Virtual communities and institutions, it is argued, are already with us constituting a physically disembodied social order. Traditional operative moral ideas, it is claimed, are bound up with corporeal identities and their specific spatial, geographical locales and forms of life. The fabric of human relationships and communities rests on real presences, real physical meetings and relationships. Virtual reality converts our primary bodily, corporeal experience into electronically mediated telepresence. Human action in cyberspace may not appear to have the same status as action in real space.
Responsibility ceases to be relevant and tangible.
The very nature of virtual action seems to separate the idea of cause and effect. As the consequences of action reach vanishing point so to does the idea of moral sanction. In addition individuals may use others' words, alter them, or adopt someone else's identity. The effects of distancing and anonymity combine to promote a kind of depersonalisation. The web of action and reaction, the fluidities of identity may again attenuate a sense of responsibility.