The Question of Dilemma
The following exploration of the question of Dilemma has been written as a limited introduction. For further information consult the resource list at the end.
Terminology
Dilemma: a position where the alternative courses of action are less than desirable.
Duty: something that we are expected or bound to do.
Obligation: a requirement to perform a certain action, especially in regard to a moral or legal bond.
Responsibility: something that we are liable to be called to account for.
Morality: the quality of doing what is right and not doing what is wrong.
Utilitarianism: the doctrine that actions are right in proportion to their promotion of aggregate happiness, and wrong in proportion to their promotion of aggregate unhappiness.
The Issue
Dilemmas can be practical or moral, and some can be both. A practical dilemma is a forced choice. For example, I want the impractical sports car to fulfil certain needs, and I want the practical family car to fulfil other needs, but I can't afford to buy two cars. So, I desire A and I desire B but I can't have A and B; I can have A and not B, or B and not A, or I can choose to have neither. A variation of the practical dilemma is where, for example, I desire to smoke but because I am fully aware of the suffering it will bring me, I also desire not to smoke. In this case I desire to do A, and I desire not to do A. A practical dilemma is where our desires meet the real world with its finite resources and real consequences, and we are forced to make decisions.
While practical dilemmas revolve around what we want to do, moral dilemmas revolve around what we ought to do. A moral dilemma will involve conflicts between duties, obligations and moral responsibilities. For example, where the obligation to keep a confidence conflicts with the duty to prevent a crime, or where the moral principle 'not to kill' conflicts with the obligation to end suffering.
While the 'which car to buy' dilemma is trivial, dilemmas can involve serious consequences and can be the cause of immense suffering. The issue of dilemma concerns how dilemmas arise and how best they can be resolved.
Some Argy-Bargy
Edward J. Lemmon (British philosopher 1930-1966) argued in Moral Dilemmas that 'ought' and 'ought not' are not contradictory terms. He differentiated these terms from 'must' and 'must not', and 'will' and 'will not', which he said were contradictory terms. Lemmon said, 'It is nasty fact about human life that we sometimes both ought and ought not to do things, but it is not a logical contradiction.'
Lemmon observed that conflict could arise between duty and obligation, duty and moral principles, and obligation and moral principles. He said that to resolve this we could use a 'higher order principle' that valued, for example, moral principles over obligation, or we could use a more complex ordering such as 'putting our duty as a citizen before our duty as a friend'. He also observed that failure to make a decision is to make a decision in a broader sense, and that we must always act in good faith, recognise dilemmas for what they are and make the best decision we can.
Lemmon provides two examples of dilemmas in his work Moral Dilemmas. The first is derived from Plato and is relatively simple. It is about a friend who gives you his gun, you promise to return it to him when he asks for it, but when he returns and asks you for it he tells you that he needs it to kill his wife. The second example is from Jean-Paul Sartre (French philosopher 1905-1980) and is quite complex. It is about a boy who is torn between his duty to join the Free French Forces and staying to care for his mother. These examples are worth reading in full.
Lemmon thought that if anyone was qualified to give moral advice, philosophers were in the best position to do so, for at least they would be able to detect bad reasoning from good. He also reasoned that except in trivial cases our moral dilemmas cannot be solved by our personal moral codes, because those codes would have brought about the dilemma in the first place.
John Stuart Mill (British philosopher 1806-1873) envisaged the concept of utility as a mechanism for deciding moral dilemmas, saying 'Though the application of the standard may be difficult, it is better than none at all'. Mills saw the concept of happiness as an important guide for moral rightness. He believed that actions are right in proportion to their promotion of aggregate happiness, and wrong in proportion to their promotion of aggregate unhappiness. An option that provided an increase in aggregate happiness over another option would therefore be a preferable course of action. Lemmon, however, thought that the concept of utility, while being a practical guide, was not a good moral guide.
In The Philosophy Gym, Stephen Law provides a thought experiment involving a cancer patient and a heart patient who will both shortly die. When the cancer patient is discovered to be a perfect match as a heart donor the opportunity presents itself for the cancer patient to be killed and the heart 'donated' so that the heart patient can potentially live a long a fruitful life. The concept of utility would see aggregate happiness increased by this action, but is it the right thing to do? Most would say not. The concept of utility seems wrong in this case. To be fair to Mill, however, his statement 'Though the application of the standard may be difficult, it is better than none at all' indicates that he was aware that the concept had potential problems.
And the winner is?
Practical dilemmas are caused by conflicting desires, and the way out of them is to assess those desires. Moral dilemmas are caused by conflicting duties, obligations and moral responsibilities, and the way out of them is to assess those duties, obligations and moral responsibilities. Despite the suffering that being in the middle of a dilemma can bring, it is in the creative space between conflicting options that we are forced to think and grow.
It is easy to imagine that a significant stimulus to the development and evolution of intelligence came from the myriad dilemmas confronting lifeforms, where the choices made had implications for survival.
Resources
Moral Dilemmas - Edward J. Lemmon.
Reading Philosophy - Guttenplan/Hornsby/Janaway.
The Philosophy Gym - Stephen Law. Available in the Bookshop.