Teaching ethics though games
How does one test the implications of his or her ethical stance? How does one realize the potentialities of one’s ethical stance on a community, national, and global level? Often times, ethical teaching and thinking are reduced to a specialized form of rhetoric where one is required to “consider” all sides and make a recommendation for action. The problem with this sort pedagogy is that students can maintain a safe distance from how their views impact the world–while likely overlooking the complexities of the ethical dilemma.
Our new game, River of Justice: The Bunala Struggle, is based on the Ugandan-LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) conflict in which players wrestle with whether or not peace is best accomplished through justice or forgiveness. In River of Justice, we wanted players to experience how the local perspective came to see forgiveness as the best means of peace. This idea is strongly contrasted by a belief that justice is the only way towards peace. Thus, we created a playable experience where players would gain an intimate view of the strengths and weaknesses of choosing either justice or forgiveness.
Instead of making ethical decisions in a contextual void, where one’s choices and views have no immediate consequentiality to a particular context, our game offers players an opportunity to see how their choices have an immediate impact. This is accomplished by intentionally positioning the players in conflicting roles where their choices are likely to reflect their true ethical beliefs. River of Justice acts as a situative catalyst–immersing the player into a conflicting interactive social system where they can experience the implications of their ethical stances.
In the game, when a player is abducted by the LRA, they are forced to kill a small boy to prove their allegiance to LRM (“The Lord’s Military”–the game’s version of the LRA). The player is forced to either shoot the boy or let him be hacked to pieces by other LRA soldiers (if they refuse to shot the boy). Though this is a graphically disturbing point in the game, we felt that the players needed to be placed in the same role as actual abducted Ugandan boys who are forced to participate in similar initiation rites. Players of River of Justice are likely to feel robbed of all agency when they are made to perform a horrific act which likely violates one’s own ethical stance.
In terms of justice, the players’ initiation experience now qualifies them as a perpetrator who deserves judgment. How do one’s ethical beliefs hold up when they are constrained to receive punishment for their actions in order to maintain a consistent ethical stance? In other words, should the player be punished when their own ethical stance condemns them to judgment?
How does this new perspective change one’s stance toward those Ugandan children who have been abducted and coerced into joining the LRA? Do they all deserve justice? Should they all be punished for their actions? By challenging the notion that peace is only accomplished though justice, forgiveness, the alternative choice, now makes more logical sense.
By designing experiences that intentionally embed players in a conflicting context, they “get a taste of their own cooking,” and start to realize the implications of their ethical views.
By creating a playable fiction, in which players gain a first-hand experience with the conflicting agendas in an ethical struggle as they play different roles, is how we wish to think about teaching ethics. By a student playing as a cultural insider embedded in a fictional narrative, they get to experience the implications of their ethical stances on a local population, and how that local community communicates back to them the impact of their beliefs and actions.
It should be noted that the River of Justice: The Bunala Conflict is NOT offered through Quest Atlantis, but rather, will be available through our Playable Fictions website. While a powerful experience, this one may be too intense for some of our younger Questers. For more information about River of Justice: The Bunala Conflict, visit our worked example page at:
What a wonderful way to give students a voice.