Moral Dilemmas

Nature and Types of Moral Dilemmas

A moral dilemma is a situation in which an agent seems bound by two or more conflicting moral requirements, and satisfying one requirement necessarily involves violating another. In such cases, every available course of action appears to be morally problematic, raising questions about moral conflict, responsibility, and the structure of ethical theories.

Philosophers often distinguish several types:

• Obligation vs. obligation dilemmas: An agent is required to do A and required to do B, but cannot do both (e.g., keeping two incompatible promises).
• Obligation vs. prohibition dilemmas: An agent is required to perform an action that is also prohibited under another moral rule.
• Self-imposed vs. circumstantial dilemmas: Some dilemmas emerge from an agent’s earlier choices (e.g., overpromising), while others arise from factors beyond their control (e.g., natural disasters, war).

Another important distinction is between apparent and genuine moral dilemmas. Apparent dilemmas are thought to arise from incomplete information or mistaken moral beliefs; once clarified, the conflict dissolves. Genuine dilemmas, if they exist, would involve inherent, irresolvable moral conflict even with full knowledge and ideal reasoning.

Classic Examples and Their Functions

Philosophers and ethicists use thought experiments and real-world cases to illuminate the structure of moral dilemmas:

• The trolley problem: A runaway trolley threatens to kill five people on the main track; diverting it onto a side track will kill one. This scenario explores conflicts between consequentialist reasoning (minimize total harm) and deontological constraints (do not intentionally harm an innocent person).
• Lifeboat and triage cases: When resources such as seats on a lifeboat or medical supplies are insufficient for all, decision-makers must choose whom to save, seemingly violating a duty to aid each person equally.
• Conflicting promises: An agent promises two different friends to be in two places at the same time. Each promise creates a moral obligation, but both cannot be fulfilled.
• Role conflicts: A judge who discovers that their own child is guilty of a crime faces a tension between impartial professional duty and special parental obligations.

These cases serve several functions in moral philosophy:

1. Testing ethical theories: A moral theory is partly evaluated by how plausibly it explains or resolves dilemmas.
2. Clarifying concepts: Dilemmas sharpen concepts like duty, permission, supererogation (actions above and beyond duty), and moral residue.
3. Examining moral psychology: They reveal how agents experience guilt, regret, or moral distress even when they have done what they take to be the “least wrong” action.

Philosophical Debates About Moral Conflict

A central controversy concerns whether genuine moral dilemmas can exist within a coherent moral theory.

1. The denial of genuine dilemmas

Some theorists, including many in classical utilitarian and certain Kantian traditions, maintain that a sound moral theory must be complete and consistent: for every situation, there is a single action that is morally required overall. On this view:

• Conflicts of duties are merely prima facie; one duty is ultimately stronger or more fundamental.
• Apparent dilemmas reflect epistemic limits (lack of information, confusion about facts) or theory limits (imprecise principles) rather than real incompatibility.
• Once all morally relevant facts and principles are correctly weighed, there is a determinate all-things-considered right action.

Proponents argue that allowing genuine dilemmas would undermine standards of moral guidance and rational choice, and might make agents blameworthy whatever they do.

2. The acceptance of genuine dilemmas

Other philosophers argue that some conflicts are irreducible:

• Certain duties (e.g., to a child vs. to a stranger, or to justice vs. mercy) may be incommensurable, lacking a single scale for ranking them.
• Even after ideal reflection, an agent may confront situations where no option fully satisfies all valid moral claims.
• The persistence of moral residue—lasting guilt, regret, or a sense of having wronged someone even after choosing the best available option—is taken as evidence that multiple, genuine obligations were present.

Supporters of this view contend that recognizing genuine dilemmas better captures moral experience and acknowledges the tragic dimensions of ethical life, where structural conditions (e.g., war, oppression, scarce resources) can force morally costly choices.

3. The role of moral residue and responsibility

A related debate concerns how to understand responsibility and blame in dilemma cases:

• Some accounts hold that if an agent faces a true dilemma, they cannot be fully blameworthy, since ought implies can: if it was impossible to fulfill all obligations, they cannot be required to do so.
• Others suggest agents can incur distributed or partial blame or bear a form of tragic moral remainder, where regret and apology are appropriate even when the agent has chosen the best option available.

Moral dilemmas thus occupy a central place in contemporary ethics. They are used to probe the internal consistency of moral theories, the limits of rational choice, and the way human moral life involves navigating conflicts that may be only partially resolvable, if at all.