Abstract

The development of multi-user, three-dimensional, graphical, persistent, synchronous, computer environments---such as multi-user virtual realities---has raised a variety of difficult ethical problems. These issues include tensions between virtual and real communities, good ways of representing oneself and one's environment, and balancing design values, appropriate behavior and social impacts. In order to have good policies, appropriate use, and quality development for these environments, we must explore both their technological and moral aspects. We must not take for granted the nature of either electronic interactions or the electronic spaces. I use the population of those with paraplegia and quadriplegia to explicate various potential benefits and harms as well as to explore ways in which the virtual worlds impact the understanding of the self