You Gotta Stand for Something

Fallout 4 , with its post-apocalyptic dystopian setting, provides an ethical playground for people who like to think philosophically about real-world moral choices. The old world is gone, and with it the character-shaping institutions that provided moral guardrails for humanity. In the absence of those institutions, humanity has to revert to the most fundamental imperative: survival. This chapter examines four major Western ethical traditions in the context of Fallout 4' s Commonwealth: the natural law ethics of Aquinas, which is most important when we consider questions surrounding the synths; Kantian deontological ethics, which becomes important in the game when the player is forced to choose between competing duties (such as whether to warn the Railroad about the attack on Bunker Hill); Aristotelian virtue ethics, which are most clearly embodied in Preston Garvey and the Minutemen; and utilitarianism, which is the guiding philosophy of Father and the Institute. By examining the people and factions that inhabit the irradiated landscape of the Commonwealth, this chapter helps readers better understand the major schools of ethics, showing how each one represents different human moral instincts.