Today I’ll be starting a short series of posts on the ethics of interactive virtual worlds. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google “Second Life,” which is the largest interactive virtual world right now. Or, you can just read my introduction below.

This is my paper that I wrote for my Christian ethics class this semester. I have only edited slightly to make it more readable on a blog. You’ll notice my writing is a lot more formal than in the blog world, so sorry about that.

The Morality of Interactive Virtual Worlds, Part 1

Today’s technological landscape is radically different than that of the beginning of the twenty-first century only seven years ago. The rapid pace of technological advance is unlikely to slow down in this era. Technological innovations have impacted every area of American society and often happen at a faster rate than those in the church can keep up with.

While most of these advances can be seen as great benefits to entertainment and the ease of daily life, none should be fully embraced without considering the consequences. One type of popular technology that has had a growing impact on the American public is the usage of virtual worlds to connect with one another online in a format entirely unfamiliar to anyone prior to the computer age.

Any Christian should consider the moral implications of virtual worlds prior to logging on to such an online community. Such Biblical principles such as the nature of God and man, appropriate gender roles, fleeing temptation, participating in community with other believers, and being a steward of one’s time apply to the morality of the use of interactive virtual worlds.

Today’s generation often views technology simply as tools to live by, necessary to maintain a lifestyle that is in keeping with those around them. Many desire the latest piece of technology simply because it is new or because they believe that it will make life easier or more enjoyable. The use of technology is just one reflection of how the new is desired simply because of its newness, and the old is rejected as out of date and thus irrelevant.[i]

It is important to remember that different types of technology are not of equal value. Technology is not a tool that can be used for good or bad,[ii] sometimes its immoral purpose is so wrapped up in it that it cannot be used in appropriate ways. However, current society views all technology as progress, which is identified as inherently good.[iii] Just because technology could be bad and can be used for evil purposes does not mean that we should reject it wholesale. Each individual kind of technological use should be examined on its own merits. Here I will examine interactive virtual worlds and the morality of participating in one.

Virtual reality games are “computer-generated systems which use cyberspace to simulate various aspects of interactive space.”[iv] The users of virtual worlds participate by using an avatar, a representation of themselves or the character they are playing in the online community. Virtual reality is said to especially draw on the postmodern ideas such as “the desire for mastery through which the subject is the absolute point of reference for, and creator of, its own experiences,” which allows for the expression of the person’s fears.[v] Interactive virtual worlds allow users to become a part of an entirely new community made up of idealistic representations of people from all over the world.

Virtual worlds are not entirely new to the twenty-first century. Early interactive communities were known as Multi-User Dungeons or MUDs, named after the popular role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.[vi] In 1986 Lucasfilm and Quantum Computer Services created Habitat, a large “electronic communal space” at the time entirely unheard of, having 20,000 users at its heyday.[vii] This was a system that used primitive graphics and computer connections to allow users to interact with one another with their chosen avatars.

Even in this early virtual world, natural laws such as hunger, death, and disease were being overcome virtually allowing for supposed “ideal” conditions. Even with these threats relieved, Habitat suffered from crime such as stolen virtual items, virtual rape, and even virtual murder. The prevalence of these crimes and the refusal of the programmers to intervene and to prevent the possibility of crime lead to a grassroots movement to have sheriffs that enforced new rules.[viii] As technology continued to evolve, Habitat worked itself into obsoleteness, but was followed by several more generations of virtual worlds.

Today’s virtual worlds are far more sophisticated than the early MUDs, using 3-D graphics and real voice transmission in many cases. Virtual land can be bought and built to suit any purpose and users’ virtual likeness, their avatar, can be created and dressed as the user sees fit, regardless of who they are in real life. Virtual worlds today are also more accessible and attractive to the general population because they do not require computer programming skills, fast access to the Internet is more available, and the new interfaces are visually pleasing. According to Sherry Turkle, in this day “it is easier for people without technical expertise to blend their real and virtual lives.”[ix]

The most popular online virtual community today is Second Life, which records 8.6 million accounts have been made as of August 2007 with 1.6 million of them being active in the two months prior. The number of actual users is unknown because an individual can have more than one account, but Second Life also reports that there are between 20,000 and 50,000 users online at any given time.[x] Users of Second Life and other online virtual worlds can do anything they can do in real life: work, marry, make friends, and have sexual encounters as well as things they cannot do in reality such as fly, teleport, and create or recreate their own physical appearance instantaneously.

Tomorrow I will start to talk about the issues that should be considered when determining whether or not virtual worlds are moral or not.
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[i] Lenore Yarger, “A Choosing People: Reclaiming Control over the Technologies in Our Lives,” The Other Side 33, no. 3 (1997): 23.

[ii] Bernard T. Adeney, “The Dark Side of Technology,” Transformation 11, no. 2 (1994): 21.

[iii] David O. Berger, “Cybergnosticism: Or, Who Needs a Body Anyway?” Concordia Journal 25 (1999): 344.

[iv] Cathryn Vasseleu, “Virtual Bodies/Virtual Worlds,” in Virtual Politics: Identity and Community in Cyberspace, ed. David Holmes (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1997), 46.

[v] Simon Cooper, “Plenitude and Alienation: the Subject of Virtual Reality,” in Virtual Politics: Identity and Community in Cyberspace, ed. David Holmes (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1997), 93.

[vi] Sherry Turkle, Life on Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (New York: Simon and Schuster: 1995), 180.

[vii] Michael J. Ostwald, “Virtual Urban Futures,” in Virtual Politics: Identity and Community in Cyberspace, ed. David Holmes (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1997), 138-141.

[viii] Ostwald, “Futures,” 138-141.

[ix] Sherry Turkle, “Can You Hear Me Now?” Forbes, May 7, 2007. Forbes Online, http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0507/176.html (accessed November 14, 2007).

[x] Seth Kugel, “A House That’s Just Unreal,” New York Times, August 9, 2007. New York Times Online, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/garden/09second.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (accessed November 14, 2007).