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Virtual Morality
The rapid development of information technology in the last twenty years has raised urgent ethical questions. Is the technology itself morally neutral, or is it inherently value-laden? Are the uses to which we put it right just because they are possible? And what ethical principles, if any, should govern our approach to technology, including our behaviour in virtual worlds?
In this significant contribution to the debate, Graham Houston proposes a theological and moral framework within which to consider such questions. Drawing upon the work of leading moral thinkers, and using Virtual Reality as a focus for discussion, he shows how Christian ethics can provide tools for a critique of technology. It offers principles of conduct which enable us to live lives pleasing to God in every environment, whether virtual or real.
In this significant contribution to the debate, Graham Houston proposes a theological and moral framework within which to consider such questions. Drawing upon the work of leading moral thinkers, and using Virtual Reality as a focus for discussion, he shows how Christian ethics can provide tools for a critique of technology. It offers principles of conduct which enable us to live lives pleasing to God in every environment, whether virtual or real.
32 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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September 1, 2026
I can’t really criticise this work for being out of date — rather like the bouncy and self-consciously shallow Cyberchurch, it represents a fascinating source for what some people were thinking about in an earlier stage of the digital revolution, almost like a period piece, odd though that sounds to say of something published during my adult life, and is one of the reasons I wanted to read it, attempting to recapture for a moment a different way of thinking about the air we now breathe — nor for focusing on a bit of the digital world that has turned out to be relatively unimportant (VR environments have not developed as they might, and fully immersive experiences remain luxuries/curiosities/sideshows to the major ways in which digital technologies have transformed our lives). But…
Disappointingly disorganised, repetitive and unfocused. GH’s heart was in the right place, he had done plenty of interesting reading, and he didn’t write anything obviously wrong, but this was a collection of initial drafts of thoughts on the subject padded out with decent enough short summaries of what other ethicists have outlined about this that or the other… it was not a book. (Though as a book, the object is quite nice, pleasingly light for its size, big enough margins for annotation, designed printed and bound in the UK [shock horror], with a suitably striking and hideous [because of garish colours, not the person!] negative image of a VR headset wearer chosen for the front.) And certainly not a book that should have been published by a semi-academic imprint. There’s no sustained argument, and far too much use of the passive voice. Hence my mean rating.
On pp.177-178, shortly before the end, we finally get something that gestures towards the possibility of an interesting angle: “if ‘real’ morality is customary behaviour arising from beliefs (conscious and unconscious) about goods and harms, rights and duties, virtues and vices, etc., which are based on perceptions of objective reality and which may or may not be expressed in terms of ethical principles, ‘ virtual’ morality is behaviour which is based on perceptions of virtuality (i.e. artificiality, simulation and subjectivity). Such morality develops with interaction and is subject to moral evaluation and to discussion about rights and duties in cyberspace.”
[Leave aside the bland opacity of the shorter second sentence.] But that idea then goes… nowhere!
Disappointingly disorganised, repetitive and unfocused. GH’s heart was in the right place, he had done plenty of interesting reading, and he didn’t write anything obviously wrong, but this was a collection of initial drafts of thoughts on the subject padded out with decent enough short summaries of what other ethicists have outlined about this that or the other… it was not a book. (Though as a book, the object is quite nice, pleasingly light for its size, big enough margins for annotation, designed printed and bound in the UK [shock horror], with a suitably striking and hideous [because of garish colours, not the person!] negative image of a VR headset wearer chosen for the front.) And certainly not a book that should have been published by a semi-academic imprint. There’s no sustained argument, and far too much use of the passive voice. Hence my mean rating.
On pp.177-178, shortly before the end, we finally get something that gestures towards the possibility of an interesting angle: “if ‘real’ morality is customary behaviour arising from beliefs (conscious and unconscious) about goods and harms, rights and duties, virtues and vices, etc., which are based on perceptions of objective reality and which may or may not be expressed in terms of ethical principles, ‘ virtual’ morality is behaviour which is based on perceptions of virtuality (i.e. artificiality, simulation and subjectivity). Such morality develops with interaction and is subject to moral evaluation and to discussion about rights and duties in cyberspace.”
[Leave aside the bland opacity of the shorter second sentence.] But that idea then goes… nowhere!
Displaying 1 of 1 review