Resolving the Gamer’s Dilemma

This book explores the gamer’s dilemma, which lies at the heart of theorising about the morality of certain video game content. The dilemma is as follows: given that gaming content involves virtual characters within a virtual environment, the moral permission of virtual murder would also appear to morally permit virtual paedophilia. Yet most gamers and members of wider society would not want to play, endorse, or find in any way morally acceptable the enactment of virtual paedophilia within a video game. Yet by accepting the moral permissibility of virtual murder they leave themselves vulnerable to having to accept the moral permissibility of virtual paedophilia.