Moral in videogames

[Ooga600]

No one is shooting at me in real life. If they were, I'd sure as hell shoot back.

 

[megarik]

I can answer your question, if you crush an stone do you kill it?
no because it is an thing not an person , the same can be don with all sorts of fruit and plants .

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Morality is subjective.

Well you are stupid for believing morality is subjective. Because it is not. Morality is based on a consentual believe of good.

Yeah well the term "good" is subjective as well, so back to square one, aren't we? What I (and everyone else means is) There is no such thing as "inherent good". We assign values of good and evil to actions depending on the situation.

At times of war, we categorize the act of murdering enemy soldiers and burning down enemy towns as "good", even though normally these would be "evil" acts.

To end WW2, the United States categorized the act of dropping a thermonuclear bomb over a civilian population centre, and thus vaporizing hundreds of thousands of non-combatants, as "for the greater good". In any other situation that would be the worst act of terrorism known to humankind.

In a video game's fake, artificially crafted universe, killing the "bad guys" is actually a "good action". Hence it's not morally wrong.

I sincerely hope you rationally argue my points instead of quoting a 2000 year old book. Doubting... but hoping.

 

[Richardplex]

I'm an agnostic, I am immune to your "Thou shalt not kill"!

As others have said, morality is subjective. If you want to call me an idiot on that, I did 2 years on Ethics & Philosophy at sixth form, so I've spent quite a lot of time on that question. Unless you have a Kantian or have another Deontological view on morality, it is subjective, and while I respect those who have that view, cultural variances in morality suggests it is actually Teleological. Calling it stupid to think morality is subjective is just illogical and close minded.

I kill in games because I work by utilitarianism, killing the naughty end boss saves more lives. Unfortunately, the game's morals, at least with games with a moral choice system, work by rule utilitarianism, and thus sometimes conflicts with my morals.

Or, for the real reason that we all kill in games, a man with an exclamation mark over his head offered us 3 silvers to kill someone else, and as it was marked as a "quest" we went and did that person in.

 

[s0p0g]

i am not sure, but i do believe that this whole thou shalt not kill thing is about humans.
now, while one could argue the validity of that commandment, i am pretty sure that i only killed pixels or rather polygons, so why bother?

sounds like the argument stupid media dumbasses give to make stupid people, who don't know shit about gaming and games, think that playing games will make the players killers.


yes, after killing countless polygons, i have no trouble at all falling asleep ^^

 

[BordeauX]

Hi, mind if I pitch in?

Morality is an institution to keep order among society.

First, that is NOT morality. What keeps society in check are laws, and the people who enforce them.

If morality was subjective I could easily kill you and not be condemned for it.

What do you mean by "condemned"? Arrested? Publicly vilified? Because again, being arrested is a result of you breaking the law, not morality.
Also, some might hate you for that action, while some may laud you for it, because morality is not universal, it varies from person to person.

Imagine your description not in a digital world but in the real world. You are STILL PLAYING A GAME pointing at something pressing the button and stuff happens according to the RULES AND LAWS OF THE GAME. That is imagine a game hunting humans and pointing some machine (gun) that fires projectiles (bullets) at them that makes them not move anymore (dead). It is okay by your definition of morality according to rules and laws of a game. If you kill humans in a game it is fine. Again I know you only think of petty pixels but I have just shown how easily your thinking can be adjusted as justification for horrible acts.

Allow me to say, the condescending tone is uncalled for.
Anyway, I've heard that argument before, saying that videogames cause people to be violent. Personally, I think that's bullshit. No person has ever gone on a killing spree just because they played a game the day before.
Also, (and here's the important bit) IT'S NOT REAL. The only people who believe their acts can be justified because they think it's all a game are INSANE, because they cannot tell the difference between fiction and reality.
Those of us who CAN tell the difference enjoy our games since they allow us to do things we couldn't do otherwise.

So does them not feeling make you not feel? As you mentioned characters in games can be quite expressive and imitate human behaviour so it furthers your immersion. Is there not a danger with you deafening your empathy towards certain patterns of human behaviour namely another expressing pain when you kill him?

Last I checked, I still feel, I still empathize, and I've been butchering virtual people most of my life. It's not about losing our empathy, it's about being able to draw the line between life and game, and say "Hey, I can't do this, this isn't a videogame."

Well did I not ask you to give it some effort? Yes I did. You do not adress my you-wanting-to-be-that-misogynistic-dude-in-a-red-sleevles-shirt-wearing-sunglasses-killing-anyhting-that-moves-and-getting-a-hard-on-while-doing-it statement.

Again with the insults.

It is about agency. The whole point of the post is about agency. You are the agent, the actor. You are performing actions. What is your accountability for your actions in a videogame? NO ONE HAS ADRESSED IT. You do not see a conflict about you being the agent of the actions taken in the game. Do you all think just because it is a game you have no accountability for playing it? Again see above how I obliterated that simple childish logic. Just "because it is a game" is not enough of a justification. Think about it.

I can't see why our logic is childish or how you obliterated it, but moving on, would you mind explaining how the hell you can be held accountable for killing fictional people, in a fictional world, with a fictional weapon?
My actions in the game have no real-world consequences. Thus, I assume I'm not accountable for anything I did there, seeing as I didn't actually DO anything.

Well, I'm done.

 

[chiMmy]

Do you all think just because it is a game you have no accountability for playing it? Again see above how I obliterated that simple childish logic. Just "because it is a game" is not enough of a justification. Think about it.

"Because it is a game" is the PERFECT justifying reason.
You didn't oblitirate anything. I'm just guessing here, but you seem like a lunatic, so I'm going to keep on thinking you are one untill proven otherwise.

You should really think about it, since you're the one with the problem to understand the simple meaning of "it's a game".

 

[RA92]

Why do you kill in videogames if you know thou shall not kill? Is there no such thing as moral behaviour while acting in a virtual world? Please submit your explainations, justifications and reasons. Thanks in advance.

It's just the training phase. After I die, I'm going to kill God for doing stupid shit like spawning lunatics like you for shits and giggles.

 

[Ice Car]

Well, even when I'm playing a video game where I'm given options to kill or be evil, I don't... I have no idea why, but my morals seem to carry over to what my actions in video games are, even though I'm basically feeling guilty about destroying a bunch of pixels/an artificial character...

However, in most situations I do kill, as when you are faced with those options in most games, it's kill or be killed. I'm not going to say "Sorry, I'm not going to kill you because I'd feel bad, so instead I'll be dead". No, I'm going to just shoot their fucking head off.

I'm fine with killing in video games in most circumstances. Ones where you can kill innocents? Not so much...

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

<<<< Loling at people feeding the troll.

 

[Jachwe]

Morality is an institution to keep order among society.

First, that is NOT morality. What keeps society in check are laws, and the people who enforce them.

I did not say "morality is THE institution" but "morality is A institution". There are actions forbidden by law but demanded by morality and vice verse as well as not forbidden but allowed by law but forbidden by morality and vice versa which lead to my argument that if something is not forbidden/demanded by law but forbidden/demanded by morality it is keeping order in society that would not be possible by law alone.

If morality was subjective I could easily kill you and not be condemned for it.

What do you mean by "condemned"?

Moraly condemned of course. What do you think we are talking about. If there was no consentual believe of good there would be no common ground we could argue about morality. It is what enables us to undrestand morality

[...]

I've heard that argument before, saying that videogames cause people to be violent. Personally, I think that's bullshit. No person has ever gone on a killing spree just because they played a game the day before.

You are overprective of videogames because you get all defensive and think about people going on school shooting as soon as anything like "violence" and "videogames" are mentioned together.
Grow up! My statement clearly did not have anything to do with that. I do not lead a political agenda against videogames. I pointed out that the "because it is a game" argument is flawed. I clearly expressed my understanding of the author not taking into consideration that there are other games but videogames. If his argument would be applied to a game, that is any game, it can be misused. That was all I was saying because the statement I responded to did not explicitly differ between a fictional and a real world.

Those of us who CAN tell the difference enjoy our games since they allow us to do things we couldn't do otherwise.

Like cooking, building houses, raising animals, fooling with evolution, making love, being a responsible member of society, killing... I get your argument. Games are escaptism. But that does not automaticly mean you should not game responsibly.

So does them not feeling make you not feel? As you mentioned characters in games can be quite expressive and imitate human behaviour so it furthers your immersion. Is there not a danger with you deafening your empathy towards certain patterns of human behaviour namely another expressing pain when you kill him?

Last I checked, I still feel, I still empathize, and I've been butchering virtual people most of my life. It's not about losing our empathy, it's about being able to draw the line between life and game, and say "Hey, I can't do this, this isn't a videogame."

Last time I checked losing your empathy was a big deal. Or how much fun would "life" be if it were filled with apathy? It is scientificly proven that you lose your empathy and alter your disposition to aggressiv behaviour with videogames if you consume videogames with violent content for too long at a young age. That is the reason why we reasonably argue for having a rating system.
Of course it is about drwing the line between "life" and "game" but where do you draw that line?

would you mind explaining how the hell you can be held accountable for killing fictional people, in a fictional world, with a fictional weapon?
My actions in the game have no real-world consequences. Thus, I assume I'm not accountable for anything I did there, seeing as I didn't actually DO anything.

So you want to tell me you do not account for your actions? That your actions are not acccountable to your person?
You are telling me you cannot be held accountable for playing a videogame, killing fictional people with fictional weapons in fictional worlds when you did play a videogame killing fictional people with fictional weapons in fictional worlds. That is like saying "I ate an apple but I cannot be held accountable for having eaten that apple". It makes no sense. I see your error. You think because your actions are not actual in the real world you have no accountability for them. That is wrong. You are accountable for playing a game if you played a game. What consequences this accountability has is something you can discuss. There is the very popular consensus among gamers that there are no consequences for what you do in a videogame because it is not real that is it is not actual. But you do not seem to consider that you cannot explain why it is not supposed to be not actual. "Because I can differ" is the usual answer. But you do not consider how you differ and here we hit a wall. You think it is intuitive what "real" and "not real" is. That is "actual" and "not actual". But this is not the case. There can be a lot of actual entities or substances that are not real. Like the Way of Heaven or the spirit of the people.

As others have said, morality is subjective. If you want to call me an idiot on that [...]

You are an idiot for believing that

I did 2 years on Ethics & Philosophy at sixth form, so I've spent quite a lot of time on that question.

Not enough time as we will see

Unless you have a Kantian or have another Deontological view on morality, it is subjective, [...] Calling it stupid to think morality is subjective is just illogical and close minded.

And here we see you have not understood Kant. His point was that the subject is the autonomous judge of morality. Morality no being some heteronomous rule. Read it is subjective. But every subject has thanks to reason the ability to deduct rules of morality. Every subject has reason and everyone can reason with anyone. Thus the conclusion that there is but one morality. The morality which is dictated by reason.
And how is calling something stupid stupid illogical. It is like not saying adding 3 to 5 is 8.

I kill in games because I work by utilitarianism, killing the naughty end boss saves more lives. Unfortunately, the game's morals, at least with games with a moral choice system, work by rule utilitarianism, and thus sometimes conflicts with my morals.

And now here is my point of the question. How do you justify this conflict. You do not answer the question asked. Why do you post and be boldly without contributing to the solution. Your 2 years have appearently done nothing of use on the subject.

Or, for the real reason that we all kill in games, a man with an exclamation mark over his head offered us 3 silvers to kill someone else, and as it was marked as a "quest" we went and did that person in.

Well that was at least funny .

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Hey, Thou Shall Not Kill the PC. Everyone who tries is thus fair game. Unless its a cutscene, then who knows what wackiness could ensue?!

 

[BordeauX]

I'll admit, even though I don't share your opinions, I'm having fun, and it's been a while since I had a decent discussion, so here's my response:

I did not say "morality is THE institution" but "morality is A institution". There are actions forbidden by law but demanded by morality and vice verse as well as not forbidden but allowed by law but forbidden by morality and vice versa which lead to my argument that if something is not forbidden/demanded by law but forbidden/demanded by morality it is keeping order in society that would not be possible by law alone.

Let's kick this off with a question: What kind of actions are forbidden by the law but demanded by morality, or the other way around? I really can't think of any.

Moraly condemned of course. What do you think we are talking about. If there was no consentual believe of good there would be no common ground we could argue about morality. It is what enables us to undrestand morality

If I'm reading this correctly, you believe that morality is an absolute concept, and not something created by and exclusive to humanity. I don't share that point of view, and there is not much point arguing about it, seeing as it is a purely subjective matter.

But what I CAN argue about is what you define as "killing". Killing is the act of ending a life. The reason why I don't think killing in videogames is wrong is because I don't think of the characters as living beings.
A living being is born into the world, interacts with its environment for most of its life, and then passes away, never to be brought back.
Characters in games don't do this. They aren't born, they don't interact with their environment except in pre-programmed ways, and they don't die, their model merely disappears from the map, but the code behind their behavior and "personality" is still there, and they can be resurrected as many times as desired.

I'll post the rest later, I need to get some sleep.

 

[BordeauX]

Simply choosing what enemies to set loose on you, and you can have lovely conversation with ASS (Automated Support System) later that day, making dark jokes about the unfortunate "soldiers".

That would be AWESOME! Having an AI that takes a callous approach to the health of its subordinates would make games quite interesting, not to mention hilarious...

 

[Aspergo]

Using logic and morals of reality and comparing them to the game just doesnt work. Killing in game is just an action that can be swaped with anything else, like colecting flowers or showeling dirt - the enemies are just a noname obsticle that is to be overcome, and thus dont count as humans and therefor dont colide with our moral.
Moral itself isnt a religious thing, but mostly social, and depending on culture and time, moral also changes. But as said, bringing moral of our society to world of gaming, which are unreal, is to be avoided, cuz those two are meant to be held appart.

Also, successful troll is successful :3

 

[IkeGreil29]

Because in the end its all virtual reality. What's more, in most games, if I am allowed not to kill (this is talking games like Dragon Age or Deus Ex, where not killing things is actually considered good and not always necessary to advance in the game) I almost always try not to. It's hard to be a cruel bastard for me, and most people agree, in games like Fable. I also believe there is a difference between killing in self defense and killing out of spite. An aggressive Hawke in Da2 is just killing (almost always) for the sake of killing. An agreeable/noble Hawke resorts to violence almost always only when under attack or when his goal is not attainable any other way. (I'm using Dragon Age as a major example due to its grayish scale, rather than some game where there is a clear definition of bad and good)

 

[r0kle0nZ]

Morality in Games is really a touchy subject. I have yet to see a game that really, REALLY challenges morality. How about a game that sort of like real life with real life precautions and consequences.

But the reason I do in games, it's what they're made for, at least some. Solely for entertainment without some real morality checks built in. Maybe except for the Mass Effect 2 Geth Decision, but everyone brings that up when it comes to Video Game Morality

 

[Reaper195]

I killed Johnson four times in the first Halo game, and I lost count of how many times I ran over/shot/beat/knife'd that guy in GTA4 who keeps yelling out "robot man juice!".

 

[Richardplex]

snip

Well, I've learned my lesson: don't post when I'm very tired, I'm prone to fucking up. I am an idiot indeed.

Reason for killing in gane then - 'for the greater good'. Kill one, save many.

 

[Jachwe]

I'll admit, even though I don't share your opinions, I'm having fun

Good I am having fun too

What kind of actions are forbidden by the law but demanded by morality, or the other way around? I really can't think of any. #

Well imagine your wife or husband being sick. Your partner will die if you do not provide him/her with a certain medicine. Now luckily there is a doctor who has the needed medicine but will only sell it at such a high prize you cannot afford it. So what do you do? Steal the medicine and rescue the life of your partner? Or abide to law and let him/her die?

If I'm reading this correctly, you believe that morality is an absolute concept, and not something created by and exclusive to humanity. I don't share that point of view, and there is not much point arguing about it, seeing as it is a purely subjective matter.

I bevlieve that the concepualization of morality as the consentual believe of good is the way that enables us to talk about morality in a meaningful way. That is it enables us to discuss matters of morality. If morality were absolutely subjective it would not make sense to even talk to one another about the matter of morality. I do not argue morality being an absolute concept that is just there. The conceptualization of morality as the consentual believe of good enables you to the viewpoint of morality being a absolute concept but it also enables us the viewpoint of morality being a concept created by humanity exclusive to humanity or maybe also for animals. This conceptualization does not dismiss religion as a source of morality as well as it does not dismiss reason, feelings, the persecution of happines or intuition as the source of morality.

But what I CAN argue about is what you define as "killing". Killing is the act of ending a life. The reason why I don't think killing in videogames is wrong is because I don't think of the characters as living beings.

You do not "think" of them as living beings but that is weak. You must "know" they are not living otherwise I could twist your logic in perverted ways.

A living being is born into the world, interacts with its environment for most of its life, and then passes away, never to be brought back.
Characters in games don't do this. They aren't born, they don't interact with their environment except in pre-programmed ways, and they don't die, their model merely disappears from the map, but the code behind their behavior and "personality" is still there, and they can be resurrected as many times as desired.

Well digital characters are not born but created or generated that is true but they still do interact with their respective digital environment. The concept of their "personality" not disappearing is intriguing. Could you please elaborate? What is a personality in a game? If you can answer that question you can also explain why it is not supposed to disappear after the npc´s death.

snip

Well, I've learned my lesson: don't post when I'm very tired, I'm prone to fucking up. I am an idiot indeed.

Rather dissapointing, but maybe next time if you try harder. It is not like I am unbeatable. I am just having fun discovering your flaws in an argument. Maybe you should try another approach?