Post-industrial Virtue Epistemology on Globalized Games and Robotics

Abstract

With the development of personalized and globalized technologies, a discussion regarding how and why virtue epistemology should be an essential part of post-industrial ethical analysis on augmented technologies and use of robotics in the global age becomes crucial. These globalized technologies in the form of either game apps (i.e., Pokémon Go) or robotics like drones become through the Internet multimedia a structural part of planetary digitalization. While this development takes place, traditional virtue epistemology responds insufficiently to the devitalization of knowledge regarding manners (savoir vivre) and ways (savoir faire) of practicing and the need to respond to the sudden expansion of augmented games and drone use with personal and social intellect, responsibility, and consequently safety. The chapter intends to discuss this analysis in order to argue that a postindustrial epistemic reconfiguration of digital ethics is necessary, since augmented reality games and robotics are taking the form of massive trends for adults and nonadults, while for the first time, digital gaming and robot entertainment exceed the limits of the personal space and the virtual mode of the screen, moving out into the public realm, where reality is mixed with virtuality and human environment with unmanned robots.