THEORIZING VIRTUAL ACTIONS

Much of the extant philosophical and psychological literature on videogames makes reference to

what gamers do when they play videogames. Its often said that gamers are engaging in virtual

actions when they play videogames, e.g. that I am virtually killing monsters when I play Dark

Souls III. Much attention has been paid to the concept of virtual actions in the ethical literature

on videogame play.1 I contend that the actions being virtual in nature is not morally relevant;

what is morally relevant is that the actions are fictional. I will examine a recent account of virtual

actions offered by Rami Ali (2015) before arguing that his view fails to individuate virtual acts

from one another. Then I will offer a Waltonian account of what players do when they play

videogames: in playing a videogame, I make things fictionally true of my gameplays work

world and I make things fictionally true of its Waltonian game world. My interactions with the

videogame may be virtual, but more importantly, they are fictional, and our moral concern

should focus on the fictional actions that we cause to be true.

A brief note on terminology: I will reserve Waltons technical terms, work world and game

world, for his precise meanings. Ali does not address Waltons theory, but often uses the phrase

fictional world to refer to what is true within the fiction of a videogame; this roughly

corresponds to Waltons use of work world, but the phrase fictional world should not be

understood to be used in his technical sense.

The Appropriate Engagement View of Virtual Actions

Ali offers a potential solution to what Morgan Luck (2009) calls the gamers dilemma. A

common intuition is that virtually murdering merely fictional characters in a videogame is

1 Virtual actions are examined throughout Ali 2015, Bartel 2015, Garry 2016, Geert 2007, Nys 2010,
Patridge 2010, and Young 2013, for instance.
morally permissible because no actual person is harmed. But if virtual murder is permissible

because no one is harmed by the virtual act, then consistency demands that virtual pedophilia is

permissible on these same grounds, yet many find virtual pedophilia intuitively wrong. So,

gamers are in a dilemma: they must either reject the permissibility of virtual murder and virtual

pedophilia, or embrace the permissibility of both (Luck 31). In the course of formulating his

solution, Ali offers a view on the constitution of virtual actions. I will focus on this aspect of his

argument.

Ali holds that the identity of both actual and virtual actions depends on the context the action

is performed in: to take Alis example, whether an actual persons action is one of murder or one

of self-defense depends on the persons situation, e.g. whether someone else is attacking them.

Unlike actual actions, however, the identity of a virtual action is sensitive to two contexts: an in-

game context, i.e. the context of the game character in its virtual world, and the gamers

context, which specifies the players intentions and motivations when performing in-game

actions, perhaps among other considerations (Ali 269).

One might think that virtual actions are individuated solely by their in-game context, that is,

by their significance in relation to the virtual characters situation. In L.A. Noire, players control

detective Cole Phelps as he investigates crime in 1947 Los Angeles. In the course of gameplay

which is mostly nonviolentPhelps might be assaulted by a criminal before returning fire and

killing them. In this fictional context, Phelps has committed self-defense. The protagonists of

Grand Theft Auto V, however, often commit violent crimes themselves, and the situations in

which they rob, kill, and even torture others rarely absolve the characters of guilt. They can steal

cars, run over pedestrians, and commit mass shootings in urban environments. In this fictional

context, the characters are clearly committing murder and other wrongdoings. Are players of
L.A. Noire committing virtual self-defense? Do gamers commit virtual murder when they play

Grand Theft Auto V?

On Alis view, it depends. He notes that players can engage with a videogames fictional

world with or without knowing their [actions] in-game significance, and with or without regard

for that significance (269). If Im following the narrative of L.A. Noire, I will understand the

significance of what Im making Cole Phelps do: I am solving crimes and occasionally killing

people in self-defense. Now take Alis example of a gamer that frequently fantasizes about

murdering others. The gamer notices that he bears a striking resemblance to Nathan Drake, the

treasure-hunting protagonist of the Uncharted videogames. The gamer begins playing

Uncharted, but he mutes its dialogue, skips story sequences and cutscenes that provide plot

exposition. He uses the videogame to enact his murder fantasies by proxy: through the avatar of

Nathan Drake. In the fiction of Uncharted, Drake very often defends himself from mercenaries

and villains by shooting and killing them. Ali claims that when this man plays Uncharted, it

seems implausible to attribute virtual self-defense to him. What he is doing is virtually

murdering, but the way he commits this act is through Drakes act of self-defense (269). On this

view, the gamers context affects the nature of his virtual actions. It transforms them into acts of

virtual murder, rather than acts of virtual self-defense. Ali warns against putting too much

emphasis on the gamers context, however:

If virtual acts depend wholly on the gamers context, then any in-game act will turn out [to
be] impermissible or permissible depending on the gamers intention in the performance. The
morality of virtual acts will turn on whether the gamer engages with these acts in a morally
perverse manner or not, and not on the type of act performed (whether virtual murder or
virtual pedophilia). In this sense, depending wholly on the gamers context trivializes the
dilemma. (Ali 269270)

Ali offers what he calls the appropriate engagement view of virtual acts, according to

which the gamers appropriate engagement with the in-game context is what individuates
virtual acts (270). What counts as an appropriate engagement with an in-game context? Ali says

that this depends on what sort of videogame the virtual acts occur in. Ali offers three categories

of videogames: sporting videogames, storytelling videogames, and simulation videogames.

Ali describes sporting videogames as those in which players are challenged to meet some

criteria that constitutes winning, e.g. a high score, or points against the other team, for example

Pong and multiplayer first-person shooters like Call of Duty (270). We might say that sporting

videogames are basically Suitsian games; in short, activities in which players voluntarily attempt

to overcome unnecessary obstacles.2

In storytelling videogames, a story is told over the course of gameplay (Ali 270). Ali calls

Uncharted a storytelling videogame, and its reasonable to say that L.A. Noire counts as one too.

Gameplay advances the videogames narrative and gamers can even have a say in how the story

advances, as in the case of Until Dawn and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Simulation videogames, Ali says, are difficult to characterize. Rather than inviting gamers to

compete or to experience or interact with a story, simulation games allow players to focus on

enjoying or exercising a virtual freedom in a given domain. In providing the player with the

freedom to perform certain acts, or partake in specific events in a virtual world, such games

simulate our natural freedom, and in this sense are simulations (Ali 270). Ali notes that

videogames often involve combinations of sporting, storytelling, and simulation elements;

Grand Theft Auto V is an excellent example, since it presents gamers with the option to race cars

and engage in virtual sports like bowling and tennis, or to participate in its narrative, or to ignore

the plot and take up their own ends in the videogames world (271).

2 Much more can be said about Suitsian games in relation to videogames. (I guess I should refer to
Rough and maybe some other articles here, in case readers are interested.)
 Again, Ali holds that [virtual] acts are individuated by the gamers appropriate engagement

with the in-game context (270). So, when is a player appropriately engaging with a videogames

in-game context? Ali does not explicitly say. He seems to hold the view that appropriate

engagement occurs when the players intentions align with how the videogames designers

intended for players to engage with it: In producing a game, game designers construct a virtual

world and a means of interacting with it with the intention of engaging the gamer in a particular

way. It is in these ways of engaging gamers that we see what constitutes appropriate engagement

with a given game (Ali 270). On his view, when I play a storytelling videogame in order to

engage with its narrative, I am appropriately engaging with it.

Alis account is interesting, but it doesnt work. First, his explanation of the Uncharted-

playing murder fantasist does not fit within the appropriate engagement account. As Ali notes,

Uncharted is a storytelling videogamea rather cinematic one at that. When the murder fantasist

turns down the volume, skips over the story sequences, and only plays the videogame to enjoy

virtually killing the plentiful henchmen in Uncharted, he is not appropriately engaging with it.

Yet Ali explicitly states that his act is plausibly one of virtual murder. What he is doing is

virtually murdering, but the way he commits this act is through Drakes act of self-defense

(269). This names two acts, and not one virtual act. Further, if the appropriate engagement view

only tells us that virtual acts are individuated by gamers appropriate engagement with

videogames in-game contexts, then it cant justify the statement that the murder fantasist is

committing virtual murder. In fact, it cant individuate any instances in which gamers act in ways

that are out of line with what videogame designers intend, because these will always fail to count

as inappropriate engagements and therefore fall outside the accounts purview. But surely these

gamers are virtually acting in some sense.

 Garry Young (2016) says that the views advantage is that it allows any moral ruling to be

applied to both in-game and gamer contexts, as these are now congruent. In short, it removes the

ambiguity surrounding who or what is the object of our moral concern where these two are

potentially different (95). But we should also focus our moral concern on cases in which

videogame designers intentions and gamers intentions are incongruent. Ali and Young are

primarily attempting to resolve the gamers dilemma, so only considering virtual acts of this

narrow kind may be a useful stipulation, but this doesnt secure a robust theory of virtual action.

Most salient to my thesis is that Ali too quickly dismisses the plausibility of foregrounding

the gamers motivations for what they virtually do. The possibility under consideration is that

gamers intentions might determine what kind of virtual act they are performing when they play

videogames; that this would entail the triviality of the gamers dilemma is simply not a reason to

reject this hypothesis. Perhaps virtual acts are simply the sort of thing that is determined by the

agents motivations. Of course, his motivation does not bear on whether the appropriate

engagement view is sound; I simply want to note that this seems to me a plausible way to

individuate virtual acts.

How to Do Things in Fictions

On Kendall Waltons view, engagement with a work of fiction involves two related fictional

worlds: the fictions work world, i.e. what is true of the work itself, and its game world, i.e. the

fictional world created by my engagement with the work (Walton 1990: 589).

When I watch Donnie Darko, I imagine that school bullies attack Darko on Halloween night

in 1988, though I know there is no such person as Darko or his assailants. It is true of the films

work world that Darko is attacked that night. Further, when I become fearful that the bullies will
stab Darko, it becomes true of my game world that I am concerned for Darko. I do not literally

fear for Darkos safety, rather, it is only as if I were fearful for him. The representations on

display before me serve as props for the imaginative game that I play with the movie in watching

it (Walton 1990: 60). Further, that I fear for Darkos life is only fictionally true of my Donnie

Darko game world; it is not true of your game world that I am concerned for Darko. As with any

other representational work, Donnie Darko has many game worlds, one for each appreciators

engagement with it. Walton likens this to childrens imaginative games:

Consider childrens games of make-believe. Children do not peer into worlds apart, nor
do they merely engage in a clinical intellectual exercise, entertaining thoughts about cops
and robbers, or whatever. The children are in the thick of things; they participate in the
worlds of their games. We appreciators [of works of fiction] also participate in games of
make-believe, using works as props. Participation involves imagining about ourselves as
well as about the characters and situations of the fictionbut not just imaging that such
and such is true of ourselves. We imagine doing things, experiencing things, feeling in
certain ways. We bring much of our actual selves, our real-life beliefs and attitudes and
personalities, to our imaginative experiences, and we stand to learn about ourselves in the
process. (Walton 1997: 38)

In this regard, videogames are just like any other kind of representational work. When I play

Uncharted, I imagine that Nathan Drake is climbing buildings, finding treasures, and shooting

henchmen because the work before me, a display of Uncharted, represents these events

occurring. The representations on display serve as props for the game of make-believe that I play

with the work.

Robson and Meskin (2016) argue that videogames are self-involving interactive fictions

(SIIFs), fictions that, in virtue of their interactive nature, are about those who consume them

(165). Pointing out common linguistic practices among gamers, e.g. using first-person claims to

describe their gameplay (That monster killed me!), Robson and Meskin claim that players are
almost invariably characters in the fictional worlds associated with video games (167)in

videogames work worlds, that is (169).

Videogames are interactive in the sense that they prescribe that the actions of [their] users

help generate [their] displays (Lopes qtd. in Robson and Meskin 167). That is, when I play

Uncharted, I am experiencing one display of that videogame, a display that I help generate by

(perhaps among other things) interacting with the videogame software via my gamepad. Robson

and Meskin mean that, in the course of playing Dark Souls II, I made it fictionally true about me

that I fought King Vendrick by directing my avatar to fight King Vendrick (168). Additionally,

this is true about me in the Waltonian work world of my playing Dark Souls II, and not merely in

its Waltonian game world.

Authorized vs. unauthorized game worlds captures what Ali means and places it in a squarely

Waltonian, ergo plausible, framework.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ali, Rami. A New Solution to the Gamers Dilemma. Ethics and Information Technology 17

(2015): 267274.
Bartel, Christopher. Free Will and Moral Responsibility in Video Games. Ethics and

Information Technology 17.4 (2015): 285293.

Gooskens, Geert. The Ethical Status of Virtual Actions. Ethical Perspectives 17.1 (2010): 59

78.

Luck, Morgan. The Gamers Dilemma: An Analysis of the Arguments for the Moral Distinction

between Virtual Murder and Virtual Paedophilia. Ethics and Information Technology 4.4

(2009): 3136.

Nys, Thomas. Virtual Ethics. Ethical Perspectives 17.1 (2010): 7993.

Patridge, Stephanie. The Incorrigible Social Meaning of Video Game Imagery. Ethics and

Information Technology 13.4 (2011): 303312.

Robson, Jon, and Aaron Meskin. Video Games as Self-Involving Interactive Fictions. The

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74.2 (2016): 165177.

Waddington, David I. Locating the Wrongness of Ultra-Violent Video Games. Ethics and

Information Technology 9 (2007): 121128.

Walton, Kendall. Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1990).

. Spelunking, Simulation, and Slime: On Being Moved by Fiction. Emotion and the Arts,

ed. Mette Hjort and Sue Laver. New York: Oxford University Press (1997): 3749.

Young, Garry. Resolving the Gamers Dilemma: Examining the Moral and Psychological

Differences between Virtual Murder and Virtual Paedophilia. Nottingham: Palgrave

Macmillan (2016).
 NOTES

Patridge

Patridge: Robson and Meskin note a few things.

1. Not all videogames are self-involving. Chess videogames, for instance.

2. It isnt videogames ludic nature that makes them SIIFs.
3. Chose-your-own-adventure books, tabletop RPGs, etc. can also be SIIFs.

They say SIIFs are philosophically interesting, not videogames per se.

They present two arguments for their view, though they dont call them this: First, from linguistic

practices; second, from moral criticism.

The Argument from Linguistic Practices: We say I hurled a fireball and You hurled a

fireball. Robson and Meskin say that we at least minimally imagine ourselves doing this.

But take how we say that we land on a property in Monopoly, or how we took three attempts

(minimum) to beat a Dark Souls boss. This isnt imaginative it references the ludic context of

the videogame, clearly distancing the player from it. And see how easily we can translate first-

person language into ludic language: My character hurled a fireball, your character hurled a

fireball, etc. So the Argument from Linguistic Practices isnt terribly persuasive. Alternative:

Sometimes we use self-involving language because its convenient, because its aesthetically

pleasing to do so, or whatever. Perhaps the SIIF view could be bolstered by empirical review of

actual linguistic practices.

Note: The SIIF view collapses the distinction between playing and roleplaying.

The Argument from Moral Criticisms: SIIF theory is to help make sense of instances of

widespread moral criticism of videogame activities. But this is only true in certain cases, usually
high-profile ones. The fact that we are playing a game helps distance gamers from their

opprobrious actions. Perhaps a limited SIIF view could help these issues.

Bartel

Sometimes we get really involved in our videogame play, like when you spend hours creating an

avatar in Skyrim or GTA: Online. Robson and Meskin dont show how complicated the first-

person language is. Their arguments against the translation view works, but Patridges note about

first-person and ludic language is more sophisticated.

Consider problem cases:

Angry Birds. Am I the slingshot? The birds?

Civilization. Am I a god? A government? A president?
Games that let us switch between characters? If I hit myself (as another character), am I

both at once? Am I a disembodied consciousness that possesses certain people? Perhaps I

imagine what things are like for those cahracters. But thats garden-variety sympathy, not

self-involvement.

SIIFs seem rarer than Robson and Meskin say.

Patridge: Clearly we make fictional truths about us in videogames. But according to Robson and

Meskin, the mechanism is a type of imaginative activity. Patridge is unsure about that! Linguistic

practices are more complicated, so we dont make it to their conclusion.

Miscellany & Discards

To see this clearly, examine a different kind of imaginative activity: reading a novel. Suppose

that Im a murder fantasist, but I cant fantasize about murder very well on my own. Instead, I
pick up novels, treat each sentence as if it read And then, I stabbed the next person, and play

out my murder fantasies via the novels. 3 If we emphasize the readers context, as it were, wed

make the mistaken conclusion that in my reading of the novel, Im imaginatively murdering

people.

Discussions of the ethics of videogames will greatly benefit from a robust theory of virtual

actions.

Alis account of virtual action distinguishes between what characters do within a fictional

context and what gamers intend by making characters act within those fictional contexts.

3 I owe this illustrative example to Andrew Kania.