Dilemmas

In my last blogs, I discussed the overcrowded boat dilemma. However, what actually is a dilemma? The word “dilemma” comes from Greek δίλημμα (dilèmma). Di refers to two and lemma comes from Greek lambanein, which means to take. So, lemma means what has been taken or, from this, supposition or proposition. A dilemma, then, is a choice between two incompatible possibilities. From this it got the meaning difficult choice in general, ignoring the original meaning that a dilemma refers to a choice between two things, actions, etc.
Dilemma has been defined by philosophers in somewhat different ways. By chance, recently I read a description of the concept by the German philosopher Marcel Gabriel. In his Moralischer Fortschritt in dunklen Zeiten (English: Moral Progress in Dark Times) he writes: “An ethical dilemma is that we have several options available to us, which, however, makes that we cannot fulfill the morally required. If we do something good in a dilemma, by doing so we automatically omit something else and thus do something morally wrong.” (p. 19) However, what Gabriel describes here is in fact not what an ethical dilemma is, but what a moral dilemma is, for the problem in a dilemma is that we must choose between contradictory moral rules of action and that following one of these rules automatically violates the other rule(s). For example, in Case 2 in my blog last week the captain faces the dilemma:
- Keep everybody on board, but then the lifeboat will capsize and everybody will drown.
- Throw some people overboard (with the consequence that they will drown) in order to save the others.
(- Don’t kill.)
According to Gabriel, moral dilemmas don’t exist. (pp 121-2) I must say that I find his argumentation here somewhat obscure (which is actually a euphemism for that I don’t understand it). According to Gabriel, a real dilemma exists only then, when it is possible to do the right thing, although, from another point of view, you do the wrong thing. In the case just mentioned you can do only the wrong thing, since you must choose between two evils. Then so Gabriel, we don’t have a dilemma, but a tragedy. However, isn’t it just a characteristic of a tragedy that we face impossible choices? That in the type of tragedy we are talking about here, we must choose between rules that exclude each other? That, by doing good by following one rule, we automatically violate another rule, which makes that by doing something good we automatically also do something wrong? Just this is the essence of a dilemma! (compare Gabriel’s definition of dilemma above) The captain knew that he was in a tragedy, but he took his responsibility and made a choice. His dilemma was which choice to make.
However, not every bipolar choice put forward is a real dilemma. For rhetorical reasons politicians often say: “You are with us or you are against us.” They want to reduce a complicated issue to a simple bipolar choice and to paint those who don’t support them as enemies or at least as people who make the wrong choice. In that case we have a false dilemma. It’s true, there is black and there is white, but between them there are many shades of grey.