been playing video games for a long time
I started when my parents bought us an
Atari 2600 in 1984 over the past three
decades of playing video games I’ve
killed so many things in video games
I’ve killed so many orcs and darkspawn
and aliens and people and some of those
people they deserved it but some of them
didn’t and that makes me wonder why did
I do that when I when I have a choice
and I don’t have to kill this person in
the game why did I go ahead and do it
I’m not a violent person in my everyday
life so why is it that when I play video
games I become this bloodthirsty violent
person I wonder if it’s ever weird if
it’s ever wrong with me to do this I am
a philosopher I am thinking so I you
know tend to go in these directions
before I get into my argument I want to
preface with one thing I am NOT actually
asking a political question whenever we
have debates over violence in video
games we tend to go really quickly
toward the political question of can we
restrict games can we ban them it comes
a question about the First Amendment and
civil liberties it becomes a question
about what can we control what people do
when they play video games I’m not
interested in that that’s not the
question that I’m asking I’m not asking
about do we have the legal right to play
whatever I’m asking more of a moral
question like when I am playing is there
anything strange about what I do
typically we like to think that moral
and political questions go hand in hand
or that the law follows morality most of
the time but these things come apart as
well really easily there are things that
are immoral to do but perfectly legal
for instance think of cheating on a
lover
you have no legal obligation to that
person cheating on a lover is not
something you can ever be sued for you
can’t go to prison you won’t get
arrested for it it’s perfectly legal but
if you do it often we would still think
you’re a jerk we would still think
there’s something morally wrong about
that so what I’m interested in is forget
about the legal question of what what
does the First Amendment get me what can
I do in games when I am doing something
in a game how do i morally engage with
you can imagine that there’s a standard
reply that when I ask is it ever weird
for me to do something bad in a video
game the standard reply would be
something like obviously not can’t be
wrong because it’s a game because it’s
fiction because it’s just it doesn’t
exist in a way nobody’s actually harmed
when I kill anything in a video game so
who cares and yeah I think that’s
probably right I didn’t feel a lot of
guilt when I killed all those many
darkspawn but sometimes it actually did
make me a little anxious and make me
think that that was weird why did I want
to do that why should I do this
the way that I think of video games
generally is that I think of them as a
kind of fantasy or it’s a way to enjoy a
fantasy it’s a way to engage with the
fans most of the time when we play games
what we do is we imagine a fantasy where
I’m the hero and I save the day I’m a
noble army of one
yay for me and even in those cases where
I do bad things in games where I make
the bad moral choice then what I do is I
do this little psychological trick that
I’ve learned that most gamers are really
good at I do this little psychological
trick of bracketing where I say I can do
this thing in the game because I know
that’s not me in reality this is another
person right there’s the game person and
then there’s me in reality so I can do
bad things in games and that’s fine
because we’re two different things
great so it’s a fantasy
with that I’m a philosopher I get to
thinking about things like this and it
makes me wonder is it always okay for me
to fantasize
are there any fantasies that are wrong
is it actually sometimes morally wrong
for me to fantasize let me give you I’m
sure there’s a standard response to that
as well the standard response would
again be obviously not right because it
happens in your head it’s not real it’s
a fantasy
how can you legislate what goes on in my
head nobody’s being harmed so it’s
really none of your business and to a
degree I think that’s right
nobody wants to live in a world of
Orwellian thought police right but
remember when we talked about Orwellian
worlds of thought police that we’re
talking about legislating again we slip
really easily into the First Amendment
question of what legally do I have the
right to do I’m not asking that question
I’m asking even though you have the
right to Tranter sighs about whatever
you want is it ever wrong imagine this
case imagine that you have an associate
somebody that you’re not really close to
but you know and you accidentally
somehow get hold of their Diaries bad
person that you are you look and you
find out that this person regularly has
the enjoys this really dark twisted
fantasy about you I would be freaked out
by that I might think you have the legal
right to do whatever you want in your
head but I don’t want to be a friend
anymore
that would freak me out I wonder if
there are other cases where actually we
cross a line in our fantasies where it’s
not right for me to fantasize about that
thing there are some things that I ought
not to fantasize about
I shouldn’t fantasize about murder I
shouldn’t fantasize about rape I
shouldn’t fantasize about pedophilia
there’s a terrible things to even
fantasize about so what happens when I
play games is it ever morally wrong for
me to use a game as a way of fantasizing
about something what I want to know is
where do I draw the line let me give you
one case where it feels to me like here
I draw a line unders Brevik
he’s a mass murderer in 2011 in Norway
he killed 77 people many of those people
were highschool age kids that were on a
in a summer camp he claims that he
prepared himself for his attack by
playing video games he claims that he
prepared himself for his attack by
playing first-person shooter that it was
a really good way for him to improve his
hand-eye coordination and that you can
imagine as well that it was a really
good way for him to just psych himself
up to prepare himself for this mass
murder that he was plotting at that
point I want to draw a line and say what
he’s doing with the game is weird and
wrong that’s not what I do when I play
games and I bet most of the people in
the room probably play games at some
point or other it’s funny that many of
us don’t think of ourselves as gamers
but I bet if I looked at your phone
right now there’d be a game on your
phone so I call you a gamer I bet most
of you play games and most of you when
you play games you imagine yourself to
be a hero or when you make a bad choice
in a game you do that little thing where
you bracket it all and you say I can do
this because this is another person and
it’s not me that wants to do this again
for unders Brevik he did in the game
exactly what he wants to do in life
for him it’s different he’s doing
something different in the game from
what you and I are doing you and I are
fantasizing about being heroes or were
bracketing it helps
he’s fantasizing about actually being a
mass murderer that what he does in the
game is what he wants to see in reality
and that I feel like is where the
problem lies that’s where I want to draw
the line it’s wrong to fantasize about
murder it’s wrong to fantasize about
rape it’s wrong to fantasize about
pedophilia and it doesn’t matter if the
thing that you’re using to engage with
that fantasy is a video game or not in
that case it could be anything could be
a video game it could be plays it could
be a movie it could be a novel it
doesn’t matter the thing itself the
object is not the problem because one of
the main things that I want to stress
the object is not the problem it’s not
a game that makes you a bad person it’s
not the novel or the play or the movie
or whatever it’s what you do with it
Andres Bram Vic is doing something
totally different from what you and I do
with it he’s enjoying a kind of fantasy
that you and I would be disgusted by I
hope you and I when we typically address
this when we typically think of this
issue the usual way that we think about
it is first in political terms what
could we legally do and second we fixate
on the object we fixate on what the
designer did when they created the game
that’s a question of what does the game
allow me to do but I think that’s a
mistake I hear parents often when I told
them about my research they often tell
me about awful games that their kids are
playing and I often ask why he let you
can’t play them that but they often tell
me about the game the things that are in
the games that bug them and I tell them
that’s not what you worry about what you
worry about is why does your kid want to
do that if your kid wants to do that
because your kid likes imagining
themselves as being a hero or they like
playing with moral ambiguity and they
think that’s really fascinating and it’s
a safe place to play with more or less
ambiguity than good for them keep at it
if your kid is hunter spray Vic then you
have a conversation then at that point
something’s up so in the end is it
morally wrong to play violent video
games the short answer is not
necessarily not about the game at all
not really about the game it’s about the
player it’s about what they do with it
at the point where the player is using
the game to engage in immoral fantasy
something that they shouldn’t fantasize
about something that they shouldn’t
develop a desire for at that point
they’re doing something morally wrong
that I think is where we draw the line [Applause]