Ludus non tollit abusum: Zur ethischen Beurteilung virtueller Missbrauchsabbildungen

Virtual child sexual abuse materials featuring realistic representations of children in the form of computer-generated images, rather than real children, have become a growing trend in recent years. How can such virtual images of abuse - which are almost indistinguishable from real images of child abuse - be assessed? What criteria can we use to arrive at an ethically sustainable position? In this paper, I will argue that the production, dissemination, and use of virtual images of abuse are neither justifiable nor excusable from an ethical perspective. To this end, I will present various potential ways of approaching an assessment of such images and will examine each of these approaches with regard to their validity. I will show that consequentialist, deontological, and virtue-ethical approaches are not yet sufficient to support a categorical rejection of virtual images of abuse, and that it is only possible to arrive at a convincing approach if the social-ethical perspective is also taken into account.