Imagine a situation where you
have to deal with an attacker who has planted explosives. The explosives are
about to go off and it is assumed that hundreds of people will die or be
wounded. The man refuses to tell where the bombs are. Time is running out and
one of your supervisors suggests torturing the man. Would you do that? Would
you also torture his innocent wife to make him give you the information you
need? With my students, I have developed and tested a new form of the classic ‘Mad
Bomber’ moral dilemma: would you torture a suspect to save hundreds of innocent
lives? We transformed the thought experiment into virtual reality to see if
that has an impact on the moral judgments of participants in the experiment. Developing
and designing a game based on the well-known moral dilemma took about half a
year. With a head-mounted display (Oculus Rift), the game takes you to an
interrogation room where the suspect sits in a chair.
You have several actions to
choose from by using the keyboard and mouse: you can talk to the man, you can
leave or you can start torturing him. There are a number of objects on the
table to help you do the last, such as a scalpel, pliers, and also a water
bottle, as water-boarding is one of the options for torture. Each time you
select an option, the program asks if you if you really want to do it. The room
features the classic one-way mirror, so there are other people watching you.
You can also hear a clock ticking on the wall, reminding you that time is
running out until the explosion. There are nine different scenes in the game
and two possible results. Thirty volunteers had to make this decision. They
were asked to resolve the situation on-paper in a questionnaire and also in an
immersive virtual reality environment. Initial results show that in virtual
reality environments, participants feel more immersed in the scenario and are
more likely to resort to torture.
More information: