Not because I seek to champion the amoralist cause, or because I disagree with the position Ostritsch adopts-at least, not after qualification-but, rather, because I find problematic the manner in which he defends his position. In this paper, I raise three objections to the position just described. He also argues that to enjoy such a game (based on a specific sense of enjoyment) is itself an immoral thing to do. In particular, he defends the following position: where a video game taken as a whole endorses an immoral world-view then the video game is immoral. Instead, Ostritsch argues that video games-or rather their respective gameplays considered holistically-should be the object of moral scrutiny and, where appropriate, liable to moral condemnation. In The amoralist challenge to gaming and the gamer’s moral obligation, Sebastian Ostritsch accepts the amoralist assertion that there is nothing intrinsically immoral about playing ‘violent’ video games, but nevertheless argues against the idea that the laconic mantra “it’s just a game” is a legitimate rebuttal of all moral objections to (typically violent) video game content (Ostritsch 2017). I distinguish between immoral and suberogatory actions, arguing that the latter is in fact more applicable to cases Ostritsch has in mind, and that one is not obliged not to engage in these actions. Finally, I challenge the legitimacy of his claim that players are obliged not to play certain video games in certain ways (i.e., games endorsing immorality as ‘fun games’). I examine what is involved in making this claim and what would be required for a normative position to be established: none of which is addressed by Ostritsch. Next, I question the legitimacy of Ostritsch’s claim that certain video games are immoral. The first objection focuses on Ostritsch’s ‘strong sense’ of player enjoyment, which I argue is too crude, given the moral work it is meant to be doing. This paper raises three objections to the argument presented by Ostritsch in The amoralist challenge to gaming and the gamer’s moral obligation, in which the amoralist’s mantra “it’s just a game” is viewed as an illegitimate rebuttal of all moral objections to (typically violent) video games.
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