TY - JOUR

T1 - Cultivating Work-Based Ethics with Massively Multiplayer Environments

AU - Smith, Andrew

PY - 2010/4

Y1 - 2010/4

N2 - Currently the news is awash with reports of high-profile corporate and political scandals and revelations around unethical work and corrupt practices. Unfortunately this shows little sign of abating with a very high proportion of young people displaying cynical and possibly corrosive attitudes around ethics in the work-place. It is clearly important that education should address this problem before it becomes insurmountable. In his recent work on ‘Five Minds for the Future’ (2006), and the Good Work Project (2007), Howard Gardner has proposed the ideals of ‘good work’, the Ethical Mind. The affective dimension of these proposals is examined and a conceptual model for affective development is examined and applied to the use of massively multiplayer games. Massively multiplayer ethically epistemic games are identified as the optimum environment for development of the ethical mind as they offer the opportunity to explore situated ethical problems, see the consequences and experience the emotional impact of the solutions. Dialogue game techniques are also suggested to provide structured discourse and reflection on ethical work issues. Finally a vision of a massively multiplayer ethically epistemic game is proposed.

AB - Currently the news is awash with reports of high-profile corporate and political scandals and revelations around unethical work and corrupt practices. Unfortunately this shows little sign of abating with a very high proportion of young people displaying cynical and possibly corrosive attitudes around ethics in the work-place. It is clearly important that education should address this problem before it becomes insurmountable. In his recent work on ‘Five Minds for the Future’ (2006), and the Good Work Project (2007), Howard Gardner has proposed the ideals of ‘good work’, the Ethical Mind. The affective dimension of these proposals is examined and a conceptual model for affective development is examined and applied to the use of massively multiplayer games. Massively multiplayer ethically epistemic games are identified as the optimum environment for development of the ethical mind as they offer the opportunity to explore situated ethical problems, see the consequences and experience the emotional impact of the solutions. Dialogue game techniques are also suggested to provide structured discourse and reflection on ethical work issues. Finally a vision of a massively multiplayer ethically epistemic game is proposed.

KW - multiplayer

KW - massively multiplayer

KW - Ethics

KW - work-based

M3 - Journal article

VL - 21

SP - 273

EP - 293

JO - Journal of Interactive Learning Research

JF - Journal of Interactive Learning Research

SN - 1093-023X

IS - 2

ER -