Virtue Theory and Video Games (Routledge Research in Applied Ethics)

This volume explores the intersection of virtue theory and video games. By bringing together emerging and established scholars analyzing video game ethics from a virtue-theoretical perspective, this book both fills gaps in the literature and provides a foundation for advancing discussions in the emerging field of video game ethics.

The anthology covers a wide range of topics, offering both abstract analyses of the application of virtue theory to video game ethics and practical insights into the impact of gaming on our relationships, communities, and individual self-conception. Part 1 examines the advantages and limitations of virtue ethics as a normative framework in the context of video games. Part 2 delves into specific virtues and vices that emerge during gameplay, illustrating how virtue theory can enhance our understanding of the ethical dimensions of gaming. Finally, Part 3 addresses the social dimensions of gaming, focusing on the roles of friendship, relationships, and community. It demonstrates how the unique social contexts of gaming provide interesting opportunities for cultivating virtue and vice.

Virtue Theory and Video Games is essential reading for researchers and graduate students working in virtue ethics, philosophy of games, the ethics of technology, game studies, media studies, and communication studies.

Sarah C. Malanowski is an instructor of philosophy at Florida Atlantic University. She specializes in the philosophy of cognitive science, biomedical ethics, and the philosophy of games. Her work has appeared in Bioethics, Synthese, Journal of Medicine & Philosophy, and Neuroethics. She is the coauthor, with Nicholas R. Baima, of Why It’s OK to Be a Gamer (Routledge 2024).

Nicholas R. Baima is an associate professor of philosophy at Florida Atlantic University. He works in ancient philosophy, ethical theory, and the philosophy of games. He is the coauthor, with Sarah C. Malanowski, of Why It’s OK to Be a Gamer (Routledge 2024) and the coauthor, with Tyler Paytas, of Plato’s Pragmatism: Rethinking the Relationship Between Ethics and Epistemology (Routledge 2021).