ETHICAL DILEMMA

Ethical Dilemma

Ethical Dilemma

What Is An Ethical Dilemma

The term 'ethical dilemma', also commonly known as a moral dilemma, refers to an ordeal wherein a person is confronted with a confounding conflict of ethical precepts and moral obligations - that too in such a manner that any available resolution to the dilemma seems intolerable when judged through the lens of morals and ethics (Garber, 2008). Therefore, in an ethical dilemma, it is common for a person to face difficulty in employing his morals and ethics in order to define the most suitable and tolerable approach.

An ethical dilemma forces an individual to examine and assess two conflicting moral principles to reach a final solution. It is primarily for this reason that there exists no fixed key or strategy to solving an ethical dilemma (Garber, 2008). Hence, the final solution is most likely a matter of choice rather than an educated and calculated decision. A typical example of ethical dilemma is the case of abortion; where a large group of people are staunch advocates of abortion, there is also a strong lobby that is strictly against it (Cohen, 2007).

Another example of ethical dilemma is the case of execution of criminals and felons. There are many pacifist groups which strongly believe that all life is sacred and propagate that the act of taking a life of a mortal defies the principles of ethics. However, a counter-argument iterates the possibility that potentially hundreds of innocent lives could be saved if the perpetrator of crimes is executed (Pollock, 2012). This is one of the classic examples of an ethical dilemma.

Case Study

It was a dark, stormy night when Jonathan was driving through the rain on his way home from work. As he was speeding along the desolate highway, he spotted a bus stop to his right and, realizing that buses would not be running that late, he decided to give one distressed and stranded person a ride home in his two-seater. As his car came to a halt at the bus stop, he noticed that there were a total of three miserable people waiting there.

Among them, the one standing to the extreme left was an old aging woman who was trembling so much that Jonathan was certain she had contracted a fever. He immediately got out of the car with the purpose of offering the poor old lady a ride home. However, before he could reach the old lady, Jonathan saw that a tall figure standing right beside her was waving at him enthusiastically. Upon lending him a closer look, Jonathan realized that he was staring with bewilderment at Seamus, his best friend for 18 years.

Seamus instantly wrapped him in his arms, thanking him profusely for rescuing him from the clutches of imminent misery and climatic torment. It was at that moment that Jonathan's eyes caught sight of the third person who was stranded at the bus stop - the most enchanting and mesmerizing woman he had ever set eyes ...