Virtual Reality and Ethical Neutrality of the Virtual Subjects of Law
Virtual Reality and Ethical Neutrality of the Virtual Subjects of Law

Summary/Abstract: The existence of legal reality implies the existence of the subjects of law as the creations of that reality. The law cannot even exist without its subjects. They are conditio sine qua non for the law. First, natural persons had become the subjects of law – although not all of them and not at the same time, and thereafter their creations - legal (moral) persons, also became the subjects of law. In both cases, it is about traditional virtual legal creations. However, as the information and technological developments could not have bypassed contemporary law, more and more frequently and intensively it is being thought about the third type of the subjects of law – virtual characters as the new subjects of law (law avatars). Today, this is not done out of curiosity, but for very practical reasons – i.e. for promoting business communication that is rapidly migrating to the area of computer virtual reality. Such a change requires reconsideration of traditional beliefs and theories about what a subject of law is. It also requires determining the possible legal nature of virtual characters, irrespective of whether it is about virtual natural or legal persons. When it comes to the explanation of their essence, it seems that at this moment the fiction theory is more acceptable than the reality theory, which might prevail sometime, as it had happened with the subjectivity of the legal person at some point in time in the 17th century.

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