Drum Roll Please...

After examining several different sources on farming, and reading SmartBomb, I have come to an ethical framework that I believe in for this topic. First and foremost, I have determined I am a situational ethicist. What framework I chose today, does not always work for me tomorrow. In the case of farming in MMORPG's, I am a deontologist. If you are in violation of the EULA, whether farming or conducting yourself in a manner outside of the agreement between you and the game company, you are wrong.

Wikipedia defines a deontology as: "an ethical theory holding that decisions should be made solely or primarily by considering one's duties and the rights of others. Deontology posits the existence of a priori moral obligations, further suggesting that people ought to live by a set of permanently defined principles that do not change merely as a result of a change in circumstances. One of the most important implications of deontology is that praiseworthy goals can never justify the immoral actions; ends do not justify the means. Deontology is directly in opposition to consequentialism, an ethical theory in which the ends can justify the means because decisions are judged primarily in terms of their consequences."

Kant was a scholar who is considered one of the founders of the deontological view. He developed 3 rules for the categorical imperative:

* Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.
* Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
* Act as though you were through your maxims a law-making member of a kingdom of ends.


You see the resemblance, right?