Abstract
Debates that revolve around the topic of morality and fiction rarely explicitly treat virtual worlds like, for example, Second Life. The reason for this disregard cannot be that all users of virtual worlds only do the right thing while online—for they sometimes even virtually kill each other. Is it wrong to kill other people in a virtual world? It depends. This essay analyzes on what it depends, why it is that killing people in a virtual world sometimes is wrong, and how different virtual killings are wrong in different ways. I argue that killing people online is wrong if it is an instance of deliberately and non-consensually evoking disagreeable emotions in others. Establishing this conclusion requires substantial conceptual work, as virtual worlds feature new kinds of fictional agency, particular emotional responses to fiction, and unique ways in which the fiction of the virtual world relates to the wrongness of the killing.
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Notes
Following Walton (1990, 35), I will say that something is fictional if it is true in a fictional world, and that something is true if it is true in the actual world.
It is useful to distinguish between these two opposite ends of a continuous spectrum. We can do so by saying that Gillian is playing when she creates an avatar that is very close to her real self yet distinct, and that she is role-playing when her avatar is drastically different. But even if Gillian is role-playing, she is not playing a role in the same way an actress does. Gillian is not enacting a role. That is, she is not role-playing on the basis of the imagined beliefs and desires that somebody else (notably the author of the play) imagined. Gillian herself engages in belief- and desire-like imagination.
The advent of virtual worlds puts pressure on Walton’s claim that what I call (role-)playing is the only possible mode of agency with respect to fictional worlds (1990, 191–195). Walton’s claim rests on the idea that a person has to exist in a given world in order to act in it, and that real people “usually” (1990, 194) do not exist in fictional worlds. But arguably, and following Velleman’s analysis of v-acting, it is quite usual for real people to exist in virtual worlds in the form of a virtual body.
I focus on Sean’s response, leaving the consequences for SeanBean aside, as what it means to die varies greatly among virtual worlds. Note, however, that virtual death typically is not permanent, but the avatar is instantly reborn. This grants Sean the possibility to (role-)play SeanBean’s reaction to his own death.
If Sean is playing, he experiences quasi-anger about his own fictional death. If he is role-playing, he experiences quasi-anger about the fictional death of some character he holds dear.
Empirically speaking, grief play is a very prevalent phenomenon in virtual worlds. Griefers do not engage with the fiction of the virtual world, as all they are trying to do is to deliberately irritate and harass other users. Consider that around 25 % of customer support calls to the developers of virtual worlds are griefing related (Davies 2006).
I am aware that Pretend Theory and Thought Theory typically are conceived of as competing theories rather than complementary ones. But this is not the appropriate place to judge whether Pretend or Thought Theory is ultimately right. And as we shall see, for our purpose of analyzing on what it depends, and why it is that killing people in a virtual world sometimes is wrong, it actually makes no difference which theory is right and whether there only is one correct theory. The result is the same for all suggested theories.
One might come up with such an argument bearing in mind that the view that responses to fiction merely are quasi-emotions sometimes also is motivated by the paradox of tragedy. The view that quasi-emotions are, not really being emotions, not really disagreeable is able to address that paradox.
Those interested in it should see Anderson and Bushman (2001) for a survey.
Compare Dibbell (1999), who describes how a virtual world user was traumatized by her avatar being virtually raped.
What we see here is the influence of the official rules of a virtual world. Quite plausibly, our judgment as to whether virtual killings are wrong is affected by the rules that govern the virtual world. Whether it also is affected by the potentially deviating fictional moral rules directly leads us to the puzzle of imaginative resistance, which I will not go into here.
I do not think that is never wrong to evoke this kind of irrational emotions. If you suffer from arachnophobia, and I—being aware of this—place a tiny spider on the table and point it out to you, I evoke irrational fear in you. Your belief that the spider presents a threat to you is false. But I take it that, unlike in Thomson’s sneezing case, it is plausible that I wronged you by placing the spider. Still, we can assume for the sake of the argument that it is never wrong to evoke irrational anger. Doing so will only make our goal of arguing that some virtual killings are wrong harder.
Compare a case in which a virtual sword theft resulted in real-life retribution (Krotoski 2005).
Often there are situational clues Sean can base his judgment on (the exact situation in which the killing happens, text-based communication between perpetrator and victim, etc.).
Consider another possible way to argue that, while virtual killings are wrong, other kinds of fictional killings are not. One might emphasize that when Gillian is making it fictional that SeanBean is killed, she is either acting, v-acting, or (role-)playing. That is to say, Gillian is not making things fictional by fictionalizing (what authors of fictional worlds do), or by enacting a role (what actresses do). By thoroughly working out the differences between these modes of agency, it is probably possible to defend a claim of the following kind. While it is wrong to evoke disagreeable emotions by means of acting, v-acting, or (role-)playing, it is not wrong to do so by means of fictionalizing or enacting. Given that the two latter modes of agency are the dominant ones for books, pictures, movies, and plays, a difference in the typical modes of agency between virtual worlds and more traditional fictional worlds might be able to explain the clash of intuitions about fictional killings not being wrong while virtual killings are.
The three cases are intended to exemplify three important kinds of virtual killings without implying that these are the only ones. One might feel like some of these killings are worse than others. But my focus here shall be on differences in kind rather than on differences in degree.
All those virtual worlds I am interested in are at the same time fictional worlds. But it seems possible, at least for analytical purposes, to separate the computer-mediated communication aspect of virtual worlds (that largely has to do with hardware and software aspects) from their fictional aspects.
There is no definite causal connection between the mode of agency of the perpetrator and the type of emotional response of the victim. That is, it is not the case that every time a perpetrator acts the victim will respond with real-world-directed anger. For example, the victim might misperceive the perpetrator’s acting as an instance of role-playing. This also means that we can only judge ex post what kind of virtual killing we are dealing with in dependence on the modes of agency and type of emotional response actually present.
Empirically speaking, griefers in the virtual world of Ultima Online had this effect (Pham 2002).
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Acknowledgments
This essay has a long history. Chrysostomos Mantzavinos and Marcia Baron particularly shaped its overall approach—and I am deeply grateful for that. Furthermore, I would like to thank Gregory Currie, Luciano Floridi, Lisa Jones, Philip Ebert, Jonathan Lever, André Nyström, and Patrick McDevitt as well as the participants of the Philosophy of Computer Games conference in Bergen (2013) and of Philosophy at Play in Gloucester (2013) for many helpful comments on earlier versions. Special thanks go to an anonymous reviewer who improved the quality of this essay by her/his insightful suggestions.
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Mildenberger, C.D. Virtual killing. Philos Stud 174, 185–203 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0676-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0676-5