The Business Ethics Blog

[This is a follow-up to my previous posting.]
One of the top scholars in business ethics, Lynn Sharp Paine, has in fact commented on the ethics of video game marketing. In her generally excellent book, Value Shift, Paine is pretty critical of “point-and-shoot” games, citing them as an example of “the financial rewards of moral indifference”. (p. 58) Here’s an excerpt from p. 59:

According to one expert in this field, these games…erode resistance to killing. In the process, they also increase players’ comfort with lethal weapons, desensitize them to the weapons’ deadly effects, and develop their marksmanship skills.

If this expert is only partially correct, the widespread and indiscriminate use of point-and-shoot games should be a matter of serious moral concern. Restraint in the use of force against the innocent…is a fundamental tenet of civilized society, and activities that undermine this restraint should be undertaken with caution. Even if these games had never been associated with any school killings, however, their widespread use would still be troubling. Whatever entertainment value they might provide appears to be more than offset by the risks of dulling their young players’ moral sensibilities and desensitizing them to the power of lethal weapons. At a minimum, moderation should be advised.

Now, the available evidence suggests that video games do not generally produce serious anti-social behaviour. Of course, the existing data are also consistent with the reasonable hypothesis that while a) most kids won’t be turned into gun-toting maniacs by point-and-shoot video games, b) an unstable minority of them may well be. That poses a serious ethical challenge. Are producers of these games responsible for their effect on a small minority of users? Of course, many products have unusual (but statistically predictable) negative effects on a minority of users. Just about all pharmaceuticals, for example, had nasty side-effects for at least some users. The difference, of course, is that many pharmaceuticals have significant benefits, and it’s socially and individually rational to accept some risk in return for anticipated benefits. Point-and-shoot video games are unlikely to be able to claim a similar cost-benefit ratio.

So, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to defend video games against the claim that they’re harmful to a vulnerable few based on arguments about net benefits. So, what about appealing to a different ethical value, like autonomy (freedom of choice)? The argument here would be that it’s wrong to restrict the range of entertainment options open to the entire population of gamers in order to prevent the (possible) negative impact on a vulnerable few. My guess is that this argument is going to carry the day, at least until someone produces more concrete evidence of a direct causal link between point-and-shoot video games and ANY anti-social behaviour (even if only among a troubled few players).

(Thanks to Wayne Norman for reminding me of this passage in LSP’s book.)