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Oct 4th, 2008 at 14:15:46 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (XBX) |
The second round of Grand Theft Auto was not quite as much of a struggle as the first, simply because I finally started to get the hang of the controls. Even though the shooting and stealing came easier, I still could not understand how there is really anything to discuss in regards to the morality of this game. To me, it seems pretty point blank that this game has minimal to no moral set of laws nor does it encourage any sort of moral thinking.
When looking at Grand Theft Auto from a view regarding the moral theory of Kantianism, the theory simply cannot apply. Kantianism is based on a universal set of moral laws, and in this game there seems to be no laws, at least not any that you could call moral. Killing other people by beating them to a bloody nothing or shooting them several times can in no way encourage healthy decisions for players of this game. In GTA everything goes, there are no rules. CJ does not have a conscience guiding him towards the right and away from the wrong. In fact, his points definitely push him towards the wrong and immoral. One cannot win without stealing, murdering, and just overall corruption.
I have yet to see any moral side to Grand Theft Auto and have to say I am glad that I only have one half hour left of playing to complete the assignment.
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Oct 3rd, 2008 at 17:12:20 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (XBX) |
I would not call myself a “gamer.” Actually, that is an understatement. I have played video games for probably a total of 5 hours in my entire life, the majority of those hours spent on Nintendo 64 Mario Kart and Donkey Kong in my childhood years. Neither of those games are particularly violent except for maybe occasionally jumping on the occasional “evil” character or overturning another player’s car in a race. Needless to say, when I began to play Grand Theft Auto the violence, language, objectives, and just graphics in general came as a shock.
I spent this first half hour away from the missions, since driving around the car I stole was struggle enough, much less having to worry about reaching a goal in a set amount of time. Playing with some more experienced friends, I soon learned it was the most “fun” to drive around, steal cars, and just shoot people. From the music to the actions to the objectives in the missions, everything about this game seems to promote the stereotype of African American gang life. You gain “respect” by shooting people, including opposing gang members, police officers, and innocent bystanders wandering the streets.
If these actions are viewed from a real world, utilitarian perspective, this game is ranked extremely low on the moral totem pole. In the real world, shooting someone or stealing a person’s car would overall negatively affect other human beings. Seeing as much of the killing done in Grand Theft Auto is for no particular reason other than purely for entertainment, there is no way to look at the actions in a positive light. Looking at it purely from the perspective of the game, where CJ earns points for killing the innocent and guilty alike, I suppose he would get positive “points” because those killed are not negatively affected they just kind of disappear. In a sense, the game dehumanizes victims. They can maybe say a few words but other than that we know nothing about them other than that we get positive points for stealing their cars and/or killing them. It is still killing, but to a player it is equivalent to killing oh, maybe a spider, in a real-life situation simply because the victims are nothing to the game but possible points to be earned.
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