Michael Foody

This misses the point of why these experiments are unethical. Milgrams experiment wasn't unethical because someone is being tortured, no one was tortured, it was an actor. It was unethical because of the stress placed on the person administering the shocks. If people empathize with the virtual victim the experiments are still unethical. If they don't the experiments are merely pointless.

Now, knowing to what extent people empathize with a virtual person is in itself an interesting experiment, but I fail to understand how the experiment will facilitate ethical work-arounds.