Fifteenth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society

Abstract

In teaching ethics, one of our foremost pedagogical tools is “thought experiments;” by asking students to imagine themselves in a variety of unusual situations where they must make difficult moral decisions, we illuminate important moral concepts and provoke students to discover their moral intuitions. Moreover, some thought experiments have become central to the theoretical discussion of ethical theory and moral psychology. Presently, educators can only provide students with thin verbal or visual descriptions of the scenarios involved in thought experiments, and students must then “imagine themselves” into the relevant situation. New Virtual Reality (VR) technology, however, enables students to experience these thought experiments in a much more realistic, vivid, and immersive way than has hitherto been possible. The immersive nature of this technology promises new ways of enhancing learning outcomes (e.g. comprehension, transfer, and retention) in comparison to traditional thought experiments. Our team has developed VR analogues of several classic thought experiments which we will use to assess the pedagogical impact of VR technology on moral education. In our workshop, participants will use a VR headset (under supervision) to experience our existing scenarios (The Trolley Problem, Thomson’s Violinist Analogy, and the Experience Machine) and will experience the striking sensation of presence in a online world that is unique to this medium. Our team will also be on hand to discuss the pedagogical and ethical dimensions involved in designing VR simulations.