Moral Dilemmas and the Minimum Requirement of Morality

Moral Dilemmas
First published Mon Apr 15, 2002; substantive revision Sat Jun 16, 2018
Moral dilemmas, at the very least, involve conflicts between moral requirements.
Consider the cases given below.
1. Examples
In Book I of Plato’s Republic, Cephalus defines ‘justice’ as speaking the truth and
paying one’s debts. Socrates quickly refutes this account by suggesting that it would be
wrong to repay certain debts—for example, to return a borrowed weapon to a friend
who is not in his right mind. Socrates’ point is not that repaying debts is without moral
import; rather, he wants to show that it is not always right to repay one’s debts, at least
not exactly when the one to whom the debt is owed demands repayment. What we have
here is a conflict between two moral norms: repaying one’s debts and protecting others
from harm. And in this case, Socrates maintains that protecting others from harm is the
norm that takes priority.

2. The Concept of Moral Dilemmas

What is common to the two well-known cases is conflict. In each case, an agent regards
herself as having moral reasons to do each of two actions, but doing both actions is not
possible. Ethicists have called situations like these moral dilemmas. The crucial features
of a moral dilemma are these: the agent is required to do each of two (or more) actions;
the agent can do each of the actions; but the agent cannot do both (or all) of the
actions. The agent thus seems condemned to moral failure; no matter what she does,
she will do something wrong (or fail to do something that she ought to do).

3. Problems
It is less obvious in Sartre’s case that one of the requirements overrides the other. Why
this is so, however, may not be so obvious. Some will say that our uncertainty about
what to do in this case is simply the result of uncertainty about the consequences. If we
were certain that the student could make a difference in defeating the Germans, the
obligation to join the military would prevail. But if the student made little difference
whatsoever in that cause, then his obligation to tend to his mother’s needs would take
precedence, since there he is virtually certain to be helpful. Others, though, will say that
these obligations are equally weighty, and that uncertainty about the consequences is
not at issue here.
4. Dilemmas and Consistency
We shall return to the issue of whether it is possible to preclude genuine moral
dilemmas. But what about the desirability of doing so? Why have ethicists thought that
their theories should preclude the possibility of dilemmas? At the intuitive level, the
existence of moral dilemmas suggests some sort of inconsistency. An agent caught in a
genuine dilemma is required to do each of two acts but cannot do both. And since he
cannot do both, not doing one is a condition of doing the other. Thus, it seems that the
same act is both required and forbidden. But exposing a logical inconsistency takes
some work; for initial inspection reveals that the inconsistency intuitively felt is not
present. Allowing
5. Responses to the Arguments
Now obviously the inconsistency in the first argument can be avoided if one denies
either PC or PD. And the inconsistency in the second argument can be averted if one
gives up either the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ or the agglomeration principle.
There is, of course, another way to avoid these inconsistencies: deny the possibility of
genuine moral dilemmas. It is fair to say that much of the debate concerning moral
dilemmas in the last sixty years has been about how to avoid the inconsistencies
generated by the two arguments above.