Is “Categorical Imperative” Metaversal?: A Kantian Ethical Framework for Social Virtual Reality
Eyup Engin Kucuk, Caglar Yildirim · 2023
The increasing adoption of social virtual reality (VR) environments for socializing and collaborating with others has led to a growing concern about ethical issues in these immersive environments. Beyond the introduction of some practical guidelines, theoretical work on this topic has been scant. In this paper, we propose an ethical framework for social VR based on Kant’s Theory of Morality. In so doing, we argue that the Kantian concept of categorical imperative does apply to social VR, that the reality of VR is not different from the reality of real life, and that what is morally unacceptable in real life is and should be unacceptable in social VR. In our framework, we provide three principles that can aid users and developers of social VR environments in reasoning about ethical issues in social VR, while advocating for more theoretical approaches to addressing the issue of VR ethics in human-computer interaction circles.