Will Virtue Ethics Work in a Virtual World?

Virtue ethics is a character based ethical theory that claims, simply, that morally developed people cannot do immoral things. At first this sounds a little odd because it seems to give license to immoral behavior. But, if you think of it as good people trying their best to do the right thing it makes a little more sense. After all, what other standard do we have for developing morals. I am a big fan of virtue ethics because it requires moral development rather than rule following; and it helps us figure out what to do in cases where the rules aren't clear or don't exist. We just have good people trying their best to figure out the right thing. In the ethics of technology this is particularly appropriate since technology seems to create new problems for which we don't have rules. In fact, many years ago I presented a paper at a conference suggesting virtue ethics as a basis for computer ethics. Having said that, I am not sure that virtue ethics would be an appropriate basis for ethical decision making in a virtual world. Why is that?

Virtue ethics was developed in Ancient Greece where people were born into a community and indoctrinated into the values of the community. Moral development was achieved by the citizens of the community with respect to those values. When the educational process was successful (I am certain it was not always) then citizens internalized community values. If community values changed or if new situations arose they would be discussed and debated by citizens in an attempt to develop or adjust values as needed. The key elements for this to work is that you need to have a fairly homogeneous community with a relatively stable set of values and an educational process by which new members are developed morally consistent with that set of stable values. None of these elements hold for virtual worlds.

Virtual worlds are a global phenomenon. Residents from all of the world, from a wide variety of moral and religious perspectives and traditions interact. Trying to abstract a homogeneous set of values for the residents of virtual worlds would be like trying to establish a global code of ethics.
Even if it were possible to do this, you would still have the problem of moral development. When people come to the virtual world they already have their values in place. You do not get them young enough in a virtual world nor do you have enough control over them to attempt to develop them morally consistent with those values. Finally, since virtual worlds are a new phenomenon, the ethics of virtual worlds are still evolving. We don't really know what constitutes good behavior in virtual worlds. So, we do not have a stable set of values to use for moral development.

The point here is that while virtue ethics has a lot to be said for it, and although it may have worked well in Ancient Greece, it is probably not the best moral basis for virtual worlds. Perhaps some day. But not now.