Constructivism in Video Games

Abstract

This paper proposes a way to implement a constructivist ethical approach in the regards to video games. The view of constructivism shall be taken as an agent-based view for act based theoretical approaches did not have much success in tackling the morality of a player. Constructivism that is being taken into the account is a procedure of moral reasoning derived from the theories of John Rawls and Thomas Scanlon. The strategy of this argument will be to expand on the paper written by Eric Sheng in which he stresses his concerns on the immoral playthrough of the player. This expansion of Sheng’s argument will shed light on the different ways in which we play video games and that the same acts do not have to have the same moral problems. Therefore, the constructivist procedure will be used as a way to determine an answer to the question of the individual motivation behind a virtual act and show the moral implications of it. At the end of the paper, the weaknesses and the benefits of this approach shall be stressed.