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Genuine Friendships in Virtual Worlds

1. Introduction
The modern world is one of increasing virtual interaction. Social networks (Facebook, Google+), professional networks (Linkedin, Academia.edu), online dating, services like Skype, and immersive virtual worlds, allow us to forge and maintain relationships in a completely virtual setting. Recent work has rightly asked questions about the status of these virtual relationships and how they compare to physical ones; are our virtual friends, genuine friends? A more general question is whether there is something intrinsic about the nature of virtual realms that leaves relationships solely mediated through them inherently distinct from their physical counterparts. That is, if we imagine a virtual world like the Matrix, that mimics the physical world exactly, would relationships formed there still be in some way distinct from those formed in the physical world? If so, what is it about virtualness that accounts for this difference? If not, is it the perfect virtualisation of the physical world that enables them to be the same, or can this be achieved in less perfect virtual realms? How far up the technological ladder must we climb, before our virtual relationships are on par with our physical ones? In an early article, Cocking and Matthews argue that virtual friends cannot be close friends as they do not fulfil the characteristics of friendship. They claim that, within a purely virtual context the establishment of close friendship is simply psychologically impossible (2000, p. 224). Briggle (2008) has denied this claim, and believes that close friendships can be established and maintained purely through text-based online communication. More recently, Munn (2012) has argued that while true friendships cannot be developed in most forms of virtual communication, they can be developed and maintained within immersive virtual worlds. McFall (2012) argues that text-based communication and communication in immersive virtual worlds fails to be single-filtered, which he believes to be necessary for the highest standard of friendship. Similarly, Frding and Peterson (2012) have argued that virtual friendships cannot achieve the moral standard of genuine friendships, and even suggest that a virtual friendship is analogous to certain, questionable, forms of alternative medicine (p. 201).

I follow the lead of Munn, McFall, Frding and Peterson in using an Aristotelian framework from which to describe a genuine friendship. In section 2 I provide a coherent account of what a genuine friendship entails. In section 3 I present Munns account of how genuine friendships can be formed and sustained in immersive virtual worlds, and develop my own account of friendships in raiding guilds within these worlds. I argue that this account can withstand potential criticisms levelled at Munn. In sections 4 and 5, I examine the arguments made by Frding and Peterson, and McFall against the possibility of virtual friendships achieving a genuine status, and defend my account against these arguments. I conclude that, in agreement with Munn, genuine friendships can be forged and maintained within immersive virtual worlds.

2. Genuine Friendships
While Frding and Peterson, McFall, and Munn each claim to defend an Aristotelian conception of friendship, they emphasise different aspects of these relationships as crucial to their enterprise. Thus, in order to engage with each other, the arguments each provides must first be presented through a unified conception of friendship. We can then show that their disagreements are not merely a product of their different presentations. Rather, Frding and Peterson, and McFall wish to demonstrate that virtual friendships can never be genuine friendships, and Munn wishes to deny this. I will here construct a unified framework in which these arguments can be made coherently. By combining Frding and Petersons, McFalls and Munns criteria for genuine friendship, we obtain the strongest possible set of criteria for obtaining genuine friendship, and consequently the strongest test for demonstrating that virtual friendships can be genuine friendships by meeting these criteria. Frding and Peterson present the three types of friendship that Aristotle identifies in The Nicomachean ethics. These are friendships based on mutual admiration, mutual pleasure and mutual advantage. Of these, the friendship based on mutual admiration is taken to be the superior kind, and identified with what they term genuine friendship. Frding and Peterson provide the criteria that Aristotle set out for a friendship to qualify as one of mutual admiration. These conditions are:

(i)

The friendship is mutually recognised and takes place between two adult humans of equal standing; The friends spend time together, principally engaging in theoria; The admiration and love the friends feel for each other is based on the virtues they recognise in the other. (NE 1157b25-30)1

(ii) (iii)

The concept of theoria is difficult to interpret2 and is sometimes understood to be the contemplation of advanced knowledge. However, Frding and Peterson take theoria to be accessible to any two individuals. They claim it is a mistake to assume that theoria only involves advanced or lofty ideas relating to the nature of science and the like. In fact, theoria requires the contemplation of a mixed bag of topics involving both the high and the low..Even base matters could, and sometimes should, feature in theoria (2012, p. 204). As such, the best understanding for our purposes is provided by Kraut; One can be said to be engaged in theoria whenever one closely observes or studies somethingwhatever that something is (1989, p. 15). We will now add three further criteria to this framework by considering the interpretations of McFall and Munn. The first additional criterion is provided by McFall, who develops condition (iii) by stressing the importance of genuine friends existing on the same moral plane. He cites that a genuine friendship 3 can only exist between those on the same moral plane of excellence or virtue, it can only exist between good men, it lasts only as long as friends remain on the same moral plane, and it is rare because there are few good men and because time and familiarity are required to enter into [it] (NE 1156a6-1156a34). McFall also identifies a further criterion of genuine friendships which he feels is sometimes overlooked; moral development. He believes there are two ways to explain moral development in genuine friendships. The first, which he attributes to Fortenbaugh (1975), is to understand that friendships have a purpose which determines their essential nature. The purpose of genuine friendships is goodness and so the essence of [genuine friendships] is moral development striving towards goodness (McFall, 2012, p. 223).
I do not claim that this is an exhaustive and correct interpretation of an Aristotelian friendship based on mutual admiration. I claim only that these are the criteria as set out by Frding and Peterson, which will form the basis of our framework. 2 See (Roochnik, 2009) for an overview of varying interpretations. 3 Which he refers to as character friendship.
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The second way is to understand our genuine friends as our other selves that serve as our mirrors for self-knowledge. As Aristotle notes, it is difficult to obtain self-knowledge as we are not able to see what we are from ourselves (MM 1213a15-16). Obtaining self-knowledge must be achieved through others. What we require is a second self, a genuine friend who functions as our self-reflecting mirror. When we wish to know ourselves we can obtain knowledge by looking at our friend. For the friend is, as we assert, a second self (MM 1213a20-33). Thus, an essential part of being in a genuine friendship is to serve as a mirror for your other self so that you might both gain self-knowledge and achieve moral improvement. Thus our framework now has the added conditions that genuine friends must exist on the same moral plane, and must engage in moral development. To this, we add Munns interpretation that the essence of genuine friendship is shared activity. Munn draws on Aristotles claims that friends share their activities and in so doing will improve both themselves and their friendships (1998, NE 9.12). He notes that it is almost always through shared activity that mutual bonds of caring and intimacy are developed. That the best contender for developing these bonds is shared activity, and that if a particular mode of interaction does not provide opportunity for shared activity, then that mode of interaction will not be conducive to developing these bonds. As such, it is only through shared activity that genuine friendships, which are based on these mutual bonds, can develop. Yet shared activity alone is not sufficient. Such shared activity must also be relevantly shared, in the sense that each friend must enjoy engaging in the activity, not only in and of itself, but with the other individual. Munn feels that relevantly shared activity is sufficient for developing genuine friendships4 as he does not concern himself with the conditions we have inherited from Frding and Peterson, and McFall. Indeed, McFall writes that Munn does not truly defend Aristotles account of perfect friendship because, while nicely capturing the significance of shared activity, he ignores the role of virtue (2012, p. 229). However, we can now combine the accounts to obtain a unified framework with six conditions; (i-iii) as outlined above, to which we have added: (iv) (v) (vi)
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Genuine friends must exist on the same moral plane; They must strive for moral development; They must engage in relevantly shared activity.

Which he refers to as perfect friendship.

By including the components of the individual frameworks, we have created a new framework which represents the strongest account of an Aristotelian genuine friendship 5 . In the following section I present Munns account of friendships in virtual worlds, and then develop my own account of friendships in raiding guilds. I argue that these friendships can meet the criteria set out by this unified framework, and defend this view from the arguments raised in sections 4 and 5.

3. Immersive Virtual Worlds

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) with over 9.6 million active subscribers as of October 20126. The game brings together players from all over the world and through their virtual activity, participants will encounter, and interact socially, with a large number of people they are never likely to meet physically. For this reason, WoW presents an excellent opportunity to examine virtual social interaction. Participants in WoW face a vast array of challenges. A players first encounter with the game requires them to level up their character by performing quests and gaining experience. During this process players become increasingly exposed to the social aspects of the game. As their characters move to different locations they will encounter other players and have opportunities to interact with them. As they reach certain levels of experience, they can participate in group content, and take on challenges that require the coordination of all participants. Interaction in these early instances is mediated through the games internal channels. Players can use emotes to express emotions through their characters, and far more commonly (and functionally), are able to type to each other through a shared and public communication channel, or whisper, which is typing directly to each other for private communication. It is through these early interactions that new players might encounter already established social networks called guilds. A guild is a group of players who have banded together for a common cause, and as an entity, have shared access to their own private communication channel, and shared resources such as a common
I will stress that this is not my interpretation of what Aristotle takes to be a friendship based on mutual admiration. Rather, this framework serves to bring together each authors own interpretation so that we can engage their arguments in a unified framework. Whether this framework in fact accurately represents an Aristotelian account is a question that falls outside the scope of this essay. 6 http://www.joystiq.com/2013/02/07/world-of-warcraft-subscribers-dip-to-9-6-million-up-from-catacl/
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guild bank for money and item storage. There are many types of guilds which reflect the different desires and motivations of different players of the game. One type of guild is commonly referred to as a social or levelling guild, whose only aim is to provide a friendly environment for new players to experience and learn the game and establish relationships with other players. It is this type of guild that new players will most likely find themselves in. Guilds are thus a natural breeding ground for the formation of social bonds, and Munn points to two important works which describe these bonds. Richard Rouse has argued that relationships formed in MMOs become the primary motivation for players to continue playing (2000). As such, the game becomes a vehicle for establishing and maintaining relationships, meaning that participants are engaged in relevantly shared activity. Similarly Nick Yees studies demonstrate that participants involved in these game worlds consider them to be capable of developing and sustaining friendships, and that many of them actively do so (2006a, b, c). It is the shared activity of players in WoW, that Munn feels leads to the development of genuine friendships. He argues that virtual worlds are distinct from other forms of virtual interaction in this sense, and that the relation between WoW and websites such as Facebook, is much the same as the relation between the physical world and these social network sites. For example, people might use Facebook to reminisce about past shared activities, or to plan new activities such as going to bars or clubs. Friendships established through virtual worlds use Facebook in an analagous way. They reminisce about past game experiences shared together and organize future activities that will take place within the virtual world. The fact that shared activity, rather than communication (for example, with Facebook), is the centre of interaction in these virtual worlds means they closely mirror our regular engagements with friends in the physical world. Munn is successful in demonstrating this parallel between friendship formation in the physical and virtual world through engaging in relevantly shared activity, but this only satisfies his own condition of those set out in the unified framework of section 2. To demonstrate satisfying the other conditions, and to reply to arguments raised in the following sections, my account will focus on a particular type of guild; raiding guilds.

The most structured and coordinated guilds are those termed raiding guilds 7. In WoW, raids represent the toughest challenges that players can face. In their current iteration, completion of raids requires the combined efforts of 10 or 25 dedicated players, working together against specific challenges (or, bosses)8, often requiring several hours of gameplay, spread over several weeks, to complete. Due to their intense nature, players focused on defeating these challenges typically form guilds of their own, with the primary focus of establishing a network of players that will consistently group together. These guilds extend their interactions beyond the game world, while still in a virtual setting, constructing external websites to promote the guild and provide a public forum for its members and potential recruits. Very typically, raiding guilds will use voice communication during their activities together, employing services like Skype, Ventrilo and TeamSpeak.

4. Counter-arguments from Frding and Peterson

Frding and Peterson present two arguments for the view that virtual friendships cannot be genuine friendships. Their first argument pertains to theoria in the virtual setting, and concerns condition (ii) of our framework. While they admit that it is certainly possible for people to engage in theoria in the virtual realm, they believe the nature of our virtual experiences presents a problem. They argue that our virtual interactions allow the possibility to withhold what we perceive as negative traits about ourselves. This is problematic as this opens the door to pre -meditated censorship with regard to the information one discloses about oneself. This threatens to compromise the variation required for theoria (2012, p. 204). Further, people that spend time with each other physically on a day to day basis are more likely to face a wider spectrum of different situations, and consequently, encounter a larger range of topics meriting contemplation. This indicates that traditional friendship is more conducive to theoria than its virtual counterpart (Ibid). They claim that because interactions in the virtual realm are often pre-meditated, and agents are largely in control of when they chose to engage
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It will be noted that all claims made about raiding guilds can equally be applied to what are termed PVP guilds, as well as smaller networks of arena tea ms, which engage in a different style of game play, but can be equally coordinated and structured. It is for the sake of clarity and brevity that I focus only on raiding guilds. 8 Previously, raids required up to 40 people to complete, and currently open world bosses allow a potentially unlimited number of participants whilst still requiring a high level of coordination for success.

in interactions, they are more likely to interact when situations are favourable and in their control, for example when they are in a calm and cheerful mood and in a private setting. In contrast, day to day physical interactions often have unexpected and unpredictable elements. The result of this is that vir tual interaction, by being subject to control, is too restricted and unlikely to bring about theoria as defined in the NE. They concede however that their concerns are based on empirical assumptions relating to the limits of our current technology. These limitations might be overcome in the future, and if so, these concerns would be silenced (p. 205). The interactions between members of raiding guilds in WoW, I argue, are already sufficient to silence these claims. While it is of course possible to limit and control our interactions within a virtual setting, this is equally possible in the physical world. Frding and Peterson wish to show that virtual friendships cannot be genuine friendships, and as such their argument must show that there is something intrinsic to virtual interactions, not true of physical interactions, which entails limiting and controlling our relationships to a much higher degree. But relationships in raiding guilds demonstrate that this is not the case. An analogy might be helpful to develop this point. Raiding guilds in WoW are very comparable to competitive sports teams 9 . On the one hand, individual members must possess the skills required to be part of a successful team, must be able to attend training regularly and be available to compete during competitions. On the other hand, members must fit into the social structure of the team. While individual skill is an element of success, the decisive factor in group success is how well the members can work together to produce the desired results. This social cohesion essential to team work is not easily achieved. It occurs only through extensive contact and interaction with ones team mates, and emerges through mutual understanding and respect. Guilds will almost always lose members and select new ones on the basis of social cohesion. As a guild develops over time so does the understanding between its members. Those with negative traits are often weeded out such that the members who remain share an honest view of the others. Neither is it the case that members of raiding guilds are largely in control of when they chose to engage in interactions. While individual aspects of play remain
Initially, friendships between members of competitive sports teams are far more likely to be friendships based on mutual pleasure, and not genuine friendships. However, genuine friendships can emerge from these friendships, and the aim of the comparison is to show that virtual interaction through raiding guilds is no more restricted or pre-meditated than physical interaction through sports teams.
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unregulated, the actual activity of raiding is regularly scheduled, often for several hours a night, a few days a week. Being part of such a raiding guild carries the obligation to attend these weekly occasions and forces a real commitment into players everyday lives. Thus, there is no intrinsic reason why virtual relationships must be more constrained than our physical ones, and we have seen how interactions between members of raiding guilds closely mirror physical interactions between members of sports teams. As such, contra to Frding and Peterson, they are no less conducive to theoria than ordinary relationships in the physical world. The second argument they present concerns condition (iii) of our framework. It pertains to the mutual admiration and love that genuine friendships share, which must be based on the virtues each party recognises in the other. For this to occur, each party must be truthful about themselves, and as importantly, be able to see the other person as they truly are, without embellishing or idealising them. Frding and Peterson feel that the element of control we have over our interactions in the virtual world introduces a form of vicious behaviour. As we can choose when our interactions occur and for how long, we often miss out on important, potentially problematic and complex, aspects of the friends personality. Therefore the agent ends up admiring and loving parts of the friend rather than the whole of herthe mere fact that the friendship is based on limited information disqualifies virtual friendship from meeting (iii) (2012, p.205). Having already noted that raiding guilds participate in regulated activity, which should alleviate part of Frding and Petersons concern, we can turn to the example they provide to illustrate the viciousness of withholding relevant information. They imagine Alice and Betty are two people who have met online and formed a close relationship, chatting every day, sharing secrets and holiday pictures. This goes on for a couple of months and Alice begins to notice that Betty is never available on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, which happens to be the only time in the afternoon during the week that Alice is able to talk. When Alice asks why Betty never seems to be available during this time, she becomes evasive and snappy, which leaves Alice confused and hurt. Later, one Wednesday afternoon as Alice visits the swimming pool she recognises Betty from her photos. However she also sees that Betty is with a physiotherapist engaging in rehab for an impairment caused by a traffic accident. Bettys condition is debilitating and prevents her from visiting bars and clubs and other social venues, and kept this secret from Alice due to embarrassment and not wanting to be viewed as different. Frding and Peterson

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argue that this shows Alices love and admiration for Betty in fact was based on incomplete information. Regardless of what Alice would have made of the truth, the point is that she, unbeknownst to her, did not have access to all the relevant information. The judgement Alice reached about Betty was ill founded and, consequently, their friendship failed to meet condition (iii) (2012, p. 205). They claim the example shows that increased opportunities to withhold or distort information is in fact an element intrinsic to online life, and is as such morally problematic (Ibid.). But is this really a problem intrinsic only to online life, or a problem intrinsic to life in general? I argue the latter, for the situation between Alice and Betty could easily arise solely in the physical world also. Imagine that Alice and Betty are ordinary friends in the physical world and that Betty has a condition, say, burn marks covering her back, which she similarly kept secret due to embarrassment. Perhaps Alice wishes frequently to go the beach, and Betty becomes evasive as she doesnt want to reveal her disfigurement, which leaves Alice confused and hurt. Alice later discovers the truth due to a chance meeting. The situation parallels Frding and Petersons example, but no element of this situation is constituted by virtual interaction. The example only serves to show that perhaps, genuine friendships are difficult to achieve. However, it fails to support the claim that there is an element intrinsic only to virtual realms which prevents genuine friendships, and there is no reason to suppose that virtual friendships, such as those between member of raiding guilds, cannot satisfy condition (iii). In the following section, I argue that these friendships can in fact satisfy (iii), as well as the remaining conditions.

5. Counter-arguments from McFall

In section 2 we outlined the importance that McFall places on moral development and self-mirroring as necessary conditions for genuine friendships. To demonstrate this, McFall develops a distinction between what he calls multi-filtered and singlefiltered communication, which he believes stems from Aristotles account of how mirroring aids moral development between genuine friends. In doing so he wishes to show that single-filtered communication is necessary for accurate mirroring in genuine friendships, and that this single-filtered communication cannot be achieved through virtual means.

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McFall makes the distinction in the following way; imagine that Alice and Betty have had lunch together and some incident occurred during this lunch. Perhaps Alice was unwittingly rude to their waiter, although she is unaware of this. Later, as Alice and Betty discuss their lunch, Betty is able to accurately reflect (communicate) to Alice her moral failing, as Betty was able to directly interpret Alices actions. In this way, Alice and Bettys communication is single-filtered, as they have direct access to each others experience. Imagine instead that Betty had not been at the lunch, and that Alice communicates what she believed happened at some later time. In this case, their communication is multi-filtered as Alice must first interpret her own actions, before communicating them to Betty, who in turn must then interpret Alices communication before she can offer reflection. McFalls argument is that genuine friends must serve as mirrors to each other for moral development, and as both agents are virtuous, their respective mirrors must be of the highest quality to reflect even the smallest defects. Yet, as each friend can only reflect what they perceive, communication between the two must be as pure as possible to ensure accurate reflection, and so nothing must stand between the two friends. As multi-filtered communication involves an added layer of interpretation, it is always a lesser form of communication and less conducive than single-filtered communication in forming and sustaining genuine friendships. Communication through virtual means, he claims, always involves this extra layer of interpretation, and so is multi-filtered rather than single-filtered10. But what about interaction between members of raiding guilds in WoW? Their activity is analogous to friends in sports team competing together and talking about their experiences afterwards. The team mates do not need to filter their experiences to each other, as each participated in the shared activity. This seems to match the criteria for single-filtered communication. McFall argues that in the case of immersive virtual worlds, a particular person can either be viewed as identical to their avatar11, or not. If identical, the person must engage in a filtering process when trying to approximate their identity accurately in their avatar. Thus, when their avatar engages in communication, it is already multi-

McFall does consider an augmented reality device Skype Ultra which he concedes might allow for single filtered communication, but in so doing it prohibits other qualities, such as self-love, necessary for genuine friendship. 11 Where an avatar is the virtual character an individual controls.
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filtered. If the person is not identical with their avatar, then when two persons communicate they cannot directly perceive each other. At most, they can perceive each others avatars, which are not identical to them (2012, p. 229 f.n. 7). It would be peculiar in this circumstance to argue that an individual is identical with their avatar; however, it does not follow that individuals can therefore only perceive each others avatars. While not being identical to the individuals, avatars still nonetheless allow single-filtered communication between individuals, particularly in the most relevant case of the moral plane. Reynolds (2012) demonstrates that actions within MMOs, which might only have meaning within the context of the game, can have moral content in certain contexts, such as within a community with specified rules and certain expectations. Raiding guilds provide this context, and thus by acting virtuously, by say, not stealing virtual goods from the guilds bank, aiding in preparation for raids etc. individuals demonstrate their own virtuous character through their avatars. In this way the shared experiences that members of raiding guilds participate in allow genuinely single-filtered communication. They can reflect each others virtuous nature through the shared experiences of their avatars. Further, their prolonged activity with each other in the virtual setting can aid their moral development and sustained relationships over time ensure that each individual remains on the same moral plane, the two conditions that McFall feels are essential to sustaining genuine friendships. Thus we have shown, contra to McFall, that the virtual realm does not intrinsically prevent single filtered communication, and that single filtered communication can be achieved through virtual worlds like WoW. As such, friendships that exist in raiding guilds are able to meet criteria (iii), (iv), and (v), as set out by the unified framework of section 2. Additionally, we have now shown that these friendships can satisfy all of the conditions set out by this framework, and consequently, can be genuine friendships.

6. Conclusion
The concept of a genuine friendship was established by following the lead of Munn, McFall, Frding and Peterson in using an Aristotelian framework. It was proposed that certain friendships mediated purely by virtual means, those that exist between members of raiding guilds in MMOs, were good candidates to meet the criteria set out by this framework. Arguments against this view were explored, but

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were found to be unable to show friendships within immersive virtual worlds could not be genuine friendships. I conclude that the virtual realm in and of itself is no barrier to genuine friendships, so long as they can fulfil the criteria set out by the proposed framework; something currently achievable through immersive virtual worlds.

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