Saturday, April 21, 2007

Comparative Ethical Calculus

At USC, fellow students and I designed and developed a crude version of a casual videogame with a political and ethical message about livestock farming, namely factory farming versus free range farming. A number of testers confused its free range advocacy with veganism (which advocates abstinence from animal products regardless of the quality of life of the animal). The issue seems to be hard to disentangle during discussions on what it means to value the quality of life for animals while recognizing that in living, tradeoffs in quality are necessary.

Being a game designer who has held a number of diverse dietary, religious, and political positions, I have wondered what the "game" mechanisms (or in nicer clothes: the mathematics of interaction) are for the ethical treatment of animals and humans.

So last Christmas while inspired by conversations with the animal rights philosopher, Rob Bass, I explored a model that aims to alleviate some of the contradictions of ethical calculus when comparing different species to each other. Read the article in its evolving draft.

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