Is it wrong to play violent video games?

Ethics and Information Technology

Volumn 3, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 277-287

  McCormick, Matt ^a  

^a CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS;

ETHICAL THEORIES; GAME PLAYING; GOOD SPORTS; NUMBER OF PEOPLES; VIDEO GAME;

HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION;

EID: 34547701438     PISSN: 13881957     EISSN: 15728439     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1013802119431     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. Jones Thompson, Maryann. "Half of U.S. Homes Now Have PCs ZD InfoBeads Shows Another 6.4 Million American Households Acquired PCs in the Past Year." The Standard, http://www.thestandard.com/research/metrics/display/ 0,2799,9846,00.html
2. Drabman, R.S. and Thomas, M.H. "Exposure to Filmed Violence and Children's Tolerance of Real-Life Aggression." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1 (1974): 198-199.
3. "Does Media Violence Increase Children's Toleration of Real-Life Aggression?" Developmental Psychology 10 (1974): 418-421.
4. Thomas, M.H. and Drabman, R.S. "Toleration of Real Life Aggression as a Function of Exposure to Televised Violence and Age of Subject." Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 21 (1975): 227-232.
5. There is an additional complication that should be noted here. By most people's reckoning, the acceptable threshold for amount of risk that one can increase to oneself is different from the threshold for the amount of risk one can increase for others. I can choose to go rock climbing or hang gliding myself, but I cannot impose those kinds of increased risks on someone else without their consent.
6. Furthermore, we believe that there is a moral component to imposing nonconsensual risks on someone else, whereas some would argue that one can do no wrong in voluntarily engaging in activities that increase only the risk to oneself. It would be risk increasing and clearly immoral to point the roulette pistol at someone else's head and pull the trigger. But pointing the pistol at one's own head, while foolish or crazy, is not clearly immoral. I will assume with Kant the position that individuals do have a moral responsibility to themselves as well as others. And many people who are concerned about the moral status of violent video games are worried about the moral impact on both the players and those around them.
7. Sacramento Bee, Wednesday, June 21, 2000.
8. Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 58.
9. Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. Lewis White Beck (MacMillan Publishing Company, New York, 1987). Akademie, p. 429.
10. Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals.(1987) Ibid., Akademie, p. 422.
11. Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Ethics. Trans. Louis Infield (Hackett Publishing Company, 1963, Indianapolis), p. 240.
12. Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Ethics. Ibid. p. 240.
13. Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Ethics. Ibid. p. 240.
14. Mayo, Bernard. Virtue and the Moral Life (Macmillan Ltd., New York, 1958).
15. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Richard McKeon (Random House, New York), 1104a, pp. 31-34.