Matt Juskelis

Virtual Wrongs Aren’t Really Wrong

        Video games, specifically violent and otherwise ‘immoral’ ones, are a contentious issue. Many people argue that they should not exist, or that they are otherwise problematic for reasons such as increasing aggression and degrading the character of the player. This paper exists to defend video games, by examining Utilitarian, Kantian, and Philosophical viewpoints, as well as taking in various counter arguments. Before I begin, I am not justifying every video game in existance. There are some video games which are plainly immoral, this paper aims to show that violence does not automatically make a video game immoral.

        In order to discuss the ethics of video games, we must clarify some things. First, virtual acts are the video game version of a real act. The important distinction to make here is that they are not equal; virtual acts have far less impact and sway than real acts. Second, we are discussing the ethics of the game designers, and the video games themselves, not the player. A knife and knife maker are not unethical if a chef stabs his coworker.

Let us consider the Utilitarian viewpoint, or the idea that in order for something to be ethical, the happiness gained must be more than the happiness lost form a certain act. In other terms, the ends justify the means. In order for any video game to be ethical in this respect, consider Matt McCormick’s utilitarian argument. For McCormick, in order for video games to be morally wrong, we must show that “1) there is an actual increase in risk, and 2) that increase risk outweighs the benefits”^[1] For point one, there is not really any conclusive research on this subject. There are supposed “maybe” situations, but an actual proven increase in risk is not there. For point two, even if the “maybe” risk was there as some studies imply, the pleasure and other benefits of video games outweigh these risks. Go to any video game convention and see how many people are benefitted from the industry.

        However, some ethicists have an issue with this argument. Namely, writers like David I. Waddington believe that McCormick does not accurately define the argument. Waddington believes that point one should actually include “maybe” risks as well. Waddington goes on to quickly walk over point two, stating that considering these “maybe” cases shows that the increase in violence would outweigh the benefits. The fact that he runs over it so quickly shows that even he sees the weakness in this argument, which he mentions when using an example of sports riots:

“sports fans occasionally riot after their team wins/loses, causing death and destruction. Yet, despite the fact that this is a significant social cost, no one suggests that football, soccer, basketball, or hockey should be banned. Clearly, the pleasure that the millions of peaceful sports fans derive from their sport outweighs the social costs (e.g., violence within the game and fan riots) associated with it.”^[2]

        As I stated, there is an incredibly high amount of pleasure gained from peaceful gamers, which outweighs the “maybe” risks, I would argue, by a thousandfold.

        Now let us consider the Kantian viewpoint, that the ends to not matter at all, but rather the motives in relation to the categorical imperative are the important factor. Before I start, let me define what I mean by “in relation to the categorical imperative.” There are two parts: if I were to apply the argument as a universal law, would it make sense? The second part is that the thing in question treats all people as not just means, but as an end in of themselves.

The Kantian viewpoint is a bit harder to defend for video games, because many video games have immoral actions such as murder, theft, lying, etc. Let us start with the universal law application. One way to justify violent video games is to say that the violence is only to prevent self-harm. For example, in Call of Duty, you murder lots of players because if you do not, they will kill you. We could limit this universal law to murder, but let me expand it to “only be violent towards someone to prevent them from being violent to you” and see where it goes. Universally this makes sense if followed as intended: people will prevent themselves from being harmed, which falls in both versions of the categorical imperative, and the violence will not be unjustly given since the violence is inevitable. Video game applications of this also help define why certain violent games are immoral: when they do not show a need for the violence.^[3]

Now this does not justify all immoral acts in video games, only violence. To prove the rest, let us consider the second application of the categorical imperative: to treat people not just as a means, but as an end. Before I begin though, we must make the distinction that virtual beings are not actually people. I could argue the point here, but let me instead point to my previous paper on Robotic Persons, where the conditions stated there can be reapplied to video game characters, who do not hold up to the scrutiny of person-hood.^[4] So then the only agents we are interested in are the players themselves. This helps prove the innocence of games such as Grand Theft Auto, in which many immoral acts are performed on in game characters, for the purpose of explaining social situations to the player. In most video games, in-game characters are definitely treated as merely a means, but since they are not people, we need not concern ourselves with this issue. In order for a video game to be ethical, it must simply treat a player as an end, which any video game does by default.

One might want to use Aristotelian Virtue Ethics to show that while removing the personhood solves the issue of murder, it does not solve the problem in total since it still a diminish in character. The only argument that I can make to this is that, as Aristotle himself points out, certain concepts of character weigh more than others, and improvements to character from video games outweigh detriments.

There are still some issues with these two views however. Most notably there is the Gamer’s Dilemma, which is discussed by Morgan Luck. Luck argues that many of the arguments posed to defend virtual murder can also be used to defend virtual paedophilia, which is not an outcome that we want.^[5] To use the previous arguments, one could say that a game with virtual paedophilia could make people happier than they would be uncomfortable, and thus would outweigh the wrongs of paedophilia. Additionally, since the in game child is not a person, we do not need to concern ourselves with any actions taken against it, so long as the player is treated as an end. However, neither of these arguments seem to satisfactory to us as justification for the paedophilia.

In order to answer this, let us shift away from Utilitarian and Kantian viewpoints. Christopher Bartel argues that the reason this is the case is because virtual paedophilia is not actually as virtual and thus irrelevant as virtual murder is. At the beginning we discussed that a virtual act is not as severe as a real act, which is one way that virtual murder can be justified. Using this logic though, virtual paedophilia would be in the same boat. However, Bartel argues that virtual paedophilia is the depiction of children in sexual acts and situations. Thus, virtual paedophilia is actually real child pornography. Real child pornography, I think we can all agree, is a bad thing. Bartel then concludes that virtual paedophilia is wrong on the grounds that it overlaps between the real and the virtual in a way that virtual murder does not.^[6]

I would also like to argue beyond Bartel’s point that various virtual acts have different weights associated with them. For example, virtually punching someone in the face is far less severe than virtually ripping someone’s lungs out.^[7] It appears that virtual acts operate on a scale in conjunction with the real scale, only that this virtual scale is shorter, so that the highest offense in the virtual world is as severe as the highest offense in the real world. The complexities of this issue could be discussed in great detail, but for the purpose of this paper, only the knowledge that it exists is required.

Luck also goes on to make claims that while the game itself can be justified in its offering violence in the virtual world, it does not justify that the players go out and commit those violent acts. For example, players of Skyrim tend to murder a lot more than they really need to; players will go out of their way to murder people. We could ask why this is, but instead let us ask why it is okay that it is.

        While this is an interesting question for us to consider, the intent of this paper is to discuss the ethics of the designers and the game itself. This however does not make the designers innocent to the issue. In order for the designer to be ethical in their approach to this aspect of a player, they must make these out of the way killings undesirable to the player, or to at least diminish their impact ethically. The first can be done in the same way that the real world handles this issue: by implementing a punishment system. To use Skyrim again, the game punishes you for killing someone by incurring a bounty for killing someone, and having authorities come after you. In Grand Theft Auto, killing someone causes the cops to chase you. Both of these cases are harmful to the player, and as such, many players tend to avoid actions that cause these to happen.

        Another method is to diminish the ethical impact of these killings, which is usually achieved through respawning. For example, if I die in a video game, I simply respawn. If I complete a level of Mario, and then come back to that level later, all the enemies will have respawned. This fact takes away some of the weight and scarcity of the virtual entities, and helps to shorten the virtual scale of actions in comparison to the real scale. Another way to diminish these killings is to further illustrate that the in game characters are not actually people, as mentioned before.^[8]

        Regardless, this issue does not explain a justification for the player themselves going out to do these killings. I suggest that you examine both essays regarding this topic, as well as video games themselves. They are surprisingly ethical.^[9]