Where do we Draw the Line … as Ethical Consumers?

 As we saw in the example of the Fairphone, a further set of ethical considerations is posed by the larger relations within which the production, distribution, and disposal of such products take place. The Fairphone, and Fairtrade products more generally, respond to increasing consumer awareness of these larger infrastructures and a growing sense of responsibility for pushing them in more fair and just directions through one’s purchases. We have also explored Luciano Floridi’s account of distributed responsibility as an ethical reality in a world in which we are all inextricably interwoven – including with the workers (perhaps child slaves) and literally bloody contexts which source critical components of our beloved devices. As the earlier exercise suggested, part of our response here turns on our conceptions of who we are as human beings – broadly, as more individual, more relational, and/or somewhere in between as relational autonomies.

And this last, of course, turns in part on the cultural contexts of our origins and experiences.

To explore these dimensions of consuming and enjoying games containing graphic sex and violence (often conjoined), consider the following:

A. Reviewing the phenomena of #Gamergate, especially as elaborated in further sources – is there a good analogy between, say, an electronics industry that relies in some measure on conflict minerals, child slavery, etc., and a game industry that seems marked, in some quarters at least, by a “toxic masculinity” that occasionally leaks out into real-world threats and harm against targeted women gamers, designers, and journalists?

B. Presuming there is – to some degree – a good analogy here, then what does that imply for your ethical choices regarding the consumption and enjoyment of games?

Perhaps nothing … perhaps a lot … Either way, carefully explain your thoughts and responses here.

C. At least part of your response will turn on your holding more individualistic vis-à-vis more relational senses of selfhood (and/or the middle ground of relational autonomy) – and thereby more individual senses vis-à-vis more distributed senses of ethical responsibility.

Where do you seem to be on this scale – and does it indeed make a difference in your choices here?

D. As we saw in the example of the Fairphone and the “Red” products in Floridi’s examples, even if one holds to a more relational sense of self and thereby a more distributed sense of responsibility, purchasing a Fairphone or other Fairtrade product may not be fully mandatory, but “supererogatory,” or a “Good Samaritan” choice. Presuming there are games that, analogous to the Fairphone, are at least less ethically questionable in terms of both content and the larger production and consumption relationships that make them available to you, would you want to argue that it would be ethically commendable, but not necessarily always obligatory, to purchase and play these?