Moral Dilemmas

Core Idea

A genuine moral dilemma arises when an agent faces two or more moral obligations that cannot all be fulfilled—whatever she does, she violates a binding moral requirement. Classic examples include Sophie's choice (forced to choose which child lives), Sartre's student (torn between fighting for France and caring for his mother), and whistleblowing cases (loyalty to employer versus duty to the public). The philosophical question is whether genuine dilemmas are possible: if moral obligations are all-things-considered judgments, then at most one action can be obligatory, and the "dilemma" dissolves into a difficult decision. But if obligations are pro tanto (real but overridable), then both can persist, and the agent experiences moral residue—guilt, regret, or the obligation to make amends—even after doing the best she can. Ruth Barcan Marcus and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argue that genuine dilemmas are real; others (Kant, most consequentialists) hold that a correct moral theory cannot generate contradictory obligations.

How It's Best Learned

Read Williams's discussion of moral conflict in "Ethical Consistency" and Marcus's "Moral Dilemmas and Consistency." Then analyze a case where you feel genuine pull in both directions and ask: is the residual guilt evidence that you violated a real obligation, or is it a psychological artifact of a difficult but ultimately resolvable choice?

Common Misconceptions

• A moral dilemma is not simply a hard choice; it requires that there be genuine conflicting obligations, not merely competing desires or a difficult calculation.
• The existence of moral residue (guilt after doing the right thing) does not prove that genuine dilemmas exist; it may instead reflect the agent's sensitivity to the costs of the overridden obligation.

Explainer

From the trolley problem, you know that moral reasoning can produce conflicting verdicts: utilitarian calculation says pull the lever; deontological intuitions about using people as means says don't. But in the trolley case, most theorists think one answer is ultimately correct — the conflict is between your intuitions, not between the obligations themselves. A genuine moral dilemma is a stronger and more troubling phenomenon: a situation in which two or more real moral obligations each make genuine claims on you, and fulfilling one necessarily violates the other.

The distinction turns on whether moral obligations are all-things-considered or pro tanto. If obligations are all-things-considered, then when all relevant factors are weighed, there is exactly one thing you are obligated to do. The apparent conflict dissolves into a difficult calculation; what seemed like two obligations was really one obligation that outweighed another consideration. On this view, genuine dilemmas — situations where you are truly obligated to do both A and not-A — are impossible. Kant and most consequentialists hold this position. A correct moral theory, they insist, cannot generate contradictory requirements.

The opposing view holds that obligations are pro tanto — real but defeasible. A pro tanto obligation is a genuine moral requirement that holds in the absence of stronger countervailing considerations but can be overridden without ceasing to have existed. Sartre's student faces a genuine dilemma: he has a real obligation to his ailing mother, and a real obligation to resist the occupation of France, and he cannot fulfill both. Even if he is right to choose one over the other — even if, after reflection, he chooses to fight — the obligation to his mother does not simply evaporate. It persists as an unmet moral demand, generating what philosophers call moral residue: the guilt, regret, or felt need to make amends that remains after the best available action has been taken.

Moral residue is the key piece of evidence here. After a genuinely difficult choice, most people feel something like guilt even when they are confident they chose correctly. Bernard Williams argued this is not irrational; it is the appropriate emotional response to having violated a real obligation, even if that violation was justified. The competing view says this residue is psychological noise — appropriate sensitivity to costs, but not evidence of a genuine obligation. The dispute matters beyond philosophy: in law, medicine, and public policy, decision-makers regularly face situations where all available options impose real moral costs on real people. Whether those costs represent violated obligations (demanding acknowledgment and compensation) or merely difficult tradeoffs (requiring only good-faith calculation) shapes how institutions should respond to the people caught on the losing side of necessary decisions.