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@ARTICLE{Heinrichs:888822,
author = {Heinrichs, Jan-Hendrik},
title = {{V}irtual action},
journal = {Ethics and information technology},
volume = {23},
issn = {1388-1957},
address = {Dordrecht [u.a.]},
publisher = {Springer Science + Business Media B.V},
reportid = {FZJ-2020-05236},
pages = {317-330},
year = {2021},
abstract = {In the debate about actions in virtual environments two
interdependent types of question have been pondered: What is
a person doing who acts in a virtual environment? Second,
can virtual actions be evaluated morally? These questions
have been discussed using examples from morally dubious
computer games, which seem to revel in atrocities. The
examples were introduced using the terminology of “virtual
murder” “virtual rape” and “virtual pedophilia”.
The terminological choice had a lasting impact on the
debate, on the way action types are assigned and on how
moral evaluation is supposed to be conducted. However, this
terminology and its theoretical consequences, while
sometimes resulting in correct results, lead to absurd
results when applied across the board. It will be suggested
that these absurd consequences can be avoided by a different
answer to the question what people in virtual worlds are
doing. Alleged virtual actions are first and foremost the
creation and modification of data-structures and the
resulting output in computer hardware. Such modifications of
data structure and imagery can be performed with different
intentions, purposes and styles, which will influence the
type and moral evaluation of a user’s actions. This
reinterpretation allows for a more complex analysis of the
moral reasons for praiseworthiness or blameworthiness of
actions in virtual environments. This analysis takes not
just harm and effects on character into account but the
peculiar ways in which speech acts can be morally wrong:
e.g. agitatory, deceptive, bullshitting.},
cin = {INM-8},
ddc = {100},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)INM-8-20090406},
pnm = {5255 - Neuroethics and Ethics of Information (POF4-525)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-5255},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
UT = {WOS:000598107000001},
doi = {10.1007/s10676-020-09574-8},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/888822},
}