MORAL

DILEMMA
Prof. PASTOR B. MENDEZ I
Social Science Department
 INTRODUCTION

In man’s daily existence, he/she is facing many challenges and tested his/her capacity to decide of what is
the right thing to do. Suppose, you are beaten by someone whom you did not know and badly injured.
You’ve been hospitalized and for some weeks you are in a state of comma. Then after several months of
recovery, it so happen that the man beat you and left you half dead appeared and recognized by your brother.
Then your brother beat him up and left him dead. But only you and your brother is present that left no
witnesses at all. Now what will you do? Will you turn your brother to the police or will you leave and keep
it the rest of your life?
With that situation you are facing a very difficult scenario between your brother’s crime and justice for the
victim.
In this lesson we will see of what situation you are at and what kind of decision you will be making after
understanding the moral obligation that man should have.
 Dilemma

A dilemma is a situation where a person is forced to choose between two or more conflicting options,
neither of which is acceptable. As we can see, the key here is that the person has choices to make that will
all have results she does not want.
Example:
A town mayor faces a dilemma about how to protect and preserve a virgin forest and at the same time allow
miners and loggers for economic development in the town.
However, that if a person is in a difficult situation but is not forced to choose between two or more options,
then that person is not in a dilemma. The least that we can say is that that person is just experiencing a
problematic or distressful situation. Thus, the most logical thing to do for that person is to look for
alternatives or solutions to address the problem.
When dilemmas involve human actions which have moral implications, they are called ethical or moral
dilemmas.
 Moral Dilemma

Moral dilemmas, therefore, are situations where persons, who are called “moral agents” in ethics, are forced to
choose between two or more conflicting options, neither of which resolves the situation in a morally acceptable
situation.
Example:
A deeply religious woman with an ectopic pregnancy
A woman discovers that she is having an ectopic pregnancy, a type of pregnancy that occurs outside the uterus, and
in the fallopian tube, thus the fetus not having develop in the uterus endangers her life. If she continues with her
pregnancy, there is a big possibility of her dying. Doctors and experts suggest the best way to save her life is to
abort and kill the fetus. If not both of they will die.
In the example above, the woman is faced with two conflicting options, namely, either she resorts to abortion,
which will save her life but at the same time jeopardizes her moral integrity or does not resort to abortion but
endangers her life as well as the fetus. She is faced with a huge moral dilemma.
Three conditions that must be present for situations to be considered moral dilemmas.

First, the person or the agent of a moral action is obliged to make a decision about which course
of action is best. Here, the moral agent must choose the best option and act accordingly.
Second, there must be different courses of action to choose from. Hence, as already pointed out
above, there must be two or more conflicting options to choose from for moral dilemmas to occur.
Third, no matter what course of action is taken, some moral principles are always compromised.
This means that there is no perfect solution to the problem. In moral dilemmas, the moral agent
“seems destined to commit something wrong which implies that she is bound to morally fail because in one
way or another she will fail to do something which she ought to do. In other words, by choosing one of the
possible moral requirements, the person also fails on others.”
Types of Moral Dilemmas

•Epistemic and ontological dilemmas

•Self-imposed and world-imposed dilemmas
•Obligation dilemmas and prohibition dilemmas
•Single agent and multi-person dilemmas
Epistemic moral dilemmas involve situations wherein two or more moral requirements conflict with each other and that
the moral agent hardly knows which of the conflicting moral requirements takes precedence over the other. In other
words, the moral agent here does not know which option is morally right or wrong. For instance, I ought to honor my
promise to my son to be home early, but on my way home I saw a sick old man who needs to be brought to the hospital.
Where does my actual duty lie? We cannot deny that there are conflicting duties (moral requirements) here, but we need to
note that we want a fuller knowledge of the situation: Is an important purpose being served by my getting home early?
How serious is the condition of the sick old man? Indeed, I could hardly decide which option is morally right in this
situation. However, one option must be better than the other; only, it needs fuller knowledge of the situation―thus the
term “epistemic” moral dilemmas.
Types of Moral Dilemmas

•Ontological moral dilemmas, on the other hand, involve situations wherein two or more moral
requirements conflict with each other, yet neither of these conflicting moral requirements overrides each
other. This is not to say that the moral agent does not know which moral requirement is stronger than the
other.
Hence, the moral agent can hardly choose between the conflicting moral requirements. For instance, a
military doctor is attending to 9 needs of the wounded soldiers in the middle of the war. Unfortunately,
two soldiers urgently need a blood transfusion. However, only one bag of blood is available at the
moment. To whom shall the doctor administer the blood transfusion? For sure, we could not tell whether
administering a blood transfusion to Soldier A is more moral than administering a blood transfusion to
Soldier B, and vice versa.
Types of Moral Dilemmas

•A self-imposed moral dilemma is caused by the moral agent’s wrongdoings. For example, David is
running for the position of the town mayor. During the campaign period, he promised the indigenous
peoples in his community to protect their virgin forest just to gain their votes, but at the same time, he
seeks financial support from a mining corporation. Fortunately, David won the elections, yet he is faced
with the dilemma of fulfilling his promise to the indigenous peoples and at the same time allows the
mining corporation to destroy their forest. Indeed, through his own actions, David created a situation in
which it is impossible for him to be discharged from both obligations.
Types of Moral Dilemmas

•A World-imposed moral dilemma, on the other hand, means that certain events in the world place the
agent in a situation of moral conflict. William Styron’s famous Sophie’s Choice is a classic example.
“Sophie Zawistowska has been asked to choose which of her two children, Eva or Jan, will be sent to the
gas chamber in Auschwitz. An SS doctor, Fritz Jemand von Niemand, will grant a dispensation to only
one of Sophie’s children. If she does not choose which one should live, Dr. von Niemand will send both
to their death. Sophie chooses her daughter Eva to go to the gas chamber. Her son, Jan, is sent to the
Children’s Camp.”
Types of Moral Dilemmas

Obligation dilemmas are situations in which more than one feasible action is obligatory, while prohibition
dilemmas involve cases in which all feasible actions are forbidden. The famous “Sartre’s Student” is a
classic example. It reads:

The famous Sophie’s Choice, as mentioned above, is a classic example of prohibition dilemmas.
Types of Moral Dilemmas

Single agent dilemma, the agent “ought, all things considered, to do A, ought, all things considered, to do
B, and she cannot do both A and B”. In other words, the moral agent is compelled to act on two or more
equally the same moral options but she cannot choose both. For instance, a medical doctor found out that
her patient has HIV. For sure, the medical doctor may experience tension between the legal requirement to
report the case and the desire to respect confidentiality, although the medical code of ethics acknowledges
our obligation to follow legal requirements and to intervene to protect the vulnerable.
Types of Moral Dilemmas

In multi-person dilemma, on the other hand, “…the situation is such that one agent, P1, ought to do A, a second
agent, P2, ought to do B, and though each agent can do what he ought to do, it is not possible both for P1 to do A
and P2 to do B.”
According to Benjiemen Labastin, “the multi-person does not inasmuch as agents X, Y and Z may possibly have
chosen conflicting moral choices – that is, person X chooses A instead of B and C and person Y chooses B instead
of A and C, so on and so forth. The multi-person dilemma occurs in situations that involve several persons like a
family, an organization, or a community who is expected to come up with consensual decision on a moral issue at
hand. A family may be torn between choosing to terminate or prolong the life of a family member. An organization
may have to choose between complying with the wage law by cutting its workforce or by retaining its current
workforce by paying them below the required minimum wage. The multi-person dilemma requires more than
choosing what is right, it also entails that the persons involved reached a general consensus. In such a manner, the
moral obligation to do what is right becomes more complicated. On the one hand, the integrity of the decision
ought to be defended on moral grounds. And the decision must also prevent the organization from breaking apart.
 THANK YOU!
Prof. PASTOR B. MENDEZ, I
Social Science Department