our moral response to people who fantasize about criminal and immoral acts: it is hardly a morally neutral act to fantasize about acts of rape, pedophilia, cannibalism, or murder.” 8 One can see these sorts of considerations arise in the debate between McCormick (2001) and Waddington (2007) on how strongly we should understand the notion of “increasing likelihoods.” 9 It is worth noting in passing a third characteristic of desires: they are not rational mental states—that is, they are mental states that are not normatively constrained by reason or logic, to echo David Hume’s view of the passions in his Treatise. If one has inconsistent beliefs, then one is under some epistemic pressure to resolve the inconsistency. But with desires, there is no epistemic pressure to resolve conflicts or inconsistencies. At best, there may be some pragmatic need to resolve such conflicts. But typically, conflicts of desires go unresolved. One must simply learn to live with conflicting desires. 10 Suppressed desires are just one case of unactualized desires. Other cases of unactualized desires would be those where the individual’s desires are impractical or impossible. For instance, a person who desires to eat only the most exotic foods but cannot afford to do so possesses an impractical desire, while a person who

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desires to become a Jedi possesses an impossible one. Other desires might be only weakly felt, and they may be unactualized just because they are easily ignored. In each of these cases, the desire goes unactualized not because the individual exercises a sense of moral self-control. Rather, the desire goes unactualized because of some material concern: either a lack or practicality, or possibility, or intensity. These individuals do not deserve our moral praise. Even for the individual whose desire is only weakly felt, the avoidance of a weak desire does not take praiseworthy moral fortitude. The notion of “trying on” a desire is borrowed from Todd (2012). Cf. Coeckelbergh (2007). Sutter (2012). I do not mean to suggest that the experience of unrequited love can never possess positive value. My claim is not a logical or conceptual truth. Rather, it is merely the observation that unrequited love is typically experienced as something negative in one’s life. Protasi (2016) suggests that unrequited love has some value. While unrequited love is often “worthy of grief,” it can be a valuable form of love, one that is not conditional on reciprocity (218). The value of unrequited love, it seems, is its potential to reveal what is lovable about someone. The general point I am appealing to in my discussion of unrequited love is not in conflict with Protasi’s view. Unrequited love may be valuable in Protasi’s sense even though it remains unfulfilling. Walton (1990). Cf. Levinson (2005). This is known as “fictional incompleteness.” For discussion, see Walton (1990). For discussion of fictional incompleteness in video games, see Juul (2005: 122–23), Tavinor (2009: 68–69), and Wildman and Woodward (2018). This topic will be examined in more detail in Chapter 7. Walton (1990: Ch. 7, and 1994). Crystal Dynamics (2013). Cf. Gooskens (2010). See Frankfurt (1971) and my discussion of it in Chapter 4. Cf. Cogburn and Silcox (2009: Ch. 3) and Young (2013a: 93). See for instance, Currie (2002), Todd (2012), and van de Mosselaer (forthcoming). Telltale Games (2012). Van de Mosselaer (forthcoming). See also Juul (2005). Van de Mosselaer (forthcoming: 11). However, I must admit that I am skeptical that there are any such things as “i-desires.” Instead, I suspect that many of the cases that philosophers want to attribute to i-desires can be explained away as genuine, real-world desires.

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Notes Unfortunately, expanding on this point further here would be a distraction, but see, for instance, Kind (2011). In case the reader thinks that it is implausible that anyone would have genuinely romantic feelings toward fictional characters, think of the many readers who are smitten by the character of Mr. Darcy in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. Or, think of the phenomenon of “fan fiction” or “slash fiction.” It is not at all implausible that fictional characters can provoke real-world lust. Bessière, Seay, and Kiesler (2007). Though, see Yee (2014) for discussion of the limitations that players self-impose on their re-imaginings. Vonnegut (2009: v).

Chapter 6 1 Mill (1962: 135). 2 This formulation is borrowed from an unpublished paper by Morgan Luck, “The Grave Resolution to the Gamer’s Dilemma.” This formulation is also adopted by Tillson (2018: 208). 3 Ali (2015) directly challenges the claim that all virtual murders are permissible (as will be discussed in section 6.3), while both Bartel (2012a: 13) and Patridge (2013: 33) voice some worries about the limits of (1). 4 Killing in self-defense may be an instance of a lesser crime—like manslaughter—but we should still recognize that “manslaughter” is a different (and lesser) crime than “murder.” Additionally, self-defense is but one example of a (potentially) justified killing. Debates about the morality of just war, capital punishment, and euthanasia are ultimately debates about the justifiability of such killings. 5 Luck (2009a: 31–32). 6 The remainder of this section is reprinted (with minor changes) by permission from Springer Nature: Springer, Ethics and Information Technology, “Resolving the Gamer’s Dilemma,” Christopher Bartel (2012). 7 Luck (2009a: 32). 8 Luck (2009a: 33). 9 See Levy (2002: 321) and Cisneros (2002), both quoted in Luck (2009a: 33). 10 This is a claim I reject, however, as discussed in section 3.2.1. 11 Luck (2009a: 33–34). 12 Luck (2009a: 34–35). 13 Luck (2009a: 34). 14 Luck (2009a: 35). 15 Luck (2009a: 35).

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16 Bartel (2012a). 17 More accurately, I had previously argued that the representation of sexual acts involving children would necessarily count as an instance of child pornography. However, Patridge found the definition of “pornography” that I defended to be problematic. Patridge suggested that problems with defining and identifying pornography could be avoided by acknowledging that a work may be pornographic without needing to be pornography (2013: 26). I entirely agree with this line of argument and gladly accept Patridge’s suggestion. 18 What would the law say about virtual child pornography? The status of the law is often mentioned in passing in debates over the gamer’s dilemma, but such discussions often miss some of the subtlety of the law. In the United States, the ban on child pornography has long been justified as a ban on the abuse of actual children following the Supreme Court’s decision in New York v. Ferber (458 U.S. 747, 1982). The Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996 sought to extend the ban to computer-generated child pornography—sometimes (wrongly) called “virtual child pornography”—by banning images that “appear to be” children engaging in sexual acts. (A similar statue holds in England and Wales through the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, which amended the Protection of Children Act of 1978.) However, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the CPPA was overbroad in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. The Court took issue specifically with the clause identifying child pornography as whatever “appears to be” child pornography. The Court worried that pornographic works that were made by adult actors could be open to prohibition if the actors appeared to be underage (535 U.S. 256). Following this ruling, some forms of computer-generated child pornography were protected under the First Amendment for a brief time. The ban on computer-generated child pornography was reinstated in 2003 with the passage of the PROTECT Act (an acronym for Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today), which currently bans any “digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct” (18 U. S. C. Section 2256(8)). It is important to recognize that, where both the CPPA and the PROTECT Act identify computer-generated child pornography, the language of the law uses the term “virtual” in a way that differs from how that term is often used in video game scholarship. Among video game scholars, the term “virtual” is typically used to refer to the digital existence of people and objects in a game or computer program. However, the text of the law uses the term “virtual” in the more common sense, meaning “almost or nearly all.” There are two sections of the United States Code that discuss computer-generated child pornography: 18 U.S.C. Section 2251 and Section 2256. In both sections, computer-generated child pornography is identified as that which is “virtually indistinguishable” from actual photographic images

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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Notes of child sexual abuse. Notice that the use of “virtual” here does not refer to the digital reality of the images, but instead refers to the possibility that the images could be nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. In fact, the law directly offers a definition of what “virtually indistinguishable” means in this context: “the depiction is such that an ordinary person viewing the depiction would conclude that the depiction is of an actual minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.” The law further says, “[t]his definition does not apply to depictions that are drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings depicting minors or adults” (18 U.S.C. 2256 [11]). This would imply that video games that depict acts of pedophilia would not violate this particular statute so long as the depiction used in the game was clearly distinguishable from a photograph. Highly realistic depictions of pedophilia would be banned under this statute, but the law seems to suggest that cartoonish depictions would not violate it. However, a different statute found in the obscenity laws—18 U.S.C. Section 1146A—already bans sexually explicit drawings and cartoons depicting children. There, the law prohibits any form of child pornography, “including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting” (Section 1146A[a]), and further that “visual depictions” would include computer-generated images (Section 1146A[f.1]). While the PROTECT Act sought to strengthen the ban on computer-generated images that were indistinguishable from photographs, it is the obscenity laws that more directly relate to the issue of virtual pedophilia as it figures in the gamer’s dilemma. The literature on this topic is extensive. The work of Andrea Dworkin (see 1989) and Catherine MacKinnon (see 1987) has been highly influential. My thinking on the topic, and the argument as it is presented here, is heavily indebted to A. W. Eaton (see 2007, 2012a, 2019). See also Catherine Itzin (1992) for an extensive collection of essays. Levy (2002). See Eaton (2007). Levy (2002: 322). Patridge (2013: 30). See also, Seddon (2013: 3) and Young (2013b: 15, f. 4; and 2016: 79). Patridge (2013: 30). Luck and Ellerby (2013). See also Ali (2015). See also, Ali (2015: 268, 271). See also, Tillson (2018: 208–209). Tillson (2018). Tillson (2018: 213). Tillson (2018: 213). Tillson (2018: 213). Ali (2015).

Notes 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53

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Ali (2015: 268). Ali (2015: 270). Naughty Dog (2007). Ali (2015: 269). Young (2016: 99–103). In making his case for the wrongness of the degenerate gamer’s actions, Ali draws on concepts like fantasy and desire. While Ali does not explicitly adopt a virtue ethical account of the morality of fantasies, I believe that Ali is thinking along the same lines that I defend in Chapter 5. Indeed, Ali says that when players enjoy an immoral fantasy, “[it] is not a mere fantasy or imagining. It is a way of materializing the fantasy, enacting it virtually, in a way that is perceptible to the gamer. It is in having this desire, and seeking to actualize it, that the virtual murder is unacceptable” (2015: 274). Comments like these are tantalizing; though, they raise more questions than they answer. Why are some fantasies wrong to materialize in a virtual space? And what makes “having this desire” unacceptable? The account that I defend seeks to answer these questions. In Chapter 4, I sought to refine this idea by exploring in more detail what it is about the player’s imaginative engagement with the fiction that implicates the player’s own moral values. There I argued that willing players are those who identify with the actions that they are made to perform within some game. As such, my notion of the willing player appears to be just what Ali has in mind. Then in Chapter 5, I take on the task of explaining how virtual actions can be morally wrong by developing a virtue ethical account. The account I offer there is consistent with Ali’s worry about the wrongness of the degenerate gamer’s fantasies. SIE Santa Monica (2005). Ali (2015: 272). See also Luck (2018) for similar criticism. Patridge (2013; see also 2011). Young (2016: 89). Patridge (2013: 33). Young (2016; see also 2013a, b, 2014, 2015). This is a point that Young adopts from Ridge (2006). Young (2016: 107–108). The shift from the actual instantiation of some morally relevant property to the mere belief in its instantiation is key to balancing the anti-realist metaphysics of the theory along with the general desire to hold that moral statements have some normative force. Young (2016: 120). This is a point that Young adopts from Prinz (2007). Prinz (2007). Young (2016: 112–17). Young (2013a, b, 2016: 100–103).

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54 The position I defend here is, I believe, sympathetic to the insights offered by Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen (2019), who argues that the concept of virtual pedophilia provokes moral disgust because it is strongly suggestive of immoral desires. As Kjeldgaard-Christiansen puts it, “It is not just that we happen to have a hard time imagining why anyone would engage in virtual pedophilia if not to experience perverse gratification . . . The concept of pedophilia describes a drive. The very type of the offense slots immoral desire under its intensional scope” (2019: 3). While the concept of pedophilia implies an immoral desire, Kjeldgaard-Christiansen notes that the concept of murder does not similarly do so. The difference is that murder can be instrumental to desires that are not immoral. On my account, I would describe this as a difference in their redeeming motivations. Also see Tavinor (2009: 165) who suggests a similar point to mine, but in the context of criticizing a game for its contents rather than as a criticism of a player’s virtual actions. 55 As Tillson (2018) points out. 56 It would be interesting to consider further the relationship between ludic motivations and moral motivations. Specifically, we might consider whether it is sometimes wrong to choose some option in a game for purely ludic reasons at the expense of some better moral reason. Is it sometimes crass to make the strategic choice when the moral expense is high? Is this expressive of a grossly opportunistic attitude on the part of the player? Perhaps these questions would be worth considering further, but I will leave them aside here. 57 Parrish (2018) conducted a survey to examine the relationship between political affiliation and the player’s choice between the Imperials and the Stormcloaks. The data and analysis he presents lends some support to the idea that players do project their own real-world political values into the Skyrim civil war.

Chapter 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

See again section 1.6. Atari (1980). See for instance Currie (1990), Lamarque and Olsen (2002), and Walton (1990). Ninja Theory (2017). For discussion, see again Juul (2005: 122–23), Tavinor (2009: 68–69), Walton (1990), and Wildman and Woodward (2018). See, for instance, Walton (1990: 66, 206, and 330). Lewis (1978). Lewis (1978). This example comes from Wildman and Woodward (2018).

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10 For discussion of the various sorts of ways that fictional truths may be generated, see Walton (1990: Ch 4). See also Wildman (2019) and Wildman and Woodward (2018). 11 Tolkien (1987: Fellowship, Bk. 2, Ch. 2, 253). 12 Note: “The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy, when it is in fact a single novel, consisting of six books plus appendices, published for convenience in three volumns” (Tolkien, 1987, “Note on the Text,” v). 13 Juul (2005: Ch. 4). See also Sicart (2009: 33), Tavinor (2009: 55), and Wildman and Woodward (2018). 14 2K Marin (2010). 15 It would be worthwhile to question what sort of message is being signaled to the player by allowing them to make this choice. It is rather shocking that the game allows the player to make any choice here at all. When I played through BioShock Infinite, I sat frozen during this scene because I was horrified that I was even given the option to side with the racist faction of Columbia. In pursuit of this thought, I might suggest a critical reading of BioShock Infinite where the moral seriousness of the scenario is being trivialized by posing it as a choice, and particularly as a choice that carries no consequences. However, this is a line of questioning that I will not pursue here. 16 Valve (2007) and (2011) respectively. 17 I claim that this is “one way” in which game contents can be criticized. I do not want to deny that game contents can be criticized in other ways—for example, for their symbolic meanings or for their function as works of propaganda—as previously mentioned in section 1.6. 18 Illusion (2006). 19 BioWare (2010). 20 Ubisoft Montreal (2017). 21 Ubisoft (2007–2018).

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Games 2K Boston/2K Australia (2007). BioShock. 2K Games. 2K Marin (2010). BioShock 2. 2K Games. Abbott, Eleanor (1949). Candy Land. Milton Bradley. Arkane Studios (2012). Dishonored. Bethesda Softworks. Atari (1980). Missile Command. Atari. Bethesda Game Studios (2011). Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Bethesda Softworks. BioWare (2009). Dragon Age: Origins. Electronic Arts. BioWare (2010). Mass Effect 2. Electronic Arts. Blizzard Entertainment (2004). World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment. Cramer, Hank (1963). Mouse Trap. Ideal. Crystal Dynamics (2013). Tomb Raider. Square Enix. Eidos Montreal (2011). Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Square Enix. Gruhl, Ken and Weir, Quentin (2016). Happy Salmon. North Star Games. Guerilla Games (2017). Horizon Zero Dawn. Sony Interactive Entertainment. Gygax, Gary and Arneson, Dave (1974). Dungeons & Dragons. TSR. Illusion (2002). Battle Raper. Illusion. Illusion (2006). RapeLay. Illusion. Infinity Ward (2009). Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Activision. Irrational Games (2013). BioShock Infinite. 2K Games. Lagny, Patric (2005). Sociolotron. Sociolotronics. Maxis (2000). The Sims. Electronic Arts. Media Molecule (2008). LittleBigPlanet. Sony Interactive Entertainment. Mojang (2011). Minecraft. Mojang. Namco (2004). Katamari Damacy. Namco. National Alliance (2002). Ethnic Cleansing. Resistance Records. Naughty Dog (2007). Uncharted. Sony Interactive Entertainment. Naughty Dog (2013). The Last of Us. Sony Interactive Entertainment. Ninja Theory (2017). Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Ninja Theory.

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187

Index Aarseth, Espen 22 n.15, 27 n.70, 35 n.8 affordances 2, 151 agency 94 Ali, Rami 11, 13, 85 n.19, 122 n.3, 131–3 American Psychological Association 63 amoralism 20–1, 33–4 and the fiction argument 34–42 and the ludological argument 43–9 Anderson, Craig 67, 64 n.39 antihero 84, 98 Aristotle 57–8, 60 n.24, 72 Augustine 100 n.5 avatars 69–70, 117 assault on 35–6 and identifying with 92–4, 150–1 Ayer, A. J. 52 Barlett, Christopher 64 Battle Raper 4, 6, 10 Bentham, Jeremy 53, 54 Bessière, Katherine 118 BioShock Infinite 77, 149–50 boxing 24, 46–7 Breaking Bad 84–5, 90–1, 93, 94 Breivik, Anders 63, 106, 111, 144 Caillois, Roger 45 Call of Duty 6, 109, 119 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 21, 63, 106 “No Russian” 10–11, 17, 34, 38, 143 catharsis 114 child pornography 126–8 and legal status 126 n.18 compatibilism 80–1 conditioning, psychological 103–4 consequentialism 51, 53–5, 61–8 classic utilitarianism 54 compared to virtue ethics 28, 57, 59, 60, 70–1, 101 and empirical evidence 20, 63–5

happiness 54–5 significant likelihoods 101, 124 constructive ecumenical expressivism 135 contents of games 8, 14, 18, 25, 111, 118, 143, 152 content-focused criticism 14, 143–4 vs. player-focused criticism 14, 144, 153 determinate contents 148, 150, 151, 153 as fictional 36 indeterminate contents 147–50, 153 Cunningham, Scott 64 n.39, 67 n.53 deontology the categorical imperative 56, 59, 68, 69 compared to virtue ethics 57, 59, 60, 70–1 defined 55–6 and empirical evidence 68–70 and lying 57 n.14 and multiplayer games 69–70 desire 16, 81–2, 84 characteristics of 102 and cultivation 100, 103–7, 114 i-desires 114–18 as immoral 100–3, 105–7, 110–11, 113, 114 link to fantasy 100, 107–10 and moral character 59–60 sexual 104, 110 suppressed 100, 102–3 unactualized 59–60, 100–3 unsatisfied 114 determinism defined 78–9 video games as deterministic worlds 82–3 Dill, Karen 67 Dishonored 12, 154

Index Dragon Age: Origins 13, 109 Dungeons and Dragons 44–5, 109 Dworkin, Andrea 127 n.19 Eaton, A. W. 98, 84 nn.16, 17, 127 n.19 Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 76, 117, 139, 148 emotivism 52 enactive possibility 145, 150–3 endorsements of values 20–2, 84–5, 94, 99 enjoyment 98, 138 Ethnic Cleansing 5–6, 118–19 exploitation 69–70 expressivism 52, 135 externalism, moral 3 fantasy and cultivation 100, 103–7, 114 as immoral 100–3, 105–7, 110–11, 113, 114 link to desire 100, 107–10 passive vs. active 105 sexual 104 Ferguson, Christopher 62 n.27, 63 n.35, 64–5, 67 fiction and amoralism 34–42 defined 36–7 distinct from reality 35–9 as distinct from the virtual 35–6 incompleteness of 145–8 as make-believe 35, 37–8 prescribed by game contents 145–7 pure vs. impure 14–15 fictional worlds 36–7, 108–9, 115–16, 145–6 first-person perspective 92–4, 150 Foot, Philippa 91 n.28 Frankfurt, Harry 29, 80–7, 93, 94 freedom to act vs. freedom to will 81–2, 86 and moral responsibility 80–2 and personhood 82, 88 free will defined 78 and moral responsibility 80–2 game mechanics 12, 23 gamer’s dilemma 5–6 conservative accounts of 133–7 defined 122

123–4, 126,

189

as an inconsistency of reasons 136–7 and redeeming motivations 138–41 revisionist accounts of 123–4, 130–3 scope 5–6 games definition of 43–5 and social conventions 45–9 gaming culture 48 Gaut, Berys 92–3 General Learning Model 64 genre 109 God of War 132 Goerger, Michael 18–20, 22, 24, 58 n.20 Gooskens, Geert 27 n.69, 39–41 Grand Theft Auto 6, 12 Grand Theft Auto IV 39, 117 “Three Leaf Clover” 82–5, 89, 93 Grand Theft Auto V 18–19, 21 “By the Book” 10, 26, 85–6 Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas 12–13 as satire 19, 21 happiness 54–5, 101, 103, 114, 135 harm to children 59, 125, 127–9, 133–4 to oneself 103, 107 to one’s moral character 57, 71, 99, 101 quantifiable 106–7 to social groups 25, 125, 127–8, 130 unquantifiable 107 Harry Potter 37, 147 Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice 145–8 holodeck 9 honor 12 Huizinga, Johan 45–6 Hume, David 52 n.2, 102 n.9 Hursthouse, Rosalind 60 n.25 Husserl, Edmund 39 i-desires 114–18 image-consciousness 39–42 imagination 31, 37, 88, 108 constrained by game contents 145–7 de se vs. de re 90–4 moral limits on 98, 145 incompatibilism 80 incompleteness of fiction 145–8 and moral relevance 149–53 in video games 148–50 incorrigible social meaning 24–6, 133–4

190

Index

inequality 127–9 interactivity 145–6 internalism, moral 3, 5, 47 involuntary actions 87

murder morally equivalent to virtual pedophilia 122–3, 140 virtual representations of 123

“just a game” arguments 25, 27, 33–4, 99 Juul, Jesper 43–5

Ostritsch, Sebastian

Kant, Immanuel 55–7, 68–9 Kind, Amy 116 n.28 Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, Jens 138 n.54 The Last of Us 18–19 Levy, Neil 127–9 live action role-playing (LARPing) 108 love 107 Luck, Morgan 5–6, 30, 121–6, 129, 130, 137 McCormick, Matt 8–9, 24, 28, 65–6, 68–9, 71, 99 n.3, 101 n.8 MacKinnon, Catherine 127 n.19 magic circle 46–9 Manhunt 23 Mass Effect 2 152 mass shootings 26, 63 Max Payne 3 75, 76, 154 Mill, John Stuart 53, 121 moral attitudes 25, 29, 30, 38, 41–2, 50, 58, 99, 113, 135, 136 moral character 57–60, 70–1, 138 moral obligations 40–1, 46 moral permissibility 123 moral psychology 87–9, 149–50 moral responsibility 80–9 game designers 100, 144, 150–3 players 5–6, 39, 110–11, 137–41 willing vs. unwilling players 83–9 (see also Frankfurt, Harry) moral theory 51–60 vs. legality 7–8 realist vs. anti-realist 51–3 motivation and desires 101–3 as expressions of character 139–40 as morally praiseworthy or blameworthy 40–2, 85–6, 105–7 redeeming vs. unredeeming 138–41 multi-player vs. single-player games 3–4, 14–15, 69–70

20–2, 143

Patridge, Stephanie 24–6, 128–9, 133–5 pedophilia morally equivalent to virtual murder 122–3, 140 virtual representations of 123, 126 n.18 photographs 39–42 player engagement 92–3, 105, 110–11, 150–3 Playing History 2: Slave Trade 33 poker 46 Popper, Karl 66–7 pornography, see also child pornography desire 104, 110 as harmful to women 127–8 Portal 151 Portal 2 151 possible worlds 146 production, ethics of 144, 150–3 propaganda 6, 20 n.45 Protasi, Sara 107 n.14 racism 24–5, 41, 113, 118–19, 139, 149 rape, virtual representations of 4, 47 RapeLay 151–2, 153 Raz, Joseph 19 Red Dead Redemption 12, 16, 68, 92 respect deontology 68–9, 130 and moral relevance 12–13 as worthy of value 18–20 Ross, Sheryl Tuttle 20 n.45 rough heroes 84 Russell, Bertrand 52 Ryland, Helen 69 sadism, virtual 112 Salen, Katie 45 Schulzke, Marcus 39–40, 65, 71–2 sex, representations of 16 n.35 Sherry, John 67 Sicart, Miguel 22–4 Simon, Robert 3 n.4

Index social conventions, limits of Sociolotron 47–8 Spec Ops: The Line 72 sportsmanship 2, 69–70 Suits, Bernard 43–4

45–9

Tavinor, Grant 101 n.7 Tetris 23, 33–4 third-person perspective 92–4 Tillson, John 130–1 Tolkien, J. R. R. 148 Tomb Raider 110, 154 torture 10, 26, 85–6, 134 truth-in-fiction 37 unactualized desires unactualized 59–60, 100–3 Uncharted 131–2 unwilling players 83–9 utilitarianism 54 values 19–20 van de Mosselaer, Nele 115–16 video games aggression 63–7 benefits 61–2 compared to passive media 93–4 ecological impact 62 gaming communities 61–2 harms 62 real-world violence 63–5 violence against NPCs 14, 68–9 against social groups 25, 127–8, 130 contextualization of 11–13, 131–2, 153 defined 14–17

191

in degrees 10–11 and empirical evidence 63–5 graphic 10, 18–19, 126, 129 malicious 14–17 morally relevant 14–17 psychological 9–10 racially motivated 5, 139–40, 149–50 realistic 18 and real-world harms 63–5 reverse causation 65 in self-defense 123 sexual 9–10, 35–6, 47–8, 123 (see also pedophilia) and sport 64, 66 value of 154–5 virtue ethics defined 57–60 eudaimonia (or fulfillment) 57–8, 101–3, 107 the good life 57 as a practice 57–8, 71–2, 103–4 and the relativity of virtues 73 its role in virtual ethics 70–4, 100–11 Vonnegut, Kurt 119 Waddington, David 66–7 The Walking Dead 115 Walton, Kendall 36, 146 willing players 83–9 Wollheim, Richard 40 n.22 World of Warcraft 1–3, 36, 70 XIII

23

Young, Garry

28–9, 30, 48, 73–4, 89,

134, 135–7