Virtue-al Ethics?

This chapter argues that virtue ethics cannot coherently evaluate virtual actions. Because virtue ethics relies on actions expressing and shaping character through morally salient features, it cannot ground the wrongness of virtual actions, which lack the normative salient features of actions undertaken in real-world contexts. Attempts to justify their evaluation either assume the very wrongness in question (bootstrapping), shift to empirical consequences (thus becoming consequentialist), or appeal directly to the attitude of the player or to intuition (both of which collapse under scrutiny). The result is a dilemma: either accept amoralism about virtual actions or abandon virtue ethics in this domain.