Cerise Magazine

In the seemingly endless debate on whether or not video games are moral, I find that discussions of morality itself are strangely absent. Most debates deteriorate into bickering and name-calling anyway, but I find it absurd that many pundits choose to focus entirely on aspects of the games themselves whilst ignoring aspects of how morality works in the first place altogether. To be fair, morality is not an absolute; deciding what is and isn’t moral is the beginning of a slippery slope which at best leads to confusion and at worst to us-against-them preaching. But in trying to twist video games to fit into our own ideas of morality, whatever those may be, we’ve got it backwards. We shouldn’t be discussing whether video games fit into morality; we should be discussing how morality fits into video games.

The nature of morality itself is a vitally important, constantly-evolving philosophical debate that, for some strange reason, never seems to find its way into discussions of how morality works in video games. To grossly oversimplify, lest we be here for days, let’s say that morality is a code of conduct held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong. But even this definition, simplistic and all-encompassing as it seems, raises all sorts of questions about what qualifies as a “code of conduct”. The Ten Commandments, the Penal Code, the Terms of Service of your favorite online forum, ground rules set down by your parents… If we can’t even agree on what morality actually is, then is the question of how it relates to video games doomed to be just as unsolvable?

What is Morality?

Before we can start looking for answers, let’s consider the two major philosophical positions on morality. “Moral Realism” stresses that there is a single “moral truth” which forms a universal code of conduct that everybody should aim to live by. This could be Kant’s Categorical Imperative, the Buddhist Eightfold Path, or, um, Scientology. “Moral Relativism”, on the other hand, states that morality is fluid social construct, and that each culture will have its own definition of right and wrong. By now, anybody reading this will be able to poke holes in these arguments, as well as my definitions of them, and this is a good thing: philosophically, there is no right or wrong answer. Simply engaging with these arguments in the first place is what’s productive, and what could lead to a more rational, intelligent debate on morality in video games in the future. So let’s try taking the first tentative steps and address the single biggest controversy lightning-rod that has ever, and will ever, surround video games: Killing.

Kill ‘em All

It is rare to find a video game where killing is outright prohibited. Indeed, it is usually only prohibited in games where killing would not actually be possible in the first place: Sports games, educational games, rhythm games, puzzle games, and even some fighting games where the match ends automatically if your opponent is knocked unconscious. Think of all your favourite childhood games, and I bet that all of them involved killing in one way or another. Pac-Man? The very basis of the game is that ghosts are trying to kill you. Super Mario Bros.? After stomping on legions of Goombas before sending King Koopa plunging into a pit of molten lava, you’ll have notched up an impressive body count. The Legend of Zelda revolved around exploration and puzzle solving, but you still had to hack through an army of homicidal monsters to make any progress. The belief that killing is always wrong simply isn’t compatible with video games. This isn’t much of a revelation, though, since it’s not compatible with reality either.

The absolute belief that there is only right and wrong, only black and white, only night and day, simply doesn’t work. Nothing will always be absolutely wrong, and there will always be shades of gray, much as we don’t like to admit it. Could it not be justifiable to kill in self-defense? During wartime? What about assisted suicide? How on Earth could there be an absolute “do not kill” policy in video games, then? Moral absolutism in regards to killing can never be implemented in real life, let alone in video games, because there will always be scenarios in which killing can be in some way justified. When I consider the relationship between these gray areas and video games, one series in particular comes to mind: Metal Gear Solid.

The Last Resort

From its inception, the Metal Gear Solid series has provided players with both lethal firearms and an impressive array of non-lethal options for dealing with enemies. You can knock your enemies unconscious with your fists, apply a choke hold until they pass out, disorientate them, distract them, shoot them with tranquilizer darts or – the basis of the series – simply sneak past without them noticing you. Your chosen method of dealing with enemy soldiers also has in-game consequences; the dead body of a soldier will certainly alert the enemy to your presence, but a live soldier who thought he heard something around the corner is unlikely to report it to his superiors. Even the game’s major villains, who you cannot avoid fighting, can occasionally be taken down via non-lethal means. While other games treat the defeat of major villains as a heroic victory for the player, Metal Gear Solid often portrays a villain’s death from the villain’s perspective, as they realize they are dying and try to come to terms with it. From beginning to end, the Metal Gear Solid series asserts the belief that while killing is sometimes a necessity, it has genuine consequences and should only ever be a last resort.

Never is this more prevalent in the “Sorrow’s River” section of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, in which the player must defeat The Sorrow, the ghost of a dead soldier who has returned to fight with his old unit. Lacking a corporeal form, he forces the player to wade through a hazy, dream-like river where they are confronted by the ghosts of any soldiers they have killed throughout the game, all bearing some gruesome disfigurement related to how they died. Moaning and screaming, they drift toward the player and inflict damage on contact. Players who have killed few – if any – soldiers will easily reach the end of the river intact, but those who have gone on a killing frenzy will have trouble making it out alive. When the act of taking a life is seen as the absolute last possible solution to a problem, and the consequences can range from emotional damage to the characters to tangible, in-game penalties for the player, gamers can take the strongest stand on the morality debate.

When In Rome…

“Moral Conventionalism” states that the morality of an act is determined by the community’s own beliefs. Think of it this way: Are there any pacifist liberals in Diablo? Isn’t it all “Kill the Hellspawn!” this and “Avenge our fallen comrades!” that, with a side helping “We shall destroy the vile minions of darkness!” thrown in? In the fictional world of Diablo, killing legions of demonic creatures is no problem because it’s an established community practice and community belief that all those creatures are evil, out to kill you, and must be destroyed if the community is to survive. Nobody considers what the demons think. No one ever points out that, from the demons’ perspective, they’ve been banished from their rightful home to rivers of agony and torments beyond mortal perception. Most role playing games fall into this conventionalist category; as long as the foe placed in front of you is identified as a monster, it doesn’t matter how many of them you kill. There is no PETA in Diablo. Fill up the entire screen with the bloodied corpses of your enemies and you’ll likely receive praise from the game world’s inhabitants, as well as money and equipment which can be put toward killing yet more monsters.

At first glance, conventionalism seems to promote all that death and destruction we gamers seem to love so much. Even if that were true, that doesn’t make conventionalism any less important to the discussion of morality in gaming. In Pokemon, the accepted community practice is to catch and raise wild animals. In the Harvest Moon series, conventionalism means that everybody spends their time farming. Communities in Fallout are concerned with stabilizing and rebuilding society after a nuclear war, even if this means exiling innocent people to the wasteland. Discussing conventionalism stresses the right of choice rather than the right to destroy whatever we want; it asks us to look at a community and think “Who are you to judge?”. Even if conventionalism in video games often means that you need feel no remorse at killing that demon or slaying that dragon, it also gives you the opportunity to question why that is, and to apply that thinking to the real world. Indeed, many more recent role playing games, such as World of Warcraft, explicitly ask the player to question whether or not slaughtering monsters is inherently “right” by allowing them to play from the perspective of the monsters themselves. Even if these games still largely revolve around laying waste to your enemies, what was portrayed in earlier games as a simple battle between good and evil is now a more complex clash of ideologies, with the beliefs and practices of both sides cast into doubt.

Beyond Good & Evil

“Moral Subjectivism” defines morality by what you personally believe to be right or wrong. If one man finds having multiple girlfriends and then killing them off one by one to be moral, from his own subjective position he’s equally as right as the man who thinks running over people is moral simply because it’s funny to hear the sound of them colliding with your car. Don’t think shooting people in the face is moral? Then get out of the way of the guy that does, because if we give subjectivism free rein then you’ve got no right to judge him. But if you think it’s moral to shoot a guy in the face because he finds it moral to shoot people in the face, then have fun blasting each other’s faces off.

As one might guess, all of these examples come straight from the Grand Theft Auto series, the shining bastion of subjectivism in video games. Never before has “anything goes” meant more in video games than it has in Rockstar’s billion-dollar franchise. If you believe it’s moral to obliterate police cars with rocket launchers, and you’ve got the power to enforce that belief, then the only people who can stop you are the army personnel strong enough to enforce their belief on you, likely via the medium of a tank. Moral subjectivism is Social Darwinism taken to the highest level: only the strongest survive. It’s a Nietzschean worldview, where those in power are beyond good and evil because their power allows them to define how moral their actions are.

With subjectivism, nothing is wrong unless you personally believe it is. If you believe something to be moral, then it’s as moral as it needs to be for you to go out and do it. Those with only a base understanding of subjectivism would assume that it promotes anarchy, but in truth moral subjectivism gives us just as good a chance of stopping anarchy as starting it. Subjectivism can promote killing without reason, but only until a person comes along who finds it morally reasonable to kill those who kill without reason. The idea that killing those without reason is moral ends up dying with the man who thought of it as moral, leaving only the guy who thinks that killing those without reason isn’t moral. In the Grand Theft Auto series, you can kill as many people as you like so long as you realize that, sooner or later, that big tank of death really will run your ass over. You’re free to grab more guns and try again, if you want. Just don’t blame anyone but yourself when that tank rolls around once again and sends you straight back to the “Game Over” screen.

What About Us?

So, are video games moral? Yes, of course they are. The hard part, though, lies in finding out where we stand, and the relationship between our own morality and the morality of the game we’re playing. Life is all about choices, both big and small, and so is morality, and so are video games. The biggest problem with the “morality in video games” debate is the belief that we can all arrive at a universal conclusion about games as a whole. If all games were to take a subjectivist view, or a realist view, or a relativist view, then I doubt we’d need a debate at all. But gamers love choices. We have a choice to play a game where violence is the last resort. We have games where it’s only bad to kill something if everyone is agreed that you shouldn’t kill it. And then we have games where you can kill anybody you want, just for the fun of it. Only when we consider the possibilities do we ever really get anywhere.

I won’t demand we take every argument equally seriously, but I’ll always be in favor of people coming back from their ego trip and giving some serious thought to issues they seem so sure of, myself included. Whether we like it or not, video games that challenge our moral codes and question our beliefs will just keep popping up. In truth, I think there will never be an end to the “morality in video games” debate, and if we eventually do spot an end, however far off in the horizon it may be, I pray to Xenu that we all realize the error of our ways.

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Killing Grannies, Slaughtering Monsters and Leveling the F*** Up

Winter 2009 Issue

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