Moral Dilemmas

Satre’s dilemma

✣ Sartre (1957) tells of a student whose brother had

been killed in the German offensive of 1940.
✣ The student wanted to avenge his brother and to
fight forces that he regarded as evil. But the
student’s mother was living with him, and he was
her one consolation in life.
✣ The student believed that he had conflicting
obligations.
✣ Which would you choose?
✣ Sartre describes him as being torn between two
kinds of morality: one of limited scope but
certain efficacy, personal devotion to his mother;
the other of much wider scope but uncertain
efficacy, attempting to contribute to the defeat of
an unjust aggressor.
 Moral Dilemma

✣ is a complex situation that often involves an

apparent mental conflict between two or more
conflicting options, in which to obey one would
result in transgressing another.
✣ All of the actions were something you have
ought to do.
✣ Sometimes called ethical paradoxes, these
dilemmas invoke an attempt to refute an ethical
system or moral code, or to improve it so as to
resolve the paradox
 Moral Agent

✣ Is a person who has the ability to discern right

and wrong and to be accountable for his actions
 3 conditions that make of a moral
dilemma

✣ The agent is required to do each of two (or more)

actions;
✣ There must be different courses of action to
choose from.
✣ 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).
 Moral agency

✣ Is the ability to make moral judgments based on

some notion of right and wrong and to be held
accountable for the actions.
✣ This is when an agent regards herself as having
moral reasons to do each of two actions, but
doing both actions is not possible.
 Conflict vs Moral Dilemma

✣ When one of the conflicting requirements

overrides the other, we have a conflict but not a
genuine moral dilemma. So in addition to the
features mentioned above, in order to have a
genuine moral dilemma it must also be true that
neither of the conflicting requirements is
overridden.
 Types of Moral Dilemmas

✣ Epistemic Dilemma :
✣ This type of dilemma involves conflicts between
two (or more) moral requirements and the agent
does not know which of the conflicting
requirements takes precedence in her situation.
✣ Need more information.
✣ One option is better than the other
✣ Ex: Sick old man (drive to the ambulance) or
going home early
✣ It involve conflicts between two (or more) moral
requirements and the agent does not know which
of the conflicting requirements takes precedence
in her situation.
✣ Everyone concedes that there can be situations
where one requirement does take priority over
the other with which it conflicts, though at the
time action is called for it is difficult for the
agent to tell which requirement prevails
 Types of Moral Dilemmas

✣ Ontological conflicts:
✣ This dilemma involves conflicts between two (or
more) moral requirements, and neither is overridden.
✣ This is not simply because the agent does not know
which requirement is stronger; neither is. Genuine
moral dilemmas, if there are any, are ontological.
✣ Ex; Blood transfusion between 2 soldiers
✣ The latter are conflicts between two (or more)
moral requirements, and neither is overridden.
This is not simply because the agent does
not know which requirement is stronger; neither
is.
✣ There can be genuine moral dilemmas only if
neither of the conflicting requirements is
overridden. Lisa Tessman (2015) has
distinguished between negotiable and non-
negotiable moral requirements
✣ The idea of negotiable moral requirements is that
one can be compensated or counterbalance by
some other good.
✣ Non-negotiable moral requirements, however, if
violated produce a cost that no one should have
to bear; such a violation cannot be
counterbalanced by any benefits.
 Types of Moral Dilemmas

✣ Self-imposed moral dilemmas:

✣ arise because of the agent's own wrongdoing.
✣ Self-imposed arise because of the agent’s own
wrongdoing. If an agent made two promises that
he knew conflicted, then through his own actions
he created a situation in which it is not possible
for him to discharge both of his requirements.
✣ Example: An agent made two promises that he
knew conflicted, then through his own actions he
created a situation in which it is not possible for
him to discharge both of his requirements
 Types of Moral Dilemmas

✣ World Imposed Moral Dilemmas:

✣ Certain events in the world place the agent in a
situation of moral conflict.
✣ Dilemmas imposed on the agent by the world, by
contrast, do not arise because of the agent’s
wrongdoing.
✣ Ex: Sophie’s choice
✣ Sophie Zawistowska
✣ Eva (gas chamber) Jan (children’s camp)
✣ Dilemmas imposed on the agent by the world, by
contrast, do not arise because of the agent’s
wrongdoing.
 Types of Moral Dilemmas

✣ Prohibition dilemmas
✣ All feasible actions are forbidden
✣ Sophie’s choice
✣ Obligation Dilemma
✣ More than one feasible action is obligatory
✣ You have an obligation to fulfill both moral
requirements
✣ Satre’s student.
✣ The process of making a moral decision can be
as important as the decision itself.
✣ Many ethical decisions that people encounter are
so complex that it is easy to exhaust oneself
talking around the problem without actually
making any progress towards resolving it.
 THREE LEVELS OF MORAL DILEMMAS

✣ 1. Individual/Personal dilemmas
✣ A dilemma that exist within one’s self
✣ It refers to a problem of reconciling
inconsistencies between the individual level.
✣ A dilemma which you can resolve by yourself.
✣ Father choosing between the life of the wife or
the unborn baby.
✣ Choosing between two friends.
 THREE LEVELS OF MORAL
DILEMMAS

✣ 2.Organizational Dilemmas:
✣ a dilemma that exist within an organization or a
particular sector.
✣ It refers to a problem of reconciling
inconsistencies between individual needs and
aspirations on the one hand, and the collective
purpose of the organization on the other.
 THREE LEVELS OF MORAL
DILEMMAS

✣ 3.Systematic/Structural Dilemma:
✣ The dilemma involves network of social and
systemic institutions.
✣ A decision can impact a large number of people.
✣ Government decisions
 The Role of Reason

✣ Reason is a faculty that is used by man in dealing

with issues.
✣ Moral judgements are not a matter of personal
preferences or tastes.
 MORAL REASONING

✣ is a process by which one thinks about the moral

dilemma in ways that
✣ 1. identify (as comprehensively as possible) the
morally relevant aspects of the situation;
✣ 2. weigh the significance of the morally relevant
aspects, giving due importance to the views of
the persons’ concerned of what constitutes
benefit and harm
 MORAL REASONING

✣ 3. identify (as comprehensively as possible) all

the possible actions that could be pursued and
their most likely consequences; and
✣ 4. consider all of the above elements and come to
a decision about which action is reasoned to be
the most ethically justified.
 On Impartiality:

✣ Each individual’s interests are equally important.

✣ Therefore, each must acknowledge that other

person’s welfare is equally important as our own.
✣ Impartiality entails a proscription against
arbitrariness in dealing with people.
✣ A conscientious moral agent is someone who is
concerned impartially with the interest of
everyone affected by what he or she does;
✣ Someone who carefully sifts facts and examines
their implications;
✣ Someone who accepts principles of conduct only
after scrutinising them to make sure they are
sound;
✣ “Someone who is willing to listen to reason even
when it means that prior convictions may have
been revised, and who finally, is willing to act on
the results of this deliberation.”
✣ The nature of morality implies two main points:
✣ (1). That moral judgments must be backed up by
good reasons;
✣ (2) morality requires the impartial consideration
of each individual’s interest.