[Super Mario Overworld Theme (Smooth McGroove cover) in background]
Greetings, PhilosoFans. This is more informal philosophical observation than argument,
but I thought I'd share with you guys some things I've noticed about morality and video games.
Some of my favorite video games are ones that involve a moral choice system.
But what I've noticed is that not all moral choice systems are created equally.
I mean, yeah, there's usually a choice between good and evil, but what exactly is defined as "good"
tends to vary quite a bit.
Take a game like Infamous, with a fairly simple binary moral choice system.
Infamous is very consequentialist.
Whether you're good or evil depends usually on the consequences of your actions.
So, if you go around murdering people, then you're bad. And if you go around healing people, then you're good.
Always, the focus is on consequences.
Compare that to games like Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas.
Now in Fallout, the focus isn't always on the consequences of what you do.
For example, if you lie to people, even if the lie doesn't affect them very much,
you get negative karma.
Similarly, if you steal things, pick locks or hack computers,
even if your end game is to save lives,
you still get a blip on the Karma Meter.
My favorite example of this is a quest in Fallout 3 called "Ten Penny Tower."
In Ten Penny Tower, the ghouls want to live in the big high rise apartment block
with the human beings.
So you can either kill the ghouls or help them. And if you help them,
you can either help them violently or peacefully.
I chose to help them peacefully, and negotiated a deal between the ghouls and the humans
so the ghouls got to move in.
But when I came back, I found that the ghouls had gone back on their end of the deal
and murdered all of the humans.
So you let the ghouls through the gates, and you're kind of responsible for the deaths of all those people,
and yet you don't get any negative karma for it.
Fallout leans more towards Kantian morality than any game I've ever played.
It's not just about the consequences. It's about you doing the right thing.
Kant famously said that if a murderer came to your house
and asked to see where your kids were so he could murder them,
you would be morally obliged to tell him the truth.
You've got to do your moral duty, no matter what the consequences are.
Now if the murderer wants to neglect his moral duty and go around murdering people, then hey,
that's not your business.
But you've got to obey your duty.
It's the only way you can stay morally pure.
I would love to play The Walking Dead with Immanuel Kant, I think it'd be really funny.
I think in the meat locker bit with Larry, he'd just stove Larry's head in straight away
and be like, "Let the consequences be what they will! We must stay morally pure!!"
And now compare that with something like 1997's Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II,
which was one of my favorite games growing up, mainly because it looked adorably like
it had been made in Microsoft Paint.
In it, whether you're good or bad depends on whether or not you go around murdering people --
so there's a little bit of consequentialism -- but also, what force powers you choose when you level up.
This is actually not too far from Aristotelian Virtue Ethics.
Aristotle said that morality wasn't about /doing/ the right thing.
It was about /being/ a good person,
asking yourself, "What would the virtuous person do in this situation?"
It's about acquiring positive character traits and practicing them until the become habit.
In Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, you choose your force upgrades
-- light side or dark side --
and you start using them and that affects what kind of person you are . . .
[*ding*]
Not every game has a moral choice system, but morality nevertheless does enter into a lot of them.
Take something like the Legend of Zelda series, for instance, in which you play as Link.
Now, Link is brave and self-sacrificing and virtuous -- he's the hero.
But not only do you not have a choice about whether or not he does that --
because it's a fairly linear game --
but in the context of the story, Link doesn't have a choice about being the hero either.
A lot of service is paid to the idea that he's destined or fated to save the world,
that he's the goddess' chosen champion, that he was prophesied to save Hyrule, etc. etc.
Not only does the player not have a choice about whether or not Link is a hero --
unless, of course, you just turn off the game --
but, in the story, neither does he.
He can't help it. Heroing is just what he does. He's just that kind of guy.
Now Kant would say that, because of that, Link doesn't deserve to be morally praised for what he does.
He didn't choose to do it.
He can't choose not to save the kingdom, any more than he can choose not to be born blonde.
Now, presumably, Mario could just sit around on his ass and not bother saving the princess if he didn't feel up to it,
but Link can't do that. He /has/ to be the hero. It's his job, it's who he is.
And so, Kant would say he doesn't deserve to be praised for it.
I just thought this was an interesting way of illustrating the different types of moral theories.
Maybe it's not really indicative of anything beyond the fact that non-linear games can afford to be more
complex in their moral choices and maybe some of the personal proclivities of the designers.
But what do you guys think?
Does this show us anything, other than that more complex games can afford to be more complex?
And what is your favorite moral choice you've ever made in a video game? I'm interested to know.
Mine was whether or not to let Benny go at the end of Fallout: New Vegas.
I really agonized over that for quite a while. I'd be interested to hear what you guys thought about it.
Let me know in the comments and I will see you all in the next episode.
Byyyyyeeee!
[background music swells] [end]