Act Your Age: Moral Imagination in the Virtual World

Abstract

When a tyrant imagines his mortal enemy being destroyed in an unpleasant way he might not necessarily wish that enemy real harm, or indeed wish anything truly awful to happen to them at all. Likewise, I can claim to think about murdering someone without actually being compelled to commit murder. What occurs in these situations is an act of `immoral imagining' , the entertaining in thought of actions or activities considered morally wrong. The fact that the immoral acts are restricted to the imagination in these cases might suggest that what occurs is harmless but this is not, and should not be the case. Indeed, it has not always been the case at all. Within the Treason Act of 1351, there is the statement When a man doth compass or imagine the Death of our Lord the king ... that ... ought to be judged Treason. The suggestion is that simply thinking about the death of the king is enough to be held accountable for Treason. Legally then, in 1351 someone might be arrested and punished for thinking about the death of the king; not actually trying to kill, or wanting the king dead, but simply entertaining the thought of the king being dead. On the face of it, this thirteenth-century law seems absurd; if the king is not harmed, there appears no logic in punishing someone for treason. There is no victim here, nobody appears to suer as a result of imagining the king dead.