Miguel Sicart: The Ethics of Computer Games (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · computer games, ethics, game studies, gaming
Despite the emergence of computer games as a dominant cultural industry (and the accompanying emergence of computer games as the subject of scholarly research), we know little or nothing about the ethics of computer games. Considerations of the morality of computer games seldom go beyond intermittent portrayals of them in the mass media as training devices for teenage serial killers. In this first scholarly exploration of the subject, Miguel Sicart addresses broader issues about the ethics of games, the ethics of playing the games, and the ethical responsibilities of game designers. He argues that computer games are ethical objects, that computer game players are ethical agents, and that the ethics of computer games should be seen as a complex network of responsibilities and moral duties. Players should not be considered passive amoral creatures; they reflect, relate, and create with ethical minds. The games they play are ethical systems, with rules that create gameworlds with values at play.
Drawing on concepts from philosophy and game studies, Sicart proposes a framework for analyzing the ethics of computer games as both designed objects and player experiences. After presenting his core theoretical arguments and offering a general theory for understanding computer game ethics, Sicart offers case studies examining single-player games (using Bioshock as an example), multiplayer games (illustrated by Defcon), and online gameworlds (illustrated by World of Warcraft) from an ethical perspective. He explores issues raised by unethical content in computer games and its possible effect on players and offers a synthesis of design theory and ethics that could be used as both analytical tool and inspiration in the creation of ethical gameplay.
Publisher MIT Press, 2009
ISBN 0262012650, 9780262012652
Length 280 pages
Henry A. Giroux: Impure Acts. The Practical Politics of Cultural Studies (2000)
Filed under book | Tags: · critical pedagogy, cultural politics, cultural studies, democracy, education, ideology, multiculturalism
This book begins with the premise that the culture of politics–culture’s capacity to create those discursive resources and material relations of power that shape democratic public life–appears to be in crisis, subject to derision by a wide range of ideological perspectives. In opposition to such attacks, this book argues that struggles over culture are not a weak substitute for “real” politics, but are central to any struggle willing to forge relations of power, theory, and practice, as well as pedagogy and social change. Henry A. Giroux challenges the contemporary politics of cynicism by addressing a number of issues including the various attacks on cultural politics, the multicultural discourses of academia, the corporate attack on higher education, and the cultural politics of the Disney empire.Impure Actspoints to a new kind of cultural politics and a new kind of political culture that put knowledge and practice in the service of a more realized democracy.
Publisher Routledge, 2000
ISBN 0415926564, 9780415926560
Length 166 pages
Robert O. Becker, Gary Selden: The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life (1985)
Filed under book | Tags: · body, electric field, electromagnetism, neurons
An orthopedic surgeon’s controversial experiments and case studies involving his bioelectric theory show how the human body’s need for electricity offers almost limitless possibilities for medical treatment.
Publisher Morrow, 1985
ISBN 0688001238, 9780688001230
364 pages
PDF (no OCR; updated on 2012-7-18)
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