Do genuine or real (rather than prima facie) moral dilemmas exist?
Moral dilemmas are states of affairs in which an agent ought morally to adopt each of two
alternatives but cannot adopt both simultaneously. The “ought” term corresponds to the relevant
moral reason for adopting the alternative. This definition is provisional: because an answer to the
essay title/question turns completely on the definition given, answer and definition must be
provided together, i.e., in defining the dilemma we make the very case for its existence.
Answering positively admits a deep incongruity within our ethical theories and, more
importantly, our logic; answering negatively fails to acknowledge sufficiently our intuitions
about an imperfect world. This essay acknowledges these sentiments and argues that the debate
on moral dilemmas cannot be settled by appealing to the logic of deontic concepts, but rather to
the nature of morality.1
In this order, I will first give two paradigmatic examples of moral dilemmas in which to
frame the rest of the essay; second, I will define and argue the terms for irreducible moral
dilemmas, rejecting rationalist arguments; afterwards, I will propound a positive argument
explaining why these dilemmas are genuine, combining the literature on a plurality of conflicting
values with the literature on moral residue; along the way I will answer any strong objections to
my claims. I will then conclude.
Ancient Greek poems and tragedies give us numerous examples of putative moral
dilemmas. Whilst attempting to take back the abducted Helen, the woman whose face “launched
a thousand ships,” Agamemnon and his huge fleet of Greek troops set for Troy were becalmed
by the god Artemis. A prophet declared that no wind would arise, that the fleet couldn’t sail,
unless Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, to Artemis. Agamemnon ought to both
lead his troops against Troy, and ought not to kill his daughter. It is a dilemma because adopting
one alternative means excluding the other. Defining the dilemma, it’s possible for the “ought” to
be reformulated, in explaining certain dilemmas, as “ought not.”2
In Styron’s Sophie’s Choice we find another example of a moral dilemma. Here the
agent, Sophie, has to choose, upon entering Auschwitz, which one of her two children will live,
1
2
Peter Vallentyne, “Two Types of Moral Dilemmas”, Erkenntnis (1989), Vol (30), 317
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), 5
1
and which one will die. The drunken, Nazi doctor who presents Sophie this choice also tells her
that if she does not choose both children will die. We have a dilemma because Sophie ought to
protect both of her children but is forced to choose one whom will be killed. Defining the
dilemma, it could be said that Sophie’s dilemma arose due to contingent features of the world
i.e., the Nazi occupation.3
The standard way to resist these putative dilemmas is to let your ethical theory reduce the
apparency of conflict to the reality of a lack of conflict. Deontologists and consequentialists both
posit an ability to reduce the apparent dilemma to simple moral conflict or even a lack of conflict
whatsoever.
For example, Kant thought that moral dilemmas were inconceivable; if something is a
moral necessity, to do A, then it cannot also be a duty to do something incompatible with A.4
Depending on what your absolute morality entails, you would simply make the choice of one of
the two alternatives; there are no conflicting obligations, only conflicting grounds for
obligation.5 Kant’s preferred alternative would be the one with stronger grounds for obligation.6
A utilitarian theory would weigh the two alternatives in order of the respective amounts
of happiness/good/utility/preference-satisfaction they would create, and then choose the
alternative which maximises this good. To paraphrase Mill, unequivocal cases of conflicting
obligation do arise, but, if utility is the ultimate source of moral obligations, utility may be
invoked to decide between them when their demands are incompatible.7
Agamemnon, if he subscribed to a deontology which ranks his martial duties above his
familial duties, then, is free to sacrifice his daughter; likewise, if he acted to maximise utility, he
might have chosen to spare his daughter, under the idea that overall utility would be greater this
way. Crucially, Agamemnon commits no wrong, but this idea conflicts with our intuitions about
his situation; the opposition between our intuitions and rationalist theories is where the
theoretical debate gestates.
3
Christopher W. Gowans, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 3
4
Immanuel Kant, “Moral Duties” in Gowans, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 6
Kant, 39
5
6
Kant, 40
7
John Stuart Mill, “Utilitarianism and Moral Conflicts” in Gowans, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 54-5
2
I fully endorse the view that there are specific conditions of dilemmas which render the
above ethical systems unable to reduce the dilemma to conflict; sometimes, moral requirements
cannot be overridden. Sinnott-Armstong codified these as the conditions of symmetry and
incomparability. For Sophie, there is no morally relevant difference between her two children;
she is obligated (because they will both die if she does not choose) to adopt from two identical
options; her choice is morally symmetrical. Answering the epistemological/ontological
distinction and objection, the point isn’t just that Sophie doesn’t know which alternative is
stronger, it’s that there is in fact no morally relevant difference between the alternatives.8 Our
theories of morality, as stated above, do not seem to have a sufficient system for ranking this
dilemma’s alternatives.
The common response to this argument is to argue that the requirement is simply
disjunctive. For Sophie, she should act to save either one of her children, for that is the best she
can do.9 I do not believe this response sufficiently addresses the real concern with moral
dilemmas.
First, there are non-disjunctive moral requirements not to choose each child. Sophie
would still be cooperating in one child’s murder, and crucially, Sophie’s choice still makes a
difference. She is not choosing between notes in her wallet, she is acting on non-interchangeable
alternatives. These non-disjunctive requirements are not overridden by the disjunctive
requirement.10 The moral duty, stemming from her parental role, equally applied to both
children, does not disappear with the necessity of the situation; Sophie is a parent always. To
take Gowans’ line, in acting for the best we still choose an evil, and in this sense do something
wrong.11
Second, there will always be possible choice situations in which no action is permissible.
Consider Vallentyne’s sexist-club rules: firstly, a rule prohibiting men from sitting when a
woman is in the club; secondly, a rule prohibiting men from being in any position other than a
8
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, “Moral Dilemmas and Incomparability”, in American Philosophical Quarterly (1985),
Vol (22): 321-9
9
McConnell, Terrance, "Moral Dilemmas", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/moral-dilemmas/>
10
Sinnott-Armstrong, “Moral Dilemmas and Incomparability”, in American Philosophical Quarterly (1985), Vol
(22): 326
11
Christopher W. Gowans, Innocence Lost, (Oxford: OUP, 1994), 3
3
sitting position when a woman is in the club. Suppose the first rule is replaced by the second but
not repealed and member’s habits are forgotten. Then, in the club, whenever a man is in the
presence of a woman, he is prohibited from every positional action. The point is that these rules
do not issue contradictory directives. They merely prohibit everything in that choice situation. 12 I
agree with Vallentyne that token prohibition dilemmas, and quasi-obligation dilemmas, are
conceptually possible then, for at least some normative situations, like the club above. Sophie’s
choice is another prime example.
Sinnott-Armstrong’s second feature was that of incomparability. Giving the example of
the incomparability of death and pain, he argued that it’s implausible to insist that death must
equal an exact amount of pain, and that this inexactness “can explain how a moral requirement of
one kind can be comparable with some but not all moral requirements.” Intuitively,
incomparability features (non-morally) in our everyday lives; for Agamemnon, the utterly
incomparable duty to his daughter and the duty to sack Troy, meant moral dilemma. I agree with
Sinnott-Armstrong’s conclusion that limited incomparability among moral requirements is a
possibility and therefore that moral dilemmas are possible.
Sophie and Agamemnon experience moral conflicts displaying these properties; they
experience a lack of an overriding moral requirement. And because there is a lack of an
overriding moral requirement, the putative moral dilemma cannot be reduced to a resolvable
moral conflict. And so I choose to strengthen the definition of a genuine or real moral dilemma
to an irresolvable situation where moral requirements of alternatives conflict, neither is
overridden in any morally relevant way, and the agent cannot adopt both alternatives together but
only each separately.13
A combination of counterfactual reasoning, in which subjunctive conditionals illustrate
mutually exclusive alternatives, and the lack of an overriding moral requirement seems to posit
the existence of moral dilemmas as defined above. Some strong rationalists however, Kantians
and latter-day rationalists, have rejected the very admittance of counterfactuals, specifically from
fiction, in resolving the ontological question at hand. 14 Mothersill likened the giving of fictional
12
Vallentyne, 7
13
Sinnott-Armstrong, Moral Dilemmas, 23
14
Mothersill, 69
4
examples to G.E. Moore’s proof of an external world.15 I disagree; the widespread, legitimate
use of counterfactual conditionals in analytic philosophy, and Sinnot-Armstrong’s conditions,
entails moral dilemmas which are not simply conceivable, but moral dilemmas as facts of life to
be reckoned and wrestled with. The issue is whether there are or can be genuine dilemmas.16 The
theorists which do indeed answer the challenge of our fictional counterfactuals, do so only to
refuse to acknowledge these cases as moral dilemmas. These rationalists17 instead claim that
agents like Agamemnon and Sophie are simply caught in an apparent or prima facie dilemma,
and that, once various confusions have been resolved, the dilemma ceases to be a dilemma.
The main reason rationalists preclude moral dilemmas, as defined above, is that not doing
so means accepting inconsistencies in our logic, namely “truisms…and paradoxes”.21 These
illogicisms are the consequence of a combination of two things: the proposition that dilemmas
exist; and the axioms of deontic consistency (If obligated to do A, then not obligated to not do A)
and deontic logic (Necessarily, if A then B, then, if obligated to do A, then obligated to do B).22
Unsurprisingly, there are problems with this logic still under construction.23 And I believe there
is a fundamental disanology between the deontic modalities of obligation, prohibition, and
permission, and the alethic modalities of necessity, impossibility, and possibility.24 Necessity
does not seem to be synonymous with obligation. There are many things besides this essay I
ought to be doing, but it does not necessarily follow that I ought to be doing all those things and
this essay; agglomeration does not seem to hold. Likewise, the “ought implies can” principle has
been questioned in its contextual use: interpretations such as “ought to do”, “ought to be”, “ought
15
Mothersill, 74
Sinnot-Armstrong, 29
17
Mary Mothersill, “The Moral Dilemmas Debate” in Mason, Moral Dilemmas and Moral Theory, (Oxford: OUP,
1996), 66
16
21
McConnell, Terrance, "Moral Dilemmas", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/moral-dilemmas/>
22
McConnell, Terrance, “Dilemmas and Consistency”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/moral-dilemmas/>
23
Mothersill, 70
24
Gowans, 23
5
to feel”, “ought to have realised” illustrate the disanology or at least the valid diversity within the
concept of modal possibility.25
Proponents of dilemmas have proffered a reformation of the axioms; opponents will
obviously drop the dilemmatic proposition; I agree with Vallentyne that deontic logic needs
revising26 and, with logicians like Aqvist, that systems of deontic logic cannot be relied upon
with confidence in the same manner as propositional logic.27 The very fact that moral dilemmas
are inconsistent with accepted principles reveals not only problems inherent with deontic logic,
but problems with the very nature of morality. Because of the aforementioned problems, and the
monist assumptions deontic logic makes, I am not positing dialetheism but agreeing with
Williams that it’s the world, not logic, which makes it impossible for both alternatives to be
satisfied. The following argument recognises this and argues that the nature of morality is that of
a plurality of values, a heterogeneity of moral worth, and that there is a contingent basis on
which these heterogenous values clash.
I believe that value pluralism is the only view which satisfies our intuitions about the
moral reality and explains the continual complexities, conflicts, and dilemmas it affords us. The
various values which we commonsensically talk about, such as happiness, freedom, friendship,
are genuinely irreducible to the super values of monist theories.28 This view was made explicit
by Nagel when he rejected that the source of value was unitary and that this only displays
multiplicity. There exists a nigh infinite list of obligations, rights, utility, perfectionist ends, and
private commitments which inevitably come into conflict with one another.
Nagel gives the example of perfectionist and utilitarian values which, being formally
different, are concerned with levels of achievement and not spread of achievement.29
Berlin talked of “collisions of value...of the essence of what they are and what we
are...the world in which these values are compatible, is a world beyond our ken...but it is on earth
that we live, and it is here that we must believe and act.30
25
Mothersill, 70
Vallentyne, 16
27
Gowans, “The Debate in Moral Dilemmas”, in Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987)
26
28
Elinor Mason, "Value Pluralism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta
(ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/value-pluralism/>
29
Thomas Nagel, “The Fragmentation of Value” in Gowans, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 178
6
Both authors complement well the following view. That it should be recognised within
moral theory that human beings reflect on their own distinguishing desires and interests, and on
their own actions, in their own distinct languages, behaviours, histories, rationalities.31 The clash
of values: freedom against equality; Agamemnon’s martial versus his familial duties; from the
existential challenges of Huntington's civilisations to those everyday, common of promises made
in spite of an imperfect world. As Hampshire put it, “a direct consequence of the capacity to
recognise and to name differences, a whole range of different complete lives is represented as
normal for human beings...the capacity to envisage conflicts between norms for a complete life,
conflicts of ends and values, is natural in human beings.”32
In conjunction with the problems in deontic logic, it seems entirely plausible “that there
are generically different ways in which it can come true that we ought to do something or ought
not to do something;” Lemmon refers us to the reasons of varying status or position, previous
commitments, and moral principles.33 In addition, we have many different perspectives from
which to view these values. When I make an ethical judgement on Abraham, intending to murder
his son, ignorant of future divine-intervention, am I judging him by relating to him (or Isaac, or
even God?), by extending my life through time, from every one's point of view, or from a
detached sub specie aeternitatis viewpoint?34 These complexities in human thought seem to
preclude any reductionist or monist theory. Indeed, what exactly is the moral in Abraham’s
case?35
Monist objections, often originating from the deontic and utilitarian traditions, will
continuepropounding that there is one moral super-value to which all others can be reduced to,
and to which no non-moral values can conflict with --often, a distinction is made between moral
and non-moral values. However, where a monist would see clear lines for distinguishing between
30
Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal”, in The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays, (Farrar,
Strauss and Giroux, 2000)
31
32
Stuart Hampshire, Morality and Conflict, (Cambridge: Harvard, 1984), 145
Hampshire, 145
33
E. J. Lemmon, “Moral Dilemmas” in Gowans, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987) 105
34
Nagel, 180
35
Martin Cohen, 101 Ethical Dilemmas, (London: Routledge, 2003), 61
7
moral and non-moral values, I can only see the drawing of an arbitrary line. Considering ethics
pervades every aspect of life, just where exactly should the line be drawn? Furthermore, a
distinction wouldn’t completely rule out conflicts, one of the reasons for drawing it in the first
place. Marcus argues that there can still be conflicts with one moral principle; the example he
gives is of promise-keeping two independent promises where unforeseeable circumstances have
made it impossible to keep both.36 Likewise, Sophie’s choice is immune to any distinction a
monist would make.
My second argument posits that there are phenomenological features experienced by the
agent, like deep regret, remorse, and guilt which evidence the dilemmatic proposition that the
agent is obligated to do wrong. Immediate objection is proffered that I am begging the question
as to just why “moral residue” is appropriate.37 However, I believe, like Sinnot-Armstrong, that
this objection misses the point of inference; moral residue is the best explanation of the different
intuitions about different emotions appropriate in different situations.
Gowans’ notion was that the “inescapable distress” is caused by the agent balancing, and
having to forgo, some moral responsibilities between persons.38 In Woody Allen’s Crimes and
Misdemeanours, the guilt Judah felt after making his murderous decision, was, in itself, a
punishment for the act of forsaking responsibilities to his mistress. Allen returned to this subject
again and again,39 drawing inspiration from Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov, and all four Karamazov
brothers, who are racked with regret and guilt far beyond the simple “pangs of conscience”
because of their roles in respective murders and patricide. In both cases, human relationships
entailed moral responsibilities. It’s only contingent that Judah overcomes his guilt and lives with
his crime, whilst Raskolnikov is tortured and harangued by his own conscience to a state of
confession; the guilt, in itself, however, is necessary, despite some people being able to cope
with it better than others. Indeed, an anthropological viewpoint would put these phenomena as
necessary to our moral reality. Theories which preclude dilemmas are also theories which do not
pay attention to these moral relationships of responsibility; deontologists and utilitarians both
36
Gowans, 19
37
Sinnott-Armstrong, 52
Gowans, Innocence Lost, 20
39
Jerold Abrams, “Unlimited Voyeurism and Aesthetic Self-Fashioning” in Conard and Skoble, Woody Allen and
Philosophy: You Mean My Whole Fallacy is Wrong?,(Illinois: Open Court, 2004), 113-7
38
8
agree that ultimate responsibility is to some “abstraction...whole sentient creation...the moral
law.” I believe these theories “improperly displace persons as direct objects of moral concern.”40
We are estranged from our true nature as morally related, responsible agents.
Alternatively, Williams viewed conflicts of morality as more like conflicts of desires than
conflicts of belief.41 When we yearn for sexual intimacy and our advances are spurned, “the
rejected desire is not abandoned.” Crucially, the opportunity for satisfying the desire having
irrevocably gone, it may reappear in the form of regret for what was missed.42 Therefore,
whether they work like desires or failures of responsibility to persons, Conee’s objection that
moral residues are simply facts of “rational moral psychology”43 is seemingly erroneous. Indeed,
experimental philosophy has confirmed that our ethical experience is of an irreducible plurality
of values.44
The strong objection would be to point out that although regret is a fact of life, it comes
about in all manner of situations, non-moral, and moral, and therefore that it would be useless
attempting to distinguish dilemmas with such a widespread phenomenon. This objection is
intuitive, we all make decisions we regret. There are numerous explanations of regret and residue
that are explained non-morally: regret, for the situation, for the consequences, for an ultimately
arbitrary moral code one has subscribed to which has made possible the conflict. Finally, it is
alleged that nothing rules out this “moral remainder” being only prima facie, from a duty-like
appearance, in Ross,45 or the way humans are educated to follow principles, in Hare.46 In short,
the problem seems to be that although regret seems to be important, the mere fact that there is
regret, does not prove something is regrettable.47
Despite this, when considered in combination with the prior argument, the existence of
regret as moral remainder proves that a plurality of values is operating. Because of cases in
40
Gowans, Innocence Lost, 21
41
Bernard Williams, “Ethical Consistency” in Gowans, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 115-37
42
Williams, 119
43
Earl Conee, “Against Moral Dilemmas” in Gowans, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 239-49
44
Elinor Mason, "The attraction of pluralism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/value-pluralism/>
45
David Ross, “Prima Facie Duties” in Gowens, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 83-100
46
47
R. M. Hare, “Moral Conflicts” in Gowans, Moral Dilemmas, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 205-38
Gowans, 15
9
which one might feel regret for doing the right thing, this regret precludes the existence of a
comparable value between the alternatives; how can we regret having chosen more rather than
less of the same thing?48 Moreover, the phenomenon of regret, guilt, all forms of remainder is
undeniable. Monism cannot accommodate this. Pluralism explains the phenomenological
remainder; we can regret not having chosen something which, though less “good,” was
different.49 There is indeed a pluralism of values operating on agents.
Indeed, as Nussbaum pointed out, a lack of this remainder seems strange and
incompatible with the “the insights of tragedy.”50 The best an agent can do is to have his
suffering, the natural expression of his goodness of character, and not to stifle these responses
out of misguided optimism. The moral reality requires an appropriate character of agent when
dealing with dilemma. Whilst “a good person will see it as what it is,”51 Agamemnon thought the
situation, once a decision had been made, was “soluble,” the competing claim counted as
nothing.52 When Agamemnon retreats from “moral conflict to moral indifference,”53 he cannot at
the same time admit that he was in a genuine conflict of moral claims. To admit that there exist
moral claims in situations of that sort is incompatible with holding moral indifference towards
those situations.54 Inherent in the definition of a moral claim is that it cannot be ignored, even
inaction is morally charged.
Gowans claimed the debate is dominated by two opposed philosophical styles: rationalist
and experientialist, mirroring the opposition and the proposition for dilemmas.55 If this is the
choice, then I side with the experientialists. In my mind, morality is always concerned with how
we treat our fellow human beings as “intrinsically and irreplaceably valuable”;56 agent-centered
48
Elinor Mason, "Value Pluralism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta
(ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/value-pluralism/>
49
Elinor Mason, "Value conflcits and rational regret", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/value-pluralism/>
50
Martha C. Nussbaum, “Aeschylus and practical conflict”, in The Fragility of Goodness, (Cambridge: CUP, 1986),
34
51
Nussbaum, 25-47
52
Nussbaum, 35
Williams, 128
54
Williams, 128
53
55
Christopher W. Gowans, “Moral Theory, Moral Dilemmas, and Moral Responsibilites” in Mason, Moral
Dilemmas and Moral Theory, (Oxford: OUP, 1996), 199
56
H. E. Mason, Moral Dilemmas and Moral Theory, (Oxford: OUP, 1996), 7
10
moral experience before the call of unified, abstract, moral theory. When the contingent features
of the world inevitably bring about the opposition of a multitude of values, rationality and
pathos, duties to his army, to his honour, to his ego, his responsibilities to his daughter, to his
family, to his family history, Agamemnon acknowledges his conflict of values. But, as I have
proved, and as the Greek chorus sings, Agamemnon, unlike Sophie, fails to acknowledge his
decisive wrong. The sacrifice of the “intrinsically and irreplaceably valuable” Iphigenia means
Agamemnon is required, not to stab out his eyes, but to allow a persistence of the rejected
alternative; to receive the dilemma and its aftermath with “constructive expression.”57
In summary, I have addressed the major concerns and put forth a strong positive
argument, combining elements of the literature on moral residue and a pluralism of values. This
argument makes a very good case for the possible existence of genuine moral dilemmas (as I
have defined them). Agamemnon and Sophie are caught in moral dilemmas: Sophie cannot make
a non-arbitrary decision, Agamemnon cannot compare his alternatives; both are subject to
forces beyond their control; both experience the presence of conflicting value(s).
Concluding, I agree with Stocker that it is to wrongly limit our understanding of ethics to
concern ourselves exclusively with action-guiding evaluations; independent prominence must be
given to agents and situations.58 Unlike Sophie, Agamemnon did not acknowledge his tragedy;
virtues, character, and emotions are of prime importance to morality. If, however, solutions are
the object, for the unfortunate agent, I offer Marcus’s consolation that “one ought to act in such a
way that, if one ought to do x and ought to do y, then one can do both x and y.”59 For the
optimistic theorist, however, I can only invoke Mothersill’s scepticism that no ethical theory
promises a unique solution to every moral problem.60
57
Williams, 129
58
Michael Stocker, Plural and Conflicting Values, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 93
Marcus, 16
59
60
Mothersill, 73
11
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13