Three Big Moral Dilemmas To Ponder

Moral dilemmas are paradoxical situations in which there is a contradiction between values. In these scenarios, an individual’s actions will always cause harm in one way or another. What one has to evaluate is which option causes less harm and/or which alternatives have greater ethical coherence.

One of the best-known dilemmas is the train dilemma. A train is moving at full speed in it. During the journey you realize that there are five people tied to the rails. However, there is the option of pressing a button to change the route. The trap here is that someone is trapped on the other road as well.

In this case, the dilemma depends on what to do. The discussion here is whether it’s morally better to let the train run its course and kill five people, or deliberately decide to kill the other person trapped on the other road.

If everything went normally, that person would not die. But whoever decides to push the button would cause this person to lose his life.

A series of moral dilemmas have arisen from this hypothetical situation. Some of the best known are the man on the roof, the loop road and the man in the garden. So let’s take a look at what these dilemmas are all about.

Three major moral dilemmas

1. The man on the roof

‘The man on the roof’ is one of the moral dilemmas derived from the train dilemma. The situation is very similar. A train is moving towards five people who are stuck on the rails. In this case, however, there is the option to throw weight in front of the train, in order to stop the train before it reaches the people who are tied up.

The only possibility is that there is an obese man on the side of the road. If he were pulled in front of the train, he could stop it and prevent the other five people from dying. What needs to be done? The difference here is that you have to perform an active task that will intentionally end someone’s life.

Utilitarian ethics indicates that the determining factor is the number of victims, which would mean that it is worth sacrificing one life to save five. Humanistic ethics, however, point in a different direction.

The man standing next to the road makes full use of his rights. One is the right to live and therefore not to serve as a means to save others.

2. The loop road, one of the great moral dilemmas

In the context of moral dilemmas, ‘the loop road’ is very similar to the dilemma we just talked about. What happens in this case is that there is a looped path. In other words, the path runs in a circle. Whatever you do, you always return to the starting point.

In this case, there are five people tied to the rails. It is possible to operate the train to take a different route, but there is a man tied up on that route. He is quite sturdy and could stop the train before it loops and reaches the other five victims. What would you do?

The classic train dilemma states that there are only two paths: either one or the other. Either one cannot be avoided. In the case of the loop, there is a small change, which implies a more thoughtful decision. In this case, one would be deliberately used as an obstacle to save five people.

3. The man in the garden

The third of the moral dilemmas we want to mention in this article is “the man in the garden.” In this case, the situation is the same as the original situation. However, the only way to divert the train is to derail it. As a result, the train would fall into an abyss and end up in a garden, where a man is resting in his hammock.

This means that if you decide to go for this diversion, the person who eventually dies is someone who has nothing to do with the situation and who is the victim of a completely external decision.

The trap of all these moral dilemmas is contradiction. You do something good for a greater number of people or you take action that goes against essential rights.

A study conducted by Guy Kahane of Oxford University in the UK indicated that people who have no problem seriously harming someone in order to save other people are antisocial.

In addition, the study also found that these people are less careful when interacting with others and don’t care if they harm others.