ABSTRACT
It may be that to murder, rape, torture or even eat another virtual character is deemed unlawful or taboo within a given virtual space, but if so then this is in line with certain status functions established within the virtual community by those who occupy that space (see Chapter 9), or is constitutive of a particular feature of the game design (see below). Either way, it is not unlawful or taboo per se. To say that such virtual actions should be judged wrong, because they are wrong offline, is to import a system of morality from our offline world into a given virtual space; but such heterogeneous spaces are by definition constituted from different contingency relations and, as such, are governed (potentially at least) by different moral codes. Consequently, it would be inappropriate, we contend, for a moral system built on different contingency relations to transcend these spaces. Sicart (2009, p. 199) recognizes this point when he states: ‘There is nothing essentially wrong in games with unethical content …. But this does not mean that computer games can use unethical content and expect their users not to be affected’.
