Ethics and Video Games

This talk examines video games as ethically significant practices rather than morally inert entertainment, situating gameplay and design within contemporary moral theory. Drawing on consequentialism, deontology, and Aristotelian virtue ethics, the speaker analyses questions of harm, intention, character formation, and responsibility in both single-player and multiplayer contexts. Through cases involving virtual violence, exploitation, consent, and the so-called “gamer’s dilemma,” the lecture argues that video games function as spaces where moral agency, desire, and value are actively exercised, revealing how digital play can cultivate or erode ethical dispositions while challenging familiar boundaries between fiction, action, and responsibility.