Iain Banks' "Surface Detail" would like to have a word with you. This author's books are great at putting these sort of moral ideas to test in a sci-fi context

Iain Banks' "Surface Detail" would like to have a word with you. This author's books are great at putting these sort of moral ideas to test in a sci-fi context. This specific tome portraits virtual wars and virtual "hells". The hope is of being more civilized than by waging real war or torturing real living entities. However some protagonists argue that virtual life is indistinguishable from real life, and so sacrificing virtual entities to save "real" ones is a fallacy. Or some such, it's been a while.