Public Political Philosophy, Moral Sentimentalism, and Larp

Abstract

In this article, I claim that moral sentimentalism is a good approach for political philosophers wanting to engage in public political philosophy. I propose live action roleplay (larp) as a method to maximise the potential of this. In the first section, I present the urgency for public political philosophy through Jonathan Floyd’s recent article. I claim that Floyd’s presentation of public political philosophy is complemented by thinking of certain topics in political discourse as wicked problems. I argue that moral sentimentalism is an excellent fit for public political philosophy because of its goal of eliciting empathy. I present methods in political philosophy that have appropriate immersive properties, but claim that larp takes this a step further. In the final section, I look at why this is and suggest larp as a method for moral sentimentalists to engage in public political philosophy research.

1. Introduction: Live action roleplay

Live action roleplay (larp) is a game, but one that is physically embodied and involves characters exploring particular conditions within certain narrative settings and story arcs. Larp events are usually held at a scout camp or green leaf site and have an in-character area and an out-of-character area. This means that only things that fit narratively within the setting are permitted in the in-character area; therefore, if it is a fantasy game, phones are not allowed. Refs who run and facilitate the game wear tabards or insignia that signal to the player that they are only present in a refereeing capacity; therefore, refs are not supposed to be interacted with in an in-character context. This puts refs in a unique position in that they can observe the behaviours and actions of the players.

Players create characters—both conceptually and mechanically—and roleplay them at these events. They can play multiple archetypes depending on the setting. In a fantasy game, players can experience what it is like to be the “heroic warrior,” “ambitious politician,” “arcane mage, alchemist, crafter, priest,” and so on.¹ In post-apocalyptic or sci-fi games (and in many other settings), players can explore a similar myriad of identities.

Larp is described as a “performance that takes place between imagination and embodied reality.”² This immerses participants in detailed roles that “facilitate active experimentation and improvisation in imaginary circumstances.” As a game, it creates an engaging experience. Players have agency in how much they get involved in the narrative that unfolds around them.³

In this article, I claim this is an untapped resource for moral sentimentalism and public political philosophy. In the first section, I introduce Jonathan Floyd’s recent article that highlights the need for more experimental work. In order to ward against populism, post-truth, and polarisation, Floyd argues for a public political philosophy that aims to foster positive discourse and democratic solidarity.⁴ I suggest that a wicked problem framing encourages us to focus on this, because it relinquishes the idea that there is an obvious, correct normative answer to political problems. Consequently, we must study the complexities, contexts, and characters involved in the issue, and future problems that will arise with any proposed solution. This shifts the approach towards empathy. I claim that moral sentimentalism is a strong fit for this task through a brief look at its intent and history.

Because moral sentimentalism aims to elicit empathy, any method moral sentimentalists use should have immersive properties. In the second section, I emphasise such properties in a few common methods political philosophers engage with, but I recognise the limits of this immersion through considering the immersive properties of larp.

I explore this in the final section. First, I examine the phenomenon of bleed in larp. I consider how larps immerse people into their characters, which increases the chance of bleed. This involves an analysis of different types of immersion. I show how this provokes meta-reflection from players and present the transformative effects of this as an untapped resource for moral sentimentalists and public political philosophy. Finally, I look at a sub-category of larp—edu-larp—for guidance on how political philosophers would turn a game into a research method.

In this article, I reference ethnographic research of larp. Much of this is done within the larp community, and some would be considered “grey literature.” Broadly, grey literature is information that is not commercially published, so it can be anything from a pre-printed PhD dissertation to a clinical trial.⁵ Examples in this article include online databases, articles, and a conference paper. They have been selected because they are widely known sources within the larp community—especially in the case of Nordic Larp. Even so, these pieces require greater scrutiny and comparative analysis with peer-reviewed publications. But their inclusion is necessary. Larp is still relatively unknown. Published literature in peer-reviewed journals or monographs is sometimes limited to roleplay games in general and not specifically larp (such as tabletop), or from other researchers examining larp for alternative purposes (such as marketing). Cross-examining with pieces from larp researchers about larp gives a more insightful picture of bleed and its transformative effects.

2. Public political philosophy, wicked problems, and moral sentimentalism

Referring to an American context, Jeffrey R. Wilson argues that citizens do not receive enough training in the art of interpretation. The potential for information overload, due to the Internet, means societies need to provide this training more than ever. Wilson suggests that writing for public venues is an opportunity for scholars to offer this, particularly in places where defunding the humanities has occurred. In a context in which academics are constantly pressured to publish for the sake of their Curricula Vitae, public writing can “bring our academic work back to the very human experiences and questions that brought us to academia in the first place.”⁶

Floyd has recently pushed for more methods discussion in public political philosophy. He defines public political philosophy in simple terms: political philosophy that is done both in and for the public.⁷ His motivation is to tackle another set of P’s—“post-truth, polarisation, and populism.” Floyd defines post-truth as an epistemological culture in which there are truth and alternative facts. Polarisation is described as a tribal political culture in which “grievance, identity, and cynicism” regarding the motives of political rivals are central, exacerbated by social media and inequality. In such a context, the charismatic individual presents them self as cutting through the “angry chatter,” promising to take back power from an elite who have tricked or betrayed the masses.⁸ Because of this analysis, Floyd favours a public political philosophy that curates good conversation above insistent normative argument, as populism thrives on polarisation, and being too insistent will only exacerbate this. A political philosopher who interjects into public debate, too sure of themselves and too normatively certain, is only going to make things worse in regard to fuelling polarisation: intervention should illuminate and offer, rather than insist or berate.⁹

Public political philosophy ought to be “accessible, applicable, and analytical.”¹⁰ To be accessible does not mean we should shy away from complex topics—we are, after all, philosophers. Many of us explain complex topics whenever we enter a lecture hall, so we are well trained for this. To be applicable is to be politically relevant—this means enabling positive discourse. To be analytical means we should not avoid theoretical concepts or ideas in public political philosophy. Martha Nussbaum’s YouTube lectures regarding capabilities are presented as an example.¹¹

I agree with Floyd, and as such, this means that priority number one for public political philosophy is public discourse. In many ways, this is a project in democratic solidarity. Before we disagree, we should think about how we are disagreeing and whether we view those with whom we disagree as people we are in dialogue with, or as enemies within.

For political philosophers wishing to embrace public political philosophy that tackles post-truth, polarisation, and populism, there is insight in thinking of some political disagreements as wicked problems. This is because of how wicked problems emphasise context and discourse. Wicked problems are issues that do not have a clear moral or policy solution, and/or problems where solutions would produce more problems to solve.¹² There is a recognition, therefore, that any normative suggestion to a wicked problem will involve winners and losers. Subsequently, wicked problems are significantly affected by the perspective of those embroiled in the problem. This can mean that those involved in a wicked problem may have strong and emotive opinions of what the right thing to do is. There may also be a lot at stake. The “factual and normative aspects of the issues” in a wicked problem are “intertwined at actor-level,” so can “be read as a set of arguments against purely rational approaches to policy.”¹³ Because of these factors, wicked problems find their way into public discourse. Consider debates around gender and sport, homelessness and anti-social behaviour, freedom of speech and social media, or abortion and euthanasia.

Finding the best possible resolution to a wicked problem should thus involve exploring those different perspectives in great detail, approaching the problem with empathy, and anticipating the further issues that may arise. In theorising wicked problems, we should explore the “rituals doctors, police officers, teachers, and other professionals have devised to process seemingly wicked choices.”¹⁴ For instance, we may think that, in principle, anti-social behaviour legislation ought to be strict and rigidly enforced by police officers, but when we factor in the vulnerability of people experiencing homelessness to such legislation, we may decide on more lenient policy.¹⁵ To sum up, if one of the threats of modern politics is populism, and this is fuelled by post-truth and polarisation, then I agree with Floyd that a public political philosophy that aims to refresh discourse is an important part of tackling this. A wicked problem framing encourages empathetic exploration of the people involved.

Moral sentimentalism becomes increasingly important in such a context. In a “A Defense of Minimalist Liberalism,” Richard Rorty writes that the response to objections against “redistributivist policies” ought to be “telling sob stories about what happens to the poor.” In other words, the “answer to Nozick is not Aristotle or Augustine or Kant, but, for example, the writings of William Julius Wilson, and the autobiographies of kids who grew up in urban ghettos.”¹⁶ This begets a political philosophy that describes, imagines, and evaluates people’s experiences: an argument of “this is what it is like to be in her situation” rather than one over independent principles.¹⁷

Michael Frazer traces the path of moral sentimentalism in The Enlightenment of Sympathy. Adam Smith is an obvious example, but Frazer focused on Hume.¹⁸ Hume famously wrote that reason was a slave to the passions.¹⁹ According to Frazer, Hume’s critique of reason calls for harmony between passion and reason. To achieve this “harmony,” such enlightenment sentimentalists placed emphasis on the power to share each other’s emotions imaginatively through the faculty of sympathy.²⁰

Rorty also recognised this Humean path as an alternative to Kant’s moral reasoning. Rorty, however, traced the latter back even further. Rorty considers Thrasymachus and Callicles in “Plato’s Republic.”²¹ Both argue that justice is a social institution to benefit the powerful, or that justice is indeed where the powerful benefit. Socrates, refuting this, appeals to reason. This, for Rorty, was the first misstep in moral and political philosophy: to think that philosophers could re-educate people who had not learnt to care, by instead invoking reason.²² For Rorty, progression of society and moral norms owed next to nothing to the pursuit of “moral knowledge,” but rather “hearing sad and sentimental stories.”²³ As Nussbaum argues, emotions are essential to understanding ethical matters.²⁴ Early Black feminist writers such as Patricia Hill Collins and bell hooks made similar claims.²⁵ If we acknowledge that political theory is more than applied logic, we can develop techniques to invoke holistic reflection.²⁶

Michael Slote refocused moral sentimentalism from sympathy to empathy, the former being when we are feeling (sorry) for someone in pain, whilst the latter is actually feeling that pain.²⁷ This pushes moral sentimentalism closer to an immersive approach. Frazer claims that moral sentimentalism ought to contain affective components, for it cannot be consistently normative without being impassioned.²⁸ This raises issues with objectivity, but as he argues, “it is no more despotic, coercive, or manipulative for members of a political community to share emotions with one another than it is for them to provide rational arguments to one another.”²⁹

Chris Horsell’s work on homelessness seems to align with this. Horsell talks about the effectiveness of “discourses of compassion” in disrupting assumptions and prejudices regarding welfare dependency, and even in challenging policy.³⁰ He refers to Nussbaum as a basis for these claims. Nussbaum argues that if we want a compassionate nation, we must practise imagining ourselves as “tragic spectators” of those who are “are hungry, oppressed, and in pain.”³¹ By pointing out that compassion is a moral sentiment and not a political principle, Horsell reinforces the idea that sentimentalist “sob stories” are indeed the responses we need in normative political theory.³²

Moral sentimentalism is not without its problems or limitations though. As Rorty acknowledges, an education of sentiments does not force those in power, or those committing oppression, to change. Moral reasoning has force because it aims to expose inconsistent logic or thinking. Instead, by focusing on sentiment, moral sentimentalism can come across as pleading, which feels distasteful.³³ Moral sentimentalists should be aware of this and, therefore, careful in how they navigate empathy. Consider charity in the 1990s, like Live Aid or Red Nose Day. These were instances of “sob stories” as Rorty suggested. Yet, in many ways, they over-emphasised feeling and neglected contextualised, structural critique. Live Aid and Red Nose Day raised money—and they did so by provoking empathy. But they did little to explain the socio-economic conditions that produced extreme poverty. The Live Aid song was an example of this. These lyrics were criticised as reinforcing colonial stereotypes about Africa as under-developed and “backward,” whilst also sidestepping colonial blame.³⁴ Thus, moral sentimentalism should explore empathy with thought, as well as empathy with feeling. With this in mind, what methods suit moral sentimentalism and why?

3. Immersing methods

In this section, I consider thought experiments, ethnography, and fiction/storytelling because they are methods that involve immersive elements. Immersion is important for moral sentimentalism, because it is immersion that will elicit empathy—both with thought and feeling.

Thought experiments are a common approach in political philosophy. Typically, they are analytical and used to reframe the way we think about something, or as “clarificatory devices” for “complicated normative issues.”³⁵ This means they often simplify aspects of reality that would otherwise distract us, or cause bias. This is called idealisation. There are many examples of this. G. A. Cohen’s “camping trip” is a good one—it asks us to consider how we would organise resources on a camping trip to question presumptions about the naturalness of market economics.³⁶ The camping trip is a simplification—or idealisation—of human communities and relations. John Rawls’ veil of ignorance is another famous thought experiment that gets us to consider the level of wealth inequality we would allow for, if we were entering into a society without knowing our circumstances in that society.³⁷ The idealisation here is the abstraction of our own identity. Not all thought experiments are like this, though. Charles Mills argues that thought experiments should be used to point towards specific identities and circumstances, rather than idealise such complexities. When considering injustice, for example, Mills argues that “What one wants are abstractions…that capture the essentials of the situation of women and nonwhites, not abstract away from them.”³⁸ Idealisations are the central focus in methodological debates, specifically between ideal and nonideal theorists. There has been much written on this, and this article is not the place to wade into that debate. What is relevant is the applicability of thought experiments, in their various forms, as a method for moral sentimentalism.

Thought experiments require us to engage in reflective equilibrium. First coined by Rawls, reflective equilibrium focuses on the relationship between principles and judgements. ³⁹ Our judgements are informed by our principles. But of course, it is not as simple as a one-way street. Judgements can be subjected to “certain irregularities and distortions.”⁴⁰ By revisiting our principles, we can correct these pressures. However, sometimes our judgements may be so strong that they actually force us to re-evaluate our principles. It is in this to-ing and fro-ing between principles and judgements that we can see the aim of reflective equilibrium: to bring principles and judgements into accord. So, if one holds the principle that it is wrong to lie, but judges that in a certain instance it would not be wrong to, then one can reach equilibrium by revising the principle or the judgement.⁴¹ A thought experiment is a good tool for bringing reflective equilibrium into play.

Rorty argues that the real power of Rawls’ veil of ignorance thought experiment lies not so much in its “argument from principles,” but more in its ability to get us to conceptualise “alternative moral identities.” The “back and forth” of the veil of ignorance encourages a “detailed comparison of imagined selves, situations, and communities.”⁴² By tweaking it into a repeat exercise where we consider over and over the circumstances of different people, Rorty’s interpretation shows that thought experiments have an imaginative and immersive quality that, if exploited, can elicit empathy. But by interpreting the veil of ignorance in this way, Rorty also reveals the limitations of thought experiments: in general, moral sentimentalism demands longer narratives with detailed scene setting and complex characterisation that must be “psychologically realistic.”⁴³ Characterisation may, in fact, mean our normative conclusion is counter to our principles. The extent to which a person or group is vulnerable is a good example of this. Getting that right is difficult to do in a thought experiment. Thought experiments are effective clarificatory devices, teaching tools, and can provoke reflection. But for some problems, they are simply too short.

There has been some work arguing for political theory to take an ethnographic turn.⁴⁴ Moral sentimentalism is well placed to be ethnographically informed. Some of the most intense “sob stories” come from real-life experiences. For example, in Evicted, Matthew Desmond writes “ethnography is what you do when you try to understand people by allowing their lives to mold your own as fully and genuinely as possible.” Through living closely to his subjects of research, Desmond was able to “experience a kind of second immersion in the words and scenes” of their lives.⁴⁵

This has an additional feature of centring the voices of marginalised communities, rather than people theorising about them, or speaking on their behalf. However, I do not think this means we ought never do that. For instance, ethnographic research has shown that some people experiencing homelessness internalise blame rather than critiquing economic and social structures.⁴⁶ In such cases, it is perhaps not so controversial to suggest we do not idealise the perspective of the marginalised because of the coercive effect that marginalisation has had on them. Thus, there is still space for storytelling alongside direct ethnographies and autobiographies. Often, the two can be blended. Tobias Hecht describes ethnographic fiction as a study that involves “rigorous observation” but “takes liberties with reality.”⁴⁷ Didier Fassin recognises that fiction can sometimes point towards a general truth about society, by taking liberty with actual facts. Consider, as Fassin does, a police cover-up.⁴⁸ The ethnographer could not be in the room the moment this was planned. We would not conclude that police cover-ups do not happen, however.

Fassin discusses a scene in the TV series “The Wire” to make this point, but it could just as well be Dostoevsky or Shakespeare. We must be careful with bias and wary of when our knowledge of a situation is limited. If characters are “the masks worn by moral philosophies,” we should present their views as steel-person arguments, not straw-person ones.⁴⁹ We must also be mindful not to present a story as fact. It can be informed by fact, but the aim of moral sentimentalism is to explore empathy. In April 2023, the UK Women and Equalities Committee reported that Black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women.⁵⁰ In March 2022, the UK government published a review of reading education in prisons, which revealed that over 30% of prisoners had learning difficulties.⁵¹ Moral sentimentalism can take those facts and contextualise them within a story, like Frazer and Rorty described.

Fiction allows us to go beyond reality, to reflect a reality, or anticipate one. “Ethics for a Broken World” is a student textbook that imagines a world of precarity, far beyond our own, which frames political theorising in the twentieth century in a certain way.⁵² Similarly, “Future Morality” foresees near-future ethical concerns that we should start thinking about now.⁵³ With this in mind, it is not unreasonable to lean into narrative. As Frazer argues, “It is fine to fill a fictional case with dragons, spaceships, experience machines and baroque trolley systems, as long as we can empathize with the three-dimensional characters trying to navigate these bizarre circumstances.”⁵⁴ Similarly, Rorty muddies the distinction between philosophy and literature, when he claims that philosophers ought to consider themselves more like “literary intellectuals.”⁵⁵

If moral sentimentalism has a place in public political philosophy, because it is important to educate our sentiments, and if that relies upon complex scene setting and convincing characterisation, then a key part of any method ought to be its’ immersive properties. Thought experiments are often limited because they simply do not go into much depth. Ethnography is one method that certainly has an important place, because of how lived experience achieves immersion. But if empathy is achieved through immersion into the lives of characters, and, as Frazer claims, the worlds they inhabit need not be fully factual or empirical to achieve moral sentimentalism’s aims, then storytelling or “sob stories” need not be limited to written text. Roleplays often feature in research, where participants perform a certain role. But what if there was a way of doing this in more depth, where participants take on a character and are encouraged to act as that character would, importing that character’s interests, concerns, and needs over an extended period of time?

4. Larp as a method

In this section, I consider larp as a potential method for moral sentimentalists to engage with public political philosophy, due to immersive properties that go beyond other methods. This could lead to research done in an experimental and innovative way, where participants are not only presented with political issues and wicked problems, but are also given characters, each with their own motivations, difficulties and wants, and tasked with navigating these. The intent would be to induce empathy and a greater understanding of how potential policy solutions might interact with those involved. This would cultivate solidarity with fellow citizens from different walks of life.

4.1. Bleed and immersion

Because larp involves acting out the wants, needs, and desires of a character a player has created, that character becomes an “alibi.” This forms part of a social contract: the “alibi” is an unconscious agreement that players will not hold each other accountable for the actions of a character they are role-playing.⁵⁶ This means that larp enables players to express themselves in ways they avoid in real life.⁵⁷

Larpers have reported a phenomenon known as “bleed.” This is an overlap between the feelings and experiences of their character with their actual selves.⁵⁸ Bleed in is when the emotions, thoughts, relationship dynamics, and physical states of the player—their real life—affect the character. Bleed out is the opposite—when the experiences of a character impact the player’s mental state. A bleed feedback loop is when it becomes difficult to distinguish between the player and the character.⁵⁹

Research reveals the importance of the “extraordinary” in producing “bleed.” “Normal” circumstances may be less compelling—the more unfamiliar sights, sounds, and experiences at a larp, the more likely it will have a transformative effect. This chimes with Frazer’s point about the fantastical in storytelling methods: it is only the characters that need to be “realistic,” not necessarily the environment. For instance, in the larp Demetra, patriarchy is reversed. The fact that Demetra is a fantastical world does not detract from the political storytelling within the game—the setting of a fantastical world engaged the players more than a mundane world would, making the political storytelling more impactful.⁶⁰

Bleed is possible because of the intensity of immersion larp achieves. The “constructive efforts” of players are part of their immersion. Though their experiences and roles are “extraordinary,” and are often within a fantastical setting, they are still “lifelike.” Role-playing has been argued to cultivate empathy, because it enables players to explore characters: their lives, their motivations, and their behaviours.⁶¹ Larp can take this a step further because it involves more factors of immersion. Immersionism is the state of thinking and feeling as the character you are playing, not your real self.⁶² Though there is debate over the meaning of immersion within larp and other games, Sarah Lynne Bowman further defines six categories. Activity is when one engages in tasks or activities that include a sense of agency. Game is when the mechanics or rules themselves immerse players. Environment is immersion through a sense of the world the characters inhabit. Narrative is immersion through the story or plot characters are involved in, and character immersion is the exploration of their identity. Finally, there is immersion into the community—connections characters make with each other through role-playing.⁶³

Larp’s success with immersion stems from the fact that it involves telling a story emotionally and multisensorially. Players get to “feel the steep staircase leading down into the sunken tower, smell the flourishing mold growth, and touch the skull of Balerion the Black Dread.”⁶⁴ Larpers are embodied physically in a world, but also conceptually: every event happens within a fictional geographic place. Larpers imagine themselves within that place, even if they are only physically present on a comparably small campsite. For instance, at a Game of Thrones larp, players went to a place called Summerhall.⁶⁵ King’s Landing and other geographical places were not represented physically at the larp, but the belief that they exist beyond the site the players were at adds to their sense of presence within a world.

Larpers experience sights, sounds, and emotions together, but they also experience agency.⁶⁶ Unlike computer games, there are no set conclusions in most larps: players decide what happens to others and themselves. This agency exists alongside boundaries: for instance, people can pick up and put down computer games whenever they want, but larps are bound to specific times and schedules. This adds to the feeling that one is really present in a functioning, believable world, with its own rules, culture and norms. Players are “multisensorially aware, and must decide what to do, where to go, or what to avoid…unfolding over multiple hours across an immense space.”⁶⁷

4.2. Transformative effects

Immersion is more complex than simply being immersed in what a character is doing, thinking, or feeling. This can happen, but players may “also choose to zoom out and observe both reality and fiction at the same time.”⁶⁸ This enables a meta-reflective state and presents potential for transformation. Players can return from larps with new perspectives, through empathetic experiences—they effectively get to play characters who think and behave differently than them or live in a fantastical world that highlights something about their own. They get to adopt “countercultural norms and deviant behaviour” and see through different eyes.⁶⁹ Orazi and Laer distinguish this into extraordinary experiences, frames, and roles. A frame is the “shared beliefs, norms, and values” of a narrative world that guide behaviour. The experiences are what their characters do, heightened by the physical and sensorial elements. The role is what they take up. Extraordinary experiences offer the opportunity to take on a role that detaches them from everyday life. This requires players to empathise with the characters they, and others, play.⁷⁰ There is normative power in this combination that can provoke real-life character transformations within the real world.

Orazi and Laer categorise such transformations. First, there is an absent trajectory. This is when a player does not experience much bleed because they did not sufficiently engage with the “extraordinary frames and roles” that larp offers. Second, there is a compensatory trajectory. This is where larp leaves a “trace” in the psyche of a player after an event, and they seek to relive that through similar, though lessened, versions—like a computer game. Third, there is a cathartic trajectory. This is when the experience creates tension with everyday life, which then means that after an event, a player “calls into question one or more aspects” of their daily existence. This can be existential. Finally, there is a delayed trajectory, where the experience triggers something that relates to a player’s real life, that requires “prolonged distancing,” followed by a more engaged transformation later.⁷¹ Compared with other extraordinary experiences, larp bleed seems to last longer and provoke deeper reflection. Larpers have described bleed as offering valuable learning experiences. Bowman suggests that bleed provides a “useful mirror for self-analysis.”⁷² Bleed can have an impact on a person’s sense of self that is long-lasting.⁷³ For example, in Demetra, the reversal of patriarchy had a profound effect:

This LARP is a place of learning, one that is not given to attend at school or in life. The one that the women of “the real world” describe to us but which is so difficult to imagine, because we never, as men, are in their situation…I had only one desire at the end of this LARP, to ask forgiveness.

Conscience, a sci-fi game, had a significant impact on one player’s notions of humanity, in a way that anticipates a political issue on the horizon:

Conscience has already taught me that if we reach this level of technological sophistication, with conscious machines…These will be people, not appliances. I think that is the message the LARP wanted to convey, that humanity resides in consciousness, and that making distinctions between flesh or metal will be similar to discriminating based on skin color.⁷⁴

This shows how larp can both be a way of experiencing different circumstances and conditions—in an immersive manner that goes beyond a thought experiment or novel—and its normative capacity. Larp has the potential to provoke an intense version of reflective equilibrium. Thought experiments are good at making the familiar seem unfamiliar, in a way that induces reflection. But a thought experiment cannot transport a participant to an actual world, physically and in an embodied way. This experience is powerful, and as ethnographic research of larp shows, the reflective process afterwards is longer and more involved.

Politics research engages with workshops and roleplays, but immersion here is limited. Participants are thrown into roleplays, not immersed into them through stages. Such roleplays do not involve dressing up, making a character or creating props. They do not facilitate autonomous interaction with other characters or multisensorial engagement with an imaginary world that enhances the belief that one is present in that world. Larp does. This level of immersion is deeper and, as a result, is resistant to decay over time.⁷⁵ How, then, could this be utilised from a gaming weekend to a research method for public political philosophy?

4.3. Larp as a method

In Scandinavian countries, larp is popular to the extent that there is now a sub-category known as “Edu-larp,” which adopts larp as a pedagogy for learning. Edu-larp offers insight in terms of translating a game into an immersive method for moral sentimentalism. Edu-larp is used in schools to help students understand political and social issues, like racial prejudice or gender injustice. Edu-larp involves a pre-game workshop, gameplay, and a post-game debrief where instructors discuss “salient issues, topics and themes.” With edu-larp, there are desired learning outcomes.⁷⁶

Character creation, role-playing, and problem-solving provide experiences, whilst “reflective observation” occurs during gameplay, as participants observe themselves and others, and reflect on the unfolding situation. Students who underwent edu-larp learning had equally high or higher scores compared with the national average. Research showed that edu-larp was effective in improving “motivation, conceptual understanding, and retention,” as well as having other benefits such as “encouraging personal growth, self-awareness, or empathy.”⁷⁷

There is potential here for political philosophy and, in particular, moral sentimentalists. If theorists can adopt larp as a method and addition to research workshops—which have the same aim of observing behaviour and empathy but in a less extensive way—then they can utilise larp for weekend projects. These could explore wicked problems, where participants construct characters and are placed into an unfolding narrative in which their choices are framed by their characters. People can experience the world through the lens of different circumstances and perspectives and see how it impacts decisions over time, but also, through the phenomenon of “bleed,” participants may find themselves undergoing a post-game reflective stage. In this stage, researchers could interview participants about how the game affected their views on certain issues and topics. These research games can maintain a fantastical setting. Often, this encourages greater immersion and engagement. The ethnographic research on larp has shown that this would not detract from the political aspect the research would wish to explore.

There are issues that would need to be considered, and certain risks anticipated. One problem larp as a method could face is “larp hacking.”⁷⁸ Larp hacking is when players decide to subvert the design of a larp whilst the larp is running. This can be caused by boredom, a group of players feeling that the larp is not working for them, or players wanting to push the limits of the larp. If political philosophers design a larp to refine a certain set of moral sentiments or intuitions, “larp hacking” could disrupt this intent. Larp is a game. Larpers will want to play. Playing can mean behaving the exact opposite of what one might do in real life. This can be cathartic and insightful, but presents complexities for the researcher when trying to evaluate how a larp has refined a participant’s moral sentiments. But if factored into the methodology design or intent of the project, this is a feature, not a bug. Larp enables participants to explore psychology, behaviours, or beliefs they are prejudiced against in their real lives. This is a goal of moral sentimentalism. As Frazer puts it, moral sentimentalism should “consider the point of view of the police as well as the policed.”⁷⁹ For Rorty, “the bad people’s problem” is “that they were not as lucky in the circumstances of their upbringing as we were.” Instead of treating them as irrational and in need of moral reasoning, we should “treat them as deprived” but responsive to moral sentiment. ⁸⁰ The autonomy to play, and even “hack,” is at the heart of experiencing empathy. “Larp hacking” could also provide useful feedback for improving the design of the larp. Perhaps the setting was not compelling enough, or the non-player characters were not interesting.

The alibi aspect of a character enables expressions of emotions and thoughts that players may avoid in real life. This is important to the transformative aspect of larp, but researchers would need to consider when such expressions may be over-exaggerated.⁸¹ Conversely, gamism is a potential issue—being motivated by winning a game, rather than exploring the thoughts and feelings of characters.⁸² The experience of “bleed” is less likely if a player constructs a character that has little to no overlap with their own circumstance, behaviour, or psychology. Some players deliberately do this to avoid bleed, whereas others choose overlaps to increase the chances of bleed.⁸³ As bleed is an affective component in cultivating empathy, this would be a factor for political philosophers when selecting participants or in character design.

Bleed out risks aggression towards other players, when their characters act antagonistically.⁸⁴ This can corrupt the empathy and reflection that moral sentimentalists would want to elicit and puts players at emotional risk. Schisms can occur in larps—where groups fall apart due to issues with bleed. Social ostracism can take place when a group of players decide another player, or other players, has behaved badly.⁸⁵ Different views on play culture can lead to interruptions in play.⁸⁶ Larps can become subject to internal policing, which would impact player exploration. This could be problematic for political philosophers who may want to explore sensitive and even controversial issues, particularly if the goal is to restore political discourse through providing empathetic experiences with different points of view. At this point, game masters or refs can mediate when situations become too out-of-character, or even allow it to happen, and ask participants why it did in post-game interviews.

One counter to the marriage of larp and moral sentimentalism would be that larp is a game, and games cannot explore issues moral sentimentalists might want to, because games are meant to be fun. For example, in order to cultivate collaborative discourse around transwomen and sport, a moral sentimentalist project may design a larp in which participants experience the barriers both cisgender and transwomen face. To challenge prejudices towards people experiencing homelessness, researchers may even design a larp where players navigate hostile architecture or a lack of privacy in shelters. Or, as Demetra has shown, simply flipping the real world in a larp setting—from patriarchy to matriarchy—would be sufficient. These would not always be fun games, and bleed can be difficult to distinguish from psychological triggers. But as has been observed, fun is not necessarily an inherent characteristic of games.⁸⁷ Larpers have reported experiences of horror, trauma, or even self-disgust, and many larps are set up for this. Gang Rape, for example, is a larp exploring how difficult it is to obtain rape convictions in Sweden. In other words, “gratifying but ‘negative’ play experiences” are a part of larp, which makes them a good fit for moral sentimentalists.⁸⁸ There is a risk of excessive bleed out, and post-larp debriefs would be an important part of the ethics design. Such topics also risk trauma tourism that patronises real people in these real situations. But the transformative potential of larp is worth that risk.

5. Conclusion: larp and public political philosophy

Public political philosophy, because it is public, should always be oriented towards the political context of the times. I agree with Floyd’s diagnosis that post-truth, polarisation, and populism are a significant threat to ours. An empathetic public discourse that aims to illuminate and offer rather than insist or berate is a task political philosophers ought to take up. As Frazer says of moral sentimentalism, a show, do not tell approach.⁸⁹ But in this, there is still a gap—how do we speak to and with the public?

Larp offers one way. Roleplay has immersive qualities, but larp heightens these because the immersion is multi-sensorial. Subsequently, “bleed” is often a consequence of particularly intense experiences, and this has been shown to have long-lasting transformative effects. Public political philosophers could engage with larp, and even design narrative contexts in which bleed can lead to normative outcomes or conceptual reframing. Put simply, if we are looking for ways to “do” public political philosophy that “offer and illuminate,” larp is ready-made for this. It does not only respond to the question of “how do we do public political philosophy?” but also “where?” Larp events are increasing in popularity across many countries.

This is also a method of research. Instead of a thought experiment that asks us to imagine ourselves as people in different socio-economic conditions, or how we would organise a collective on a camping trip, we could design larps that physically place people in these imaginary circumstances. Or, where there are larps that already explore contemporary issues or philosophical conundrums, political philosophers can engage and collaborate. In this, we should be careful. Many larps have become transformative by accident or had that effect on players because there are no pre-prescribed outcomes. We need not avoid normative framings, but the temptation for political philosophers to write a script, rather than plot, should be resisted. Exploration of identities or political dilemmas could easily become contrived. The autonomy within larp is an essential ingredient to its transformative capacity. Or, as larpers would say, a “sandbox” for them to explore. What happens within those sandboxes could be of interest to political philosophers.