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Grand Theft Auto IV, which started selling April 29th, is the most expensive game ever made ($100 million), one of the highest rated games ever made, had the largest first day sales (609,000) of any game ever made, and might become one of the most controversial games ever made.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the New York City police, and even New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg have already gone on record protesting the lessons the game teaches kids.

But is there anything ethically amiss with the game? What about this notion that the game somehow exerts an inappropriate influence on kids? Let’s break it down and see. First we need to separate out the prudential and legal issues to more clearly focus on the ethics.

Legal: MADD wants to reclassify Grand Theft Auto IV as an Adults Only game. Neither Sony nor Microsoft currently sell AO on their consoles in the US, so this could disrupt sales considerably. However, just as the current classification does not mean there are no ethical issues, a reclassification of AO would not mean the game had ethical issues. Ethics do not change based on the lobbying abilities of any particular constituency.

Prudential: Any issues related to the sales or profitability of the game are prudential. Take Two Interactive’s (the maker of the game) decision to allow people to drive home drunk in the game, is a business decision that they presumably believe will help sell more games. They probably left other behaviors that they believed would hurt game sales. Sales and profit motivations are prudential only.

Ethical: But have they gone too far? Are they somehow risking what is right in the name of profit? Take Two discloses in its mature rating, that that game contains “Blood, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, and Use of Drugs and Alcohol.” This allows consumers to make an informed purchase decision, so I don’t see any issues here with lying or deception. This in some ways is the acid test of ethics. Most ethical transgressions involve deception.

I don’t see any ethically sensitive issues with Grand Theft Auto IV. Now this doesn’t mean I want my kids playing it. But the decision of whether or not to let my kids play the game is a prudential one. And I must compare this decision in the context of other activities they engage in — from playing make believe cops & robbers to watching violent shows like the Shield on TV to reading articles in the morning newspaper about Josef Fritzl. These are important decisions with complex considerations, but they are not ethically sensitive.

Tags: Grandtheft auto IV, ethics, personal ethics, clint korver, ethics for the real world

I haven’t blogged about Josef Fritzl, the man who imprisoned and sexually abused his daughter for 24 years, because the stories make me sick to my stomach.

A few observations:

Ethical transgressions tend to bring along other forms of ethical violations.
In a separate interview, a sister-in-law, Christine R, told the Oesterreich newspaper that Josef Fritzl used to go into the cellar every morning at 0900 “apparently to draw plans for machines, which he sold to firms” BBC NEWS | Europe | ‘Second man’ went to abuse cellar

The cellar is where he had imprisoned his daughter.

If you are following this story, pay attention to what dulled Mr. Fritzl’s ethical sensitivities to the enormity of his actions. Maybe it was exceptional circumstances that made it difficult for him to retain his ethical compass. Or maybe he incrementally lost his way, making small ethical concessions that eventually led to large ethical transgressions. And most importantly, how prevalent are the elements that dulled Mr. Fritzl’s ethical sensitivities in other parts of our society?

Tags: Josef Fritzl, ethics, ethics for the real world, clint korver

The Olympic-Torch relay is certainly getting its share of the world’s attention–but not the attention China wanted. The Chinese government had hoped the torch relay would be in part a worldwide celebration of China’s emergence as a global power. Instead it has turned into a high-profile forum for criticism, bringing China’s treatment of Tibet, its record on human rights, and other issues into the spotlight.

In London, pro-Tibetan demonstrators disrupted the torch’s progression, resulting in numerous scuffles and 35 arrests.

In Paris, the torch was extinguished multiple times, had to be moved into a security protected bus for part of the journey, and the last leg had to be canceled at the last minute.

In San Francisco, the mobilization, protests, and arrests are just beginning. Three people have been arrested for hanging a Tibetan flag and two banners to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Are the protesters acting appropriately? Let’s take a look:

From a prudential point of view, these protests seem quite effective. They are garnering world wide attention to an issue that has been around for decades with only modest attention.

From a legal point of view, some of these protests (even the non violent ones) are illegal. However, so long as the protesters are willing to accept the consequences of being arrested and prosecuted, I do not see this as ethically problematic.

From an ethical point of view, so long as the protests are peaceful and the protesters do not harm innocent people or destroy other’s property, they are acting ethically (according to most people’s ethics).

As soon as violence enters the equation, the situation becomes ethically sensitive. For the sake of this analysis, let’s assume that the people carrying the torch and the police protecting them are not the individuals repressing Tibetans. They are peaceful, honest people carrying out what they believe to be a worthy endeavor and have the right to be left alone. Left alone means free from harm or threats of harm. Harming innocent people, for any purpose, raises significant ethical issues.

However, Olympic-torch bearers, and those involved in this process, do not have any right to expectations beyond this. There are few ethical sensitivities regarding creating inconveniences and even downright annoyances to the people in this process. Some of these activities, such as blocking a route, may be illegal, but that does not mean an action is unethical. In fact there have been historic and effective acts of civil disobedience that were illegal, but ethical by figures such as Gandhi and others.

I’m with the Dali Lama on this one — keep it peaceful but have the courage to say your peace.

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Tags: olympics, china, dali lama, clint korver, ethics for the real world, ethics

A good friend emailed me an excellent suggestion this morning:

I think the average visitor would benefit greatly from some historical perspective on the subject of ethics. I think it is widely accepted that “back in a day” we were a more ethically driven society. Often that point of view is buttressed up with anecdotal evidence such a “leaving our front door unlocked”, “picking up hitch hikers” , “IOU’s at the corner store” “lack of corporate fraud”, etc. Some of these, or all, may actually point to moral erosion but [I] assume there is an ethical component.

I guess I wonder if that is all true or has technology just allowed us to broadcast the misdeeds in a quicker and wider fashion? If the historical perspective does indeed point to a more ethically challenged environment today then I, the reader, desire to know why.

While I do not know of any surveys that answers this question directly, there are some proxies available that shed some light on this issue. The Bureau of Justice Statistics each year conducts a National Crime Victimization Survey where they sample over 77,000 households and 130,000 people across the nation. According to this survey, both harming and stealing (two important ethical issues) have declined noticeably from 25 years ago.

Bureau of Justice Statistics Property Crime Trends

If the ethics of our society have improved over the last few decades (at least in terms of harming and stealing), why do people general feel that ethics are in decay. Here are a few hypotheses:

• The above data is too narrowly focused. A broader survey including such things as white collar crime, lying, and other issues would show ethics in decline.

• We collectively suffer from the availability bias. This is a cognitive bias that affects our ability to assess the probability an event will occur. We believe that the ease with which we can recall information about an event is indicative of the frequency with which the event occurs. Vivid, emotionally charged examples, (think of the last time your were lied to or robbed from), seem much more frequent than they really are simply because the memories are easily available.

• We are becoming more ethically sensitive, so ethical violations that would not have gotten any attention in the past are being noticed and reported on.

I personally believe it is some combination of the last two. What do you think?

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Tags: ethics, ethical trends, clint korver, ethics for the real world, harming, stealing