Why a Need for Rights in Cyberspace?

Although being booted from a MOO might not seem a sanction greatly to be dreaded, it happens that losing one's character on a MOO or some other type of MUD is often a severe blow, because players tend to bond tightly with their virtual communities and prize the characters they have more or less painstakingly built up. People invent or reinvent themselves in these spaces, their characters becoming a part of their identities. This phenomenon is likely to become more pronounced and dramatic as more people spend more time on the Net. Not only will islands of stability, community and meaning continue to evolve, but the importance of these extended identities is likely to increase. We will be changed in ways that are hard to predict.

All the more reason to give thought to the moral constraints and goals that should structure and guide the process of change. I am interested especially in how we might be changed by increased "projection" into, or "identification" with, our characters on the Net. Is it possible that this projection should be sufficiently great that one could be harmed, not qua keyboard-manipulator, but qua character? What I have in mind might best be brought out by an analogy. Here it is. Consider an historical period lost in the mists of time, but plausibly hypothesized in an evolutionary sketch of the emergence of homo sapiens. This was a period, the sketch stipulates, at which our predecessors were liable to physical harm, but their minds were insufficiently developed for the notion of psychological harm to have application. Call this Period A. They could be distracted by pain in a toe, but they were not susceptible to anguish from a memory, depression as the result of a loss, and so on. These progenitors of ours were capable of harm qua bodies, but not qua minds.

As evolution progressed and human beings came to have increasingly complex mental states, they became susceptible to harms engendered by this new complexity. Our ancestors had at this point--call it Period C--extended themselves beyond their bodies, in the sense that they were now liable to --new kinds of harm, as well as new kinds of pleasure.

Finally, consider an intermediate Period B at which some objective observers might say: "The Earthlings have evolved to a point where they have a primitive psychology, but it is not clear whether they will continue to evolve to a point at which it makes good sense to speak of them as suffering qua psychological subjects, e.g., suffering mental anguish, depression, and other such harms; they might evolve in that direction, or they might not." The analogy then is that Period A is to Period C as the period before cyberspace (Period A') is to a future period in which these characters have developed to the point at which they can be harmed (Period C'). Just as our ancestors in Period C could be harmed qua psychological subjects, so too in Period C' we will be liable to harms qua subjects in cyberspace. And the analog of B is the present. In our circumstances, cyberspace characters and virtual realities are too little developed to judge uncontentiously that characters can suffer harm. But they might develop in such a way that this judgment would be as reasonable as judging that C-Period people suffer psychological harm.

Cyberspace harm would evolve, however, not through genetic evolution, but through cultural evolution, specifically improved computer technology, improved virtual reality software, and many talented people populating these worlds and acquiring a deep and abiding sense of their characters as inhabitants of them. But I digress. I return now to my topic, with a promise to digress again in the conclusion of this essay, in order to take a final stab at clarifying the difficult notion of a person's being harmed qua a character.


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Masthead CMC Magazine / January 1, 1996

* Wizards, Toads, and Ethics, by Wes Cooper

Why a Need for Rights in Cyberspace?

Although being booted from a MOO might not seem a sanction greatly to be dreaded, it happens that losing one's character on a MOO or some other type of MUD is often a severe blow, because players tend to bond tightly with their virtual communities and prize the characters they have more or less painstakingly built up. People invent or reinvent themselves in these spaces, their characters becoming a part of their identities. This phenomenon is likely to become more pronounced and dramatic as more people spend more time on the Net. Not only will islands of stability, community and meaning continue to evolve, but the importance of these extended identities is likely to increase. We will be changed in ways that are hard to predict.

All the more reason to give thought to the moral constraints and goals that should structure and guide the process of change. I am interested especially in how we might be changed by increased "projection" into, or "identification" with, our characters on the Net. Is it possible that this projection should be sufficiently great that one could be harmed, not qua keyboard-manipulator, but qua character? What I have in mind might best be brought out by an analogy. Here it is. Consider an historical period lost in the mists of time, but plausibly hypothesized in an evolutionary sketch of the emergence of homo sapiens. This was a period, the sketch stipulates, at which our predecessors were liable to physical harm, but their minds were insufficiently developed for the notion of psychological harm to have application. Call this Period A. They could be distracted by pain in a toe, but they were not susceptible to anguish from a memory, depression as the result of a loss, and so on. These progenitors of ours were capable of harm qua bodies, but not qua minds.

As evolution progressed and human beings came to have increasingly complex mental states, they became susceptible to harms engendered by this new complexity. Our ancestors had at this point--call it Period C--extended themselves beyond their bodies, in the sense that they were now liable to --new kinds of harm, as well as new kinds of pleasure.

Finally, consider an intermediate Period B at which some objective observers might say: "The Earthlings have evolved to a point where they have a primitive psychology, but it is not clear whether they will continue to evolve to a point at which it makes good sense to speak of them as suffering qua psychological subjects, e.g., suffering mental anguish, depression, and other such harms; they might evolve in that direction, or they might not." The analogy then is that Period A is to Period C as the period before cyberspace (Period A') is to a future period in which these characters have developed to the point at which they can be harmed (Period C'). Just as our ancestors in Period C could be harmed qua psychological subjects, so too in Period C' we will be liable to harms qua subjects in cyberspace. And the analog of B is the present. In our circumstances, cyberspace characters and virtual realities are too little developed to judge uncontentiously that characters can suffer harm. But they might develop in such a way that this judgment would be as reasonable as judging that C-Period people suffer psychological harm.

Cyberspace harm would evolve, however, not through genetic evolution, but through cultural evolution, specifically improved computer technology, improved virtual reality software, and many talented people populating these worlds and acquiring a deep and abiding sense of their characters as inhabitants of them. But I digress. I return now to my topic, with a promise to digress again in the conclusion of this essay, in order to take a final stab at clarifying the difficult notion of a person's being harmed qua a character.


CMC Magazine Index
Contents Archive Sponsors Studies Contact


Masthead CMC Magazine / January 1, 1996

* Wizards, Toads, and Ethics, by Wes Cooper

Why a Need for Rights in Cyberspace?

Although being booted from a MOO might not seem a sanction greatly to be dreaded, it happens that losing one's character on a MOO or some other type of MUD is often a severe blow, because players tend to bond tightly with their virtual communities and prize the characters they have more or less painstakingly built up. People invent or reinvent themselves in these spaces, their characters becoming a part of their identities. This phenomenon is likely to become more pronounced and dramatic as more people spend more time on the Net. Not only will islands of stability, community and meaning continue to evolve, but the importance of these extended identities is likely to increase. We will be changed in ways that are hard to predict.

All the more reason to give thought to the moral constraints and goals that should structure and guide the process of change. I am interested especially in how we might be changed by increased "projection" into, or "identification" with, our characters on the Net. Is it possible that this projection should be sufficiently great that one could be harmed, not qua keyboard-manipulator, but qua character? What I have in mind might best be brought out by an analogy. Here it is. Consider an historical period lost in the mists of time, but plausibly hypothesized in an evolutionary sketch of the emergence of homo sapiens. This was a period, the sketch stipulates, at which our predecessors were liable to physical harm, but their minds were insufficiently developed for the notion of psychological harm to have application. Call this Period A. They could be distracted by pain in a toe, but they were not susceptible to anguish from a memory, depression as the result of a loss, and so on. These progenitors of ours were capable of harm qua bodies, but not qua minds.

As evolution progressed and human beings came to have increasingly complex mental states, they became susceptible to harms engendered by this new complexity. Our ancestors had at this point--call it Period C--extended themselves beyond their bodies, in the sense that they were now liable to --new kinds of harm, as well as new kinds of pleasure.

Finally, consider an intermediate Period B at which some objective observers might say: "The Earthlings have evolved to a point where they have a primitive psychology, but it is not clear whether they will continue to evolve to a point at which it makes good sense to speak of them as suffering qua psychological subjects, e.g., suffering mental anguish, depression, and other such harms; they might evolve in that direction, or they might not." The analogy then is that Period A is to Period C as the period before cyberspace (Period A') is to a future period in which these characters have developed to the point at which they can be harmed (Period C'). Just as our ancestors in Period C could be harmed qua psychological subjects, so too in Period C' we will be liable to harms qua subjects in cyberspace. And the analog of B is the present. In our circumstances, cyberspace characters and virtual realities are too little developed to judge uncontentiously that characters can suffer harm. But they might develop in such a way that this judgment would be as reasonable as judging that C-Period people suffer psychological harm.

Cyberspace harm would evolve, however, not through genetic evolution, but through cultural evolution, specifically improved computer technology, improved virtual reality software, and many talented people populating these worlds and acquiring a deep and abiding sense of their characters as inhabitants of them. But I digress. I return now to my topic, with a promise to digress again in the conclusion of this essay, in order to take a final stab at clarifying the difficult notion of a person's being harmed qua a character.


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