Ethics Reviewer: Moral Dilemmas Quiz

Moral Dilemmas

• A situation in which a tough choice must be made between two or more options, especially more or less equally undesirable ones
• A temporary situation that questions the morals of a person, requiring them to choose one moral that overrules another

Types of Moral Dilemmas

• Epistemic and Ontological Dilemmas
  • Epistemic Dilemma: involves situations where there are two or more moral requirements that conflict with each other
  • Ontological Moral Dilemma: involves two or more moral requirements, yet neither of these conflicting requirements overrides each other
• Self-Imposed and World-Imposed Dilemmas
  • Self Imposed Moral Dilemma: caused by a moral agent's wrongdoings
  • World Imposed Moral Dilemma: certain events in the world place the moral agent in a situation of moral conflict
• Obligation and Prohibition Dilemmas
  • Obligation Dilemma: involves more than one feasible action as obligatory
  • Prohibition Dilemma: all feasible actions are forbidden
• Single Agent and Multi Person Dilemmas
  • Single Agent: the agent "ought, all things considered to do A, ought, things considered to do B, and she cannot do both A and B"
  • Multi-person Dilemma: there are many agents involved

Complex Situations Leading to Moral Dilemmas

• The problem of Vagueness
• The problem of conflicting reasons
• The problem of disagreement

Key Features of Moral Dilemma

• There are two or more actions that can be possibly done
• There is a moral reason/s for doing such action
• You cannot do all the possible actions presented to you, thus you have to choose one

Levels of Dilemma

• Individual Dilemma
• Organizational Dilemma
• Structural Dilemma

Moral and Non-Moral Standards

• Moral standards: standard by which we compare human actions to determine their goodness or badness
• Refers to the norms which we have about the types of action which we believe to be morally acceptable and unacceptable

Characteristics of Moral Standard

• Moral standards involve serious wrongs or significant benefits
• Moral standards ought to be preferred to other values
• Moral standards are not established by authority figures
• Moral standards have the trait of universalizability
• Moral standards are based on impartial (impartiality) considerations
• Moral standards are associated with special emotions and vocabulary

Golden Rule and Impartiality

• Golden Rule: "Do unto others what you would them do unto you"
• Impartiality: usually depicted as being free of bias or prejudice, requires morally equal and or adequate consideration to the interests of all the parties involved