Concept
Ethical dilemma
Overview
In philosophy, an ethical dilemma, also called an ethical paradox or moral dilemma, is a situation in which two or more conflicting moral imperatives, none of which overrides the other, confront an agent. A closely related definition characterizes an ethical dilemma as a situation in which every available choice is wrong. The term is also used in a wider sense in everyday language to refer to ethical conflicts that may be resolvable, to psychologically difficult choices or to other types of difficult ethical problems.
This article concerns ethical dilemmas in the strict philosophical sense, often referred to as genuine ethical dilemmas. Various examples have been proposed but there is disagreement as to whether these constitute genuine or merely apparent ethical dilemmas. The central debate around ethical dilemmas concerns the question of whether there are any. Defenders often point to apparent examples while their opponents usually aim to show their existence contradicts very fundamental ethical principles. Ethical dilemmas come in various types. An important distinction concerns the difference between epistemic dilemmas, which give a possibly false impression to the agent of an unresolvable conflict, and actual or ontological dilemmas. There is broad agreement that there are epistemic dilemmas but the main interest in ethical dilemmas takes place on the ontological level. Traditionally, philosophers held that it is a requirement for good moral theories to be free from ethical dilemmas. But this assumption has been questioned in contemporary philosophy.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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I like your courage, he said, in reminding us of this. But you do not observe that there is a difference in the two cases. For then we were speaking of opposites in the concrete, and now of the essential opposite which, as is affirmed, neither in us nor in nature can ever be at variance with itself; then, my friend, we were speaking of things in which opposites are inherent and which are called after them, but now…
Plato, The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2
States what Ethical dilemma is; the author is tied to Ethical dilemma in the knowledge graph.
It would seem, also, though this is more disputable, that there are some self-evident ethical principles, such as 'we ought to pursue what is good'. It should be observed that, in all cases of general principles, particular instances, dealing with familiar things, are more evident than the general principle. For example, the law of contradiction states that nothing can both have a certain property and not have it…
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy
States what Ethical dilemma is.
But one is nevertheless justified in making a great difference between the necessity which constrains the wise to do good, and which is termed moral, existing even in relation to God, and that blind necessity whereby according to Epicurus, Strato, Spinoza, and perhaps Mr. Hobbes, things exist without intelligence and without choice, and consequently without God. Indeed, there would according to them be no need of…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
States what Ethical dilemma is.
Philosophers who discussed Ethical dilemma
Related ideas
- Philosophy
- Jean-Paul Sartre
- W. D. Ross
- Obligation
- Ontology
- Plato
- Utilitarianism
- Contemporary philosophy
- Ought implies can
Place in the tradition
Part of Aesthetics.