Lecture 7 Moral Dilemma PDF

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Moral DilemmasDilemma- a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or morealternatives, especially equally undesirable ones.Objectives Explain moral dilemma as a moral experience  Distinguish between a moral dilemma and a false dilemmaUnit 01 Meaning of Moral Dilemma “The re...

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Moral Dilemmas Dilemma- a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones. Objectives  

Explain moral dilemma as a moral experience Distinguish between a moral dilemma and a false dilemma

Unit 01 Meaning of Moral Dilemma “The reason most of us go to the movies is to be involved in someone else's moral dilemma." Tom Hanks Example The Pregnant Lady and the Dynamite A pregnant woman leading a group of five people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless she is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the woman, whose head is out of the cave. Fortunately, (or unfortunately,) someone has with him a stick of dynamite. There seems no way to get the pregnant woman loose without using the dynamite which will inevitably kill her; but if they do not use it everyone else will drown. What should they do? Info   

What would you do if you were one of the men? Explain why you decided to act that way. The situation you went through is a moral dilemma. What then is a moral dilemma? Is finding yourself in a moral dilemma, a moral experience? Why or why not?

Moral Dilemma Ethical dilemma/ Ethical Paradox It is a problem in the decision-making between two possible options, neither of which is absolutely acceptable from an ethical perspective. What Is an Ethical Dilemma? There are three conditions that must be present for a situation to be considered an ethical dilemma.  The first condition occurs in situations when an individual, called the “agent,” must make a decision about which course of action is best. Situations that are uncomfortable but that don’t require a choice are not ethical dilemmas.  The second condition for ethical dilemma is that there must be different courses of action to choose from.

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Third, in an ethical dilemma, no matter what course of action is taken, some ethical principle is compromised. In other words, there is no perfect solution.

Info This means that moral dilemmas are situations where two or more moral values or duties make demands on the decision-maker, who can only honor one of them, and thus will violate at least one important moral concern, no matter what he or she decides to do (or even not to do). Moral dilemmas present situations where the tension between moral values and duties that are more or less of equal footing. The decision-maker has to choose between a wrong and another wrong. The decision-maker is in a deadlock.

In the Case of the Pregnant Lady and the Dynamite There were two options  Use the dynamite and kill the pregnant woman but save the other five Or  Don't use the dynamite and all the 5 will get drowned except the pregnant woman whose head is out. Info What would you do?

To have a genuine dilemma One of the conflicting solutions must not override the other. For instance, "... the requirement to protect others from serious harm overrides the requirement to repay one's debts by returning a borrowed item when its owner so demands." Hence,..."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 in overridden" (McConnell, T. 2019). This means that none of the conflicting requirements in solved by the other. The persons involved are in a deadlock. They find themselves in a "damned-if-you-do and damn-if-you-don’t “situation.

Info Shortly before the Passover of 32 C.E., Herod arranges a large celebration for his birthday. All of Herod’s top-ranking officials and army officers, as well as the leading citizens of Galilee, assemble for the party. During the festivities, Salome, the young daughter of Herodias by her former husband Philip, is sent in to dance for the guests. The men are enthralled by her performance. Highly pleased with his stepdaughter, Herod says to her: “Ask me for whatever you want, and I will give it to you.” He even swears: “Whatever you ask me for, I will give

it to you, up to half my kingdom.” Before answering, Salome goes out and says to her mother: “What should I ask for?”—Mark 6:22-24. This is the opportunity that Herodias has been seeking! “The head of John the Baptizer,” she promptly answers. Immediately, Salome comes back to Herod with her request: “I want you to give me right away on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”—Mark 6:24, 25. This greatly distresses Herod, but his guests have heard his oath to Salome. He is embarrassed not to grant it, even if this means murdering an innocent man. Hence, Herod sends a bodyguard to the prison with the grisly instructions. Soon the bodyguard returns with John’s head on a platter. He gives it to Salome, who takes it to her mother. The King had inadvertently designed a moral trap for himself, a dilemma where whatever he decided to do would be morally wrong. What would you have done? Can one of the choices override the other? How about the dilemma brought about by the pandemic? The Trolley Problem The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics about a fictional scenario in which an onlooker has the choice to save 5 people in danger of being hit by a trolley, by diverting the trolley to kill just 1 person. The term is often used more loosely with regard to any choice that seemingly has a trade-off between what is good and what sacrifices are "acceptable," if at all. The Burger Murders You founded a company that manufactures meatless burgers that are sold in stores worldwide. But you’ve recently received awful news: three people in one city died after eating your burgers. A criminal has injected poison into your product! The deaths are headline news and sales have plummeted. How do you deal with the crisis? George Siedel and Christine Ladwig explore the different strategies of this ethical dilemma. Meaning of a False Moral Dilemma On the other hand, a false dilemma is a situation where the decision-maker has a moral duty to do one thing, but is tempted or under pressure to do something else. A false dilemma is a choice between a right and a wrong. For example a lawyer or an accountant can face an opportunity to prioritize self-interest over the client's interest. Info Sometimes called the “either-or” fallacy, a false dilemma is a logical fallacy that presents only two options or sides when there are many options or sides. Essentially, a false dilemma presents a “black and white” kind of thinking when there are actually many shades of gray. Person 1:

You’re either for the war or against the troops. Person 2: Actually, I do not want our troops sent into a dangerous war. What to Do when Faced with a Moral Dilemma Ultimately, dilemmas are conflicts in the application of moral standards. The question is which moral standards must be followed? In a state of emergency, necessity demands no moral law. You have to decide on your best judgment or choose based on the principle of lesser evil or greater good or urgency. Info TEST YOURSELF: Are the following moral dilemmas? 1. Taking Credit for Other's Work in Order to be Promoted 2. Manufacturing and Distributing Fake Drugs for Profit 3. Offering a Client a Worse Product for Bigger Profit 4. Utilizing inside Knowledge for your Own Profit Quality Education to the Poor Info The Mission of Catholic School A is to serve the poor by giving quality education. It is torn between the obligation to charge low tuition to help the poor and to pay better salaries to keep quality teachers. Heinz's Dilemma Info A woman was on her deathbed. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not? Community Participation Info A principal ought to welcome and encourage parents and community participation in school affairs. Based on her experience, parents and community are passive and so the principal always ends up deciding and doing things just the same. She is obliged to observe parents and community participation which does not give any input at all at the same time she is obliged to accomplish on time. Individual

Individual - conflict arrives when a person is asked to choose between two important values for him or her for example, choosing between one’s duties to his or her family one’s love for another person. Organizational Organizational - encountered by institutions, business, or organizations in their decision-making process, at this level the dilemmas that the organizations’ experiences usually affect more than one person and they can be part of the internal group or part of an external stakeholder. Structural Structural - affect a network of institutions and operative theoretical paradigms like universal care, juvenile laws, and immigration. this type of dilemma can affect a community and even a society at large. Differentiation versus Integration Gaps versus Overlaps Underuse versus Overload Lack of Clarity versus Lack of Creativity Excessive Autonomy versus Excessive Interdependence Too Loose versus Too Tight Flexibility versus Strict Adherence to Rules Goalless versus Goal bound Irresponsible versus Unresponsive Centralized vs Decentralized Structural Dilemma in WORLD ORGANIZATIONS like the UN Resolving Moral Dilemmas Philippa Foot was an Oxford-trained philosopher who argued for a neoethics as Aristotelian virtue opposed to deontology, utilitarianism, or consequentialism in ethics. Foot created the famous moral thought experiment known as the trolley problem. In 1957 she wrote an article in The Philosophical Review entitled "Free Will As Involving Determinism." Foot criticized arguments that free will requires determinism, and in particular the idea that one could not be held responsible for " chance" actions chosen for no particular reason. Her article begins with the observation that determinism has become widely accepted as compatible with free will. The idea that free will can be reconciled with the strictest determinism is now very widely accepted. To say that a man acted freely is, it is often suggested, to say that he was not constrained, or that he could have done otherwise if he had chosen, or something else of that kind; and since these things could be true even if his action was determined it seems that there could be room for free will even within a universe completely subject to causal laws. (The Philosophical Review, vol LXVI, (1957), p.439) "It may seem that the only way to make a necessary connexion between 'injury' and the things that are to be avoided, is to say that it is only used in an 'action-guiding sense' when applied to something the speaker intends to avoid. But

we should look carefully at the crucial move in that argument, and query the suggestion that someone might happen not to want anything for which he would need the use of hands or eyes. Hands and eyes, like ears and legs, play a part in so many operations that a man could only be said not to need them if he had no wants at all.” -Philippa Foot...