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A moral dilemma (also called ethical dilemma) is a complex situation that often involves an apparent mental conflict between moral imperatives, in which to obey one would result in transgressing another. This is also called an ethical paradox since in moral philosophy, paradox often plays a central role in ethics debates. Moral dilemmas are often cited in an attempt to refute an ethical system or moral code, as well as the worldview that encompasses or grows from it.
Examples in Daily Life:
http://teachertrove.wikispaces.com/Speaking+-+Moral+DilemmasSome examples of moral dilemmas from Literature and Philosophy:
J. Swedene
Sartre’s Student
His father was quarreling with
his mother and was also inclined to be a ‘collaborator’; his elder brother had
been killed in the German offensive of 1940 and this young man, with a
sentiment somewhat primitive but generous, burned to avenge him. His mother was living alone with him, deeply
afflicted by the semi-treason of his father and by the death of her oldest son,
and her one consolation was in this young man.
But he, at this moment, had the choice between going to England to join
the Free French forces or of staying near his mother and helping her to
live. He fully realized that this woman
lived only for him and that his disappearance- or perhaps his death- would
plunge her into despair. He also
realized that, concretely and in every fact, every action he performed on his
mother’s behalf would be sure of effect in the sense of aiding her to live,
whereas anything he did in order to go and fight would be an ambiguous action
which might vanish like water into sand and serve no purpose. For instance, to set out for England he would
have to wait indefinitely in a Spanish camp on the way through Spain; or, on
arriving in England or in Algiers he might be put in an office to fill up
forms. Consequently, he found himself
confronted by two very different modes of action; the one concrete, immediate,
but directed towards only one individual; the other an action addressed to an
end infinitely greater, a national collectivity, but for that reason ambiguous-
and it might be frustrated on the way.
At the same time, he was hesitating between two kinds of morality; on
the one side, the morality of sympathy, of personal devotion and, on the other
side a morality of wider scope but of more debatable validity. He had to choose between the two.[i]
Abraham (The Bible)
The time came when God put
Abraham to the test. ‘Abraham’, he
called, and Abraham replied, ‘Here I am.’
God said, ‘Take your son Isaac, your only son, whom you love, and go to
the land of Moriah. There you shall
offer him as a sacrifice on one of the hills which I shall show you.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning and
saddled his ass, and he took with him two of his men and his son Isaac; and he
split the firewood for the sacrifice, and set out for the place of which God
had spoken.[ii]
Aristotle (NE ethics, III.1)
With regard to the things that
are done from fear of greater evils or for some noble object (e.g. if a tyrant
were to order one to do something base, having one’s parents and children in
his power, and if one did the action they were to be saved, but otherwise would
be put to death), it may be debated whether such actions are involuntary or
voluntary. Something of this sort
happens also with regard to the throwing of goods away voluntarily, but on
condition of its securing the safety of himself and his crew any sensible man
does this.[iii]
Heavy is my fate, not
obeying.
And heavy it is if I kill my
child, the delight of my house,
And with a virgin’s blood upon
the altar
Make foul her father’s
hands.
Either alternative is evil.
How can I betray the fleet
And fail the allied army?[iv]
Plato (Euthyphro)
It is ridiculous, Socrates, for
you to think that it makes any difference whether the victim is a stranger or
relative. One should only watch whether
the killer acted justly or not; if he acted justly, let him go, but if not, one
should prosecute, if that is to say, the killer shares your hearth and
table. The pollution is the same if you
knowingly keep company with such a man and do not cleanse yourself and him by
bringing him to justice.[v]
Melville (Billy Budd)
Feeling that unless quick action
was taken on it, the deed of the foretopman [Budd’s position], so soon as it
should be known on the gun-decks would tend to awaken any slumbering embers of
the Nore [a previous mutiny] among the crew, a sense of urgency of the case
overruled in Captain Vere every other consideration.[vi]
Ruth Barcan Marcus
The lives of identical twins are
in jeopardy, and, through force of circumstances, I am in a position to save
only one. Make the situation as you
please…however strong our wills and complete our knowledge, we might be faced
with a moral choice in which there are absolutely no moral grounds for favoring
doing x over y.[vii]
Bernard Williams
Jim finds himself in the central square of a small South
American town. Tied up against the wall
is a row of twenty Indians, most terrified, a few defiant, in front of them
several armed men in uniform. A heavy
man in a sweat-stained khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in charge and,
after a good deal of questioning of Jim which establishes that he got there by
accident while on a botanical expedition, explains that the Indians are a
random group of the inhabitants who, after recent acts of protest against the
government, are just about to be killed…however, since Jim is an honoured
visitor from another land, the captain is happy to offer him a guest’s
privilege of killing one of the Indians himself. If Jim accepts, then as a special mark of the
occasion, the other Indians will be let off.
Of course, if Jim refuses, then there is no special occasion, and Pedro
here will do what he was about to do when Jim arrived, and kill them all.[viii]
[i] John Paul
Sartre Existentialism is a Humanism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 463.
[ii] Genesis
22:1-3
[iii]
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, 1110a4-11.
[iv] Aeschylus Agamemnon (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc., 1966), verses 193-200.
[v] Plato. Euthyphro
4b7-c4 (New York: Hackett, 1993).
[vi] Ibid., p.
46.
[vii] Ruth Marcus
“Moral Dilemmas and Consistency” Journal
of Philosophy 77 (1980), p. 125.
[viii] Bernard
Williams. “A Critique of Utilitarianism”
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 98-99.
Other Resources:
Ethical Dilemmas - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_b-aTwBVkA
http://vimeo.com/31826650
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