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Feeling bad about a game is pathetic. I play Hearts of Iron 4 (with original flags, so a nazi flag) and the number of soviets that I have killed combined from a

Feeling bad about a game is pathetic. I play Hearts of Iron 4 (with original flags, so a nazi flag) and the number of soviets that I have killed combined from all games as germany must be more than 100 million. It really is so much fun.

claudiawerner 6y ago
While it may or may not justify feeling bad, there are major moral theories (in particular virtue ethics and deontology, as well as metaethical-agnostic views) which easily accommodate discussion of virtual actions from moral points of view, and explain why they matter (in contrast to "it's just a game"). Fun alone (or the good feelings of playing such games with friends) does not excuse wrongful behaviour, in the same sense that ganging up with friends and bullying someone for fun does not excuse the moral weight of the action. There is also the need to explain why many people do feel moral sentiment or even guilt after playing some games, and the moral intuition that some virtual actions are widely regarded as morally wrongful, such as virtual child abuse (and in contrast, why virtual murder would be okay, or at least better). Gary Young in particular investigates an empirically-minded approach to the problem. It's often inconvenient for people who spend a lot of time playing games to even begin to question their actions in game, and unfortunately a lot of such thought is dismissed as moral pearl-clutching, but from what I can tell of the philosophical literature, there are good arguments from many points of view. It's very similar to the way in which even the discussion of the morality of killing animals was (and often still is) dismissed by people ignorant of the philosophical research because meat is just so tasty. Here are some starters in the growing literature on the significance of actions in video games and virtual worlds generally: Moral License in Video Games: When Being Right Can Mean Doing Wrong https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0599 https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0599 Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy: Killing Time by Christopher Bartel (2020) Defending the morality of violent video games by Marcus Schulzke (2010) Violent video games and morality: A meta-ethical approach by Gary Young (2015) The amoralist challenge to gaming and the gamer’s moral obligation by Sebastian Ostritsch (2017) Getting away with murder: why virtual murder in MMORPGs can be wrong on Kantian grounds by Helen Ryland (2019)
- siltpotato 6y ago
  The difference between virtual child abuse and virtual killing is that killing isn't intrinsically wrong. The question after that is if military-propaganda-game-#973 has you shooting at just targets or not.
gdy 6y ago
Hey, tell me what is your country and I'll tell you how many times I thoroughly nuked it while playing Civilization)
- me_me_me 6y ago
  You both are clearly a killer material, if not serial killers already! I on the other hand played Surgeon simulator extensively! So i am definitely qualified to operate on anyone you two might attempt to kill. xD On a serious note this old old trope 'games make you a X, Y, or Z' is so tired and dis-proven so many times, that I lost hope it will ever go away. Playing as wehrmacht in company of heros have not turned me into a nazi. It cant because its just a video game and I can think and reason. So unless video games gain ability to brainwash people they will do nothing but entertain people.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> Feeling bad about a game is pathetic. That's a particularly uncharitable sentiment. Weighing moral consequences is a thing we do in real life (unless we're complete sociopaths I suppose), and doing it in a simulated environment free from real consequences has value the same way practicing anything in a safe environment does.
- shrimp_emoji 6y ago
  It's very dependent on the game, too. Millions of deaths in Europa Universalis 4? No problem. Genocide run in Undertale? That would literally be stomach-turning (you're cold-bloodedly murdering benevolent characters you meet or already know contextually, like a sociopathic machine or something beyond moral compunction).

claudiawerner 6y ago

While it may or may not justify feeling bad, there are major moral theories (in particular virtue ethics and deontology, as well as metaethical-agnostic views) which easily accommodate discussion of virtual actions from moral points of view, and explain why they matter (in contrast to "it's just a game"). Fun alone (or the good feelings of playing such games with friends) does not excuse wrongful behaviour, in the same sense that ganging up with friends and bullying someone for fun does not excuse the moral weight of the action. There is also the need to explain why many people do feel moral sentiment or even guilt after playing some games, and the moral intuition that some virtual actions are widely regarded as morally wrongful, such as virtual child abuse (and in contrast, why virtual murder would be okay, or at least better). Gary Young in particular investigates an empirically-minded approach to the problem. It's often inconvenient for people who spend a lot of time playing games to even begin to question their actions in game, and unfortunately a lot of such thought is dismissed as moral pearl-clutching, but from what I can tell of the philosophical literature, there are good arguments from many points of view. It's very similar to the way in which even the discussion of the morality of killing animals was (and often still is) dismissed by people ignorant of the philosophical research because meat is just so tasty. Here are some starters in the growing literature on the significance of actions in video games and virtual worlds generally: Moral License in Video Games: When Being Right Can Mean Doing Wrong https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0599 https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0599 Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy: Killing Time by Christopher Bartel (2020) Defending the morality of violent video games by Marcus Schulzke (2010) Violent video games and morality: A meta-ethical approach by Gary Young (2015) The amoralist challenge to gaming and the gamer’s moral obligation by Sebastian Ostritsch (2017) Getting away with murder: why virtual murder in MMORPGs can be wrong on Kantian grounds by Helen Ryland (2019)

siltpotato 6y ago
The difference between virtual child abuse and virtual killing is that killing isn't intrinsically wrong. The question after that is if military-propaganda-game-#973 has you shooting at just targets or not.

gdy 6y ago

Hey, tell me what is your country and I'll tell you how many times I thoroughly nuked it while playing Civilization)

me_me_me 6y ago
You both are clearly a killer material, if not serial killers already! I on the other hand played Surgeon simulator extensively! So i am definitely qualified to operate on anyone you two might attempt to kill. xD On a serious note this old old trope 'games make you a X, Y, or Z' is so tired and dis-proven so many times, that I lost hope it will ever go away. Playing as wehrmacht in company of heros have not turned me into a nazi. It cant because its just a video game and I can think and reason. So unless video games gain ability to brainwash people they will do nothing but entertain people.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

> Feeling bad about a game is pathetic. That's a particularly uncharitable sentiment. Weighing moral consequences is a thing we do in real life (unless we're complete sociopaths I suppose), and doing it in a simulated environment free from real consequences has value the same way practicing anything in a safe environment does.

shrimp_emoji 6y ago
It's very dependent on the game, too. Millions of deaths in Europa Universalis 4? No problem. Genocide run in Undertale? That would literally be stomach-turning (you're cold-bloodedly murdering benevolent characters you meet or already know contextually, like a sociopathic machine or something beyond moral compunction).