Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: playing with right and wrong
- 2 To prohibit or not to prohibit, that is the question
- 3 Hume's strength of feeling
- 4 Kant's call of duty
- 5 The cost and benefit of virtual violence (and other taboos)
- 6 Are meanings virtually the same?
- 7 There are wrongs and then there are wrongs
- 8 Virtual virtues, virtual vices
- 9 Doing what it takes to win
- 10 Agreeing the rules
- 11 Why would anyone want to do that?
- 12 Coping with virtual taboos
- 13 Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - The cost and benefit of virtual violence (and other taboos)
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: playing with right and wrong
- 2 To prohibit or not to prohibit, that is the question
- 3 Hume's strength of feeling
- 4 Kant's call of duty
- 5 The cost and benefit of virtual violence (and other taboos)
- 6 Are meanings virtually the same?
- 7 There are wrongs and then there are wrongs
- 8 Virtual virtues, virtual vices
- 9 Doing what it takes to win
- 10 Agreeing the rules
- 11 Why would anyone want to do that?
- 12 Coping with virtual taboos
- 13 Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
(Bentham [1789] 1996: 11, original emphasis)If doing x brings about y, where y is something unpleasant – meaning x has a negative consequence – then it would seem prudent to avoid doing x. Alternatively, if doing x produces a positive outcome, then common sense would have us do x. However, does engaging in activity x, where x produces a positive outcome, make x the right thing to do, morally? In other words, given its positive consequence, does it necessarily follow that doing x is morally good and so ought to be done? Classical utilitarianism – that is, the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill – holds that for x to be morally good it must engender (actually, or in principle) a positive outcome in the form of increased happiness. Thus, those acts that produce the most happiness are judged to be the most moral. Conversely, an immoral act is said to be that which produces more pain than happiness.
In this chapter I consider the suitability of classical utilitarianism (hereafter, utilitarianism) as a measure of selective prohibition. If engaging in an STA produces an increase in unpleasantness – qua antisocial behaviour, for example – then this fact (if indeed it is a fact) would seem to constitute reasonable grounds for its prohibition.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ethics in the Virtual WorldThe Morality and Psychology of Gaming, pp. 51 - 64Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013