Have you ever felt that there were two (or more) things that you should do, but that you couldn't do both, and that there was no good way to decide which thing was more important? Chances are, you were experiencing an ethical or moral dilemma.
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These dilemmas can sometime be heart-wrenching and traumatic. In the novel & film, Sophie's Choice, a mother has to choose which of her children will live, and which will die at the hands of her Nazi captors (this is reputed to have been inspired by a real event, but I need to re-read at least one Hannah Arendt book to track this down). More recently, and most certainly outside of fiction, a mother caught in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami had to make a tough decision on which of her children she would try to save when the wave hit.
More modestly, the conflict between professional or legal obligations, and a person's own moral standards is a common source of seemingly intractable ethical problems. Teachers may feel more or less morally obligated to punish misbehaving children than they are expected/required to. Police officers may arrest people for breaking laws they don't feel reflect their personal sense of justice. Even people working in retail might feel that they should tell a customer to not purchase something, (or at least not try to up-sell) - at the same time as feeling that they are equally good reasons to maximise the sale.
Despite what utilitarians and fans of Kant will tell you, I don't think there is a single easy formula for figuring out what to do in these tricky situations. But there are a few things you can keep in mind.
Is it really a dilemma? Are you really equally obligated to do choose both option, or is it just a hard decision?
What is causing the dilemma? What historical events or past decisions have led to you being caught between competing obligations? Is there someway to address the root cause? Maybe you'll figure out a new angle on the problem and find a good solution. But even if it doesn't get you out of your current bind, it will help you, and others, avoid it in future. It's a pet theory of mine that serious ethical dilemmas and conflicts are preceded by other moral failures or injustices - though as the tsunami example shows, this may not always be an injustice you can do anything about.
Can I actually do both things? If yes, then great! If not, then don't be too hard on yourself. There's a slogan attributed to Kant - 'should implies can'. As I've mentioned previously, this means that if you can't do something, you can't be morally obligated to do it. So, if you have two mutually exclusive and equally weighted options, know this: You might be in a crappy situation, but if you choose one option, you've done all you could. Demanding more than that is emotionally appealing, but you aren't doing the wrong thing by failing to do the impossible.
Much of the recent research I've read lately - most notably Meira Levinson's work on educational ethics - seems to say the best thing people can do is think about and talk through examples of dilemmas that are found in their professional context. This is supposed to help you develop an eye for the nuance of difficult moral situations, as well as an overall heuristic for dealing with them. I'm keen to test Levinson's ideas, but I can't see how familiarity with potential problems and giving your brain a workout is bad advice.
That, for the moment, is as good as my general advice on these decisions gets: Try to figure out if the choices really are equally good/bad, investigate what might have caused them, don't be too hard on yourself, and try to familiarise yourself with potential dilemmas relevant to your work/professional situation.
As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to leave feedback/questions - including ethical dilemmas you might have found yourself in - in the comments below.
I've had a few ethical dilemmas when I was working in heavy industry (back in the days when Australia actually had heavy industry).
One time was when I was working as a contractor at BHP in the coke ovens, it was one of the most toxic volatile environments I've ever experienced.
We had to have a supervisor with a CO monitor with us at all times and if the monitor hit 50ppm from memory (this was nearly 30 years so I could be off with that figure) the directive was to stop whatever you are doing and GTFO as quick as possible.
So we were working away and the monitor hit about 110 ppm, so we all made a bee line for the nearest exit & I turned back to see my workmate laying unconscious on the floor where the gas was.
I knew it would cost me my job but I just couldn't walk away and let him die, so I went back, picked him up and carried him out. Then I pumped a few breaths into him to get him breathing again.
Within ten minutes I was dragged into the office for an official reprimand and kicked off the site. The company copped a massive fine and made a loss on the job we were doing. So I was basically a dead man walking with that company from that point on.
As far as dilemmas go that's the worst one I've had in terms of the consequences but in another respect it wasn't a dilemma at all. Knowing the consequences I'd do it again in a heart beat.
Reprimanded for saving a life, what is wrong with this world?
Steam roller inspectors is the term I believe Larry Hannigan would use.
The parable of the Steam Roller
I did have a long reply to this, but managed to thrash my bandwith through over enthusiasm and HD photos in my posts. Will post my a decent response later today.
That's cool @samueldouglas
I just wanted to point out that people in non-professional fields are faced with ethical dilemmas too. More mundane dilemmas are often overlooked in discussions like this and the discussion is normally confined to professional ethics.
I hope I didn't lower the key of the discussion too much. I'll go back to my box now :)
No problem - I use the term 'professional' very loosely. And there's nothing mundane about making a snap decision to save someone's life.
Interesting read thanks @samueldouglas
Fortunately for me I haven't had to make such a drastic decision. Not that it hasn't crossed into my mind as being deeply concerning. I have grandchildren that often come over on the weekend. All of them seven and under. Usually we pile up blankets on the floor and they camp out in the living room and I will sleep on the couch. One night they all fell asleep in my bed and I tried to sleep on a sliver of space left but it was too unbearable so I slept on the floor of the bedroom. I couldn't even imagine being put in a situation of which ones I'd save if a fire broke out and they were dispersed in different rooms, just having to be in the thought process is scary enough for me. I know I'd want to go down trying to save them all then to live with constant nagging of my conscious as to whether if I had did this or that or if I had just died myself attempting to get one more out could I have.
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
One of the points I wanted to make re: @khufu's comment (before I used all my bandwidth) applies here: in emergency situations, you don't have time to do detailed & fiddly analysis!
I understood that. Because we lack that opportunity was why I reflected back upon the aftermath thought process that would take place and the bothering of one's conscious....the if's, if's, if's.
I think that's why it's so important to tell people that they did all they could. I know it seems like a no-brainer, but difficult decisions are bad enough without people putting unrealistic expectations on each other or themselves. That, and I'm pretty sure we can train ourselves to better deal with the situations if they arise (but that's a convo for another day). Thanks again for the replies.
My ethical dilemma is whether or not I should study in ethics.
I see ethics as the evil twin to rationality and logic, which really hurts me personally. Ever since the idea of ethos, pathos, and logos in writing classes, we know that emotions are the hardest hitting. When the emotions come flooding in, we tend to do what we feel is right through some sort of self-justification, even if those justifications are not rational. This plays a huge role in why it is so difficult to explain to others why your moral position is "right". Whether it be deontological ethics, utilitarianism, or some other moral code, we always find ourselves in tough situations.
I do believe everything tends to have a rational solution, but whether or not we take it is a whole different choice. Ethics lets people point fingers too easily, which I guess, goes against my own ethics. Quite ironic if you ask me.
There are a lot of reasons to study ethics - not least that you need it to be a well-rounded philosopher; having more than one are of competence is a plus for future employment too.
I understand your reticence. The first few years of my undergraduate degree I wasn't a fan of ethics - I couldn't see how it could ever lead to precise answers. But I think now that I was missing the point. Most ethics specialists (other than possibly Peter Singer) admit that it's a complicated things and there are no easy answers. Ideally, I think the study of ethics can help encourage the development of phronesis - practical wisdom, though you should avoid letting logic blindly override the context of the society that you're in. Learning to take a step back from these decisions is a good thing, and I wish more people could learn that skill.
Most of all, I guess I've come to accept the view of many philosophers, not least my PhD co-supervisor Joe Mintoff, that the study of ethics isn't always about coming to absolutely correct views, sometimes it's about coming to relatively better ones. (You'd probably enjoy talking to Joe - he started off as a computer scientist before taking up philosophy, and is a pretty good logician besides).
There's never any easy answers to any dilemma, I think some people follow different schools of thought almost to the point of dogmatism.
Those in the Kant camp seem to have very polarising ideals (either you can or can't) where those in the Levinson camp see things in different shades of grey depending on the situation.
I'm still debating whether I should have put my cat in a box and if I should open the box to see if it's still alive. So I can't really give a valid opinion until I've opened the box to see.
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"Serious ethical dilemmas and conflicts are preceded by other moral failures or injustices"
Hi, great article, and I completely agree with the above statement.
If I may add a moral dilemma I faced while living in a condominio. I had a pet cat, so did others, but sometimes they urinated and deficated in the childrens sand pit in the community playground. Cats are curious and independent creatures they like to explore. Locking them inside a house all day is cruel and in my opinion violates their animals rights. On the other hand, by allowing my cat outside I knew there was a probability that it would damage community property and pose a health risk to the children. As my pet cat, its actions were my responsabilty and I had no right to damage property and increase the risk of harming others.
So I had a moral dilemma between treating an animal ethically and treating my fellow humans ethically.
Now one solution would be that I accompany the cat every time it exits the house, but due to my laziness, carelessness, and selfishness, etc, my moral failings, I did not accompany my cat. Either did the other cat owners.
To be fair, the moral failing might not be yours as such. Why build condo's in such a way that children and cat's can't coexist? I mean - lots of people have cats, and lots of people have children...
Fair point. Perhaps a cage around the sand pit would work. However maybe the fundamental moral failing or injustice is the domestication of animals. Maybe "owning" a pet is immoral in itself ? It violates the golden rule "do unto others..." unless that is we ourselves would desire to be owned by another being. Now if on the otherhand a stray cat not owned by anyone did his thing in the sand pit then nothing immoral is taking place. Ownership entails responsibility.
i often find myself in a pinch similar to this often because of limited time. I don't stress on it too much. My solution. I trust in my path. What is happening now is minor in the collective of things so as long as you're working towards something you believe in you're ok and it will work out so no need to worry.