ETHICAL DILEMMA

Question:What is an Ethical Dilemma?

An Ethical dilemma is a complex situation that often involves an apparent mental conflict between moral imperatives, in which to obey one would result in transgressing another. This is also called an ethical paradox since in moral philosophy, paradox often plays a central role in ethics debates. An ethical dilemma is a  situation wherein moral percepts or ethical obligations conflict in such away that any possible resolution to the dilemma is morally intolerable. In other words, an ethical dilemma is any situation in which guiding moral principles cannot determine which course of action is right or wrong.

Ethical Dilemma Situations

Personal Friendships

Nazrin had several friends including Fizz Fairuz and Mikhail  Fizz Fairuz has recently met and started dating a wonderful lady named Azlyn Massiela. He is convinced this a long term relationship. Unknown to Fizz Fairuz, Nazrin observed them at a restaurant several days ago and realized Azlyn Massiela is the wife of his other friend Mikhail. Nazrin is deciding whether to tell Fizz Fairuz that Azlyn Massiela is married when he receives a call from Mikhail. Mikhail suspects his wife is having an affair and since they and Nazrin share many friends and contacts, he ask if Nazrin has heard anything regarding an affair.

"To whom does Nazrin owe greater friendship to in this situation? No matter who he tells, he is going to end up hurting one, if not both friends. Does he remain silent and hope his knowledge is never discovered?"

Information Access

The advent of email in the business world surely has created new ground for moral dilemmas involving information access and privacy.

Tom, a data analyst for a major casino, is working after normal business hours to finish an important project. He realizes that he is missing data that had been sent t his co-worker Anand. Tom had inadvertently observed Anand typing his password several days ago and decides to log into Anand's computer and resend the data to himself. Upon doing so, Tom sees an open mail regarding gambling bets Anand placed over the last several days with a local sports book. All employees of the casino are forbidden to engage in gambling activities to avoid any hint of conflict of interest.

Tom knows he should report this but would have to admit to violating the company's information technology regulations by logging into Anand's computer. If he warns Anand to stop his betting, he would also have reveal the source of his information. What does Tom do in this situation?

Professional Life versus Family Life

Another example of an ethical dilemma involves professional ethic versus the best care of your child.

Imran works in the claims department of major hospital. Paperwork on a recent admission shows that a traumatic mugging caused the patient to require an adjustment in the medication she is prescribed to control anxiety and mood swings. Imran is struck by the patient's unusual last name and upon checking her employment information realizes she is one of his daughter's grade school teachers.

Imran's daughter seems very happy in her school and he cannot violate patient confidentiality by informing the school of a teacher's mental illness but he is not comfortable with a potentially unstable person in a position of influence and supervision over his eight year old daughter. Can Imran reconcile these issues in an ethical manner?

Branches of Ethics

You can study ethics from both religious and a philosophical point of view. There are five branches of ethic:

• Normative Ethics - The largest branch, it deals with how individuals can figure out the correct moral action that they should take.
• Meta-Ethics - This branch seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties and judgments such as if truth values can be found and the theory behind moral principals.
• Applied Ethics - This is the study of applying theories from philosophers regarding ethics in everyday life.
• Moral Ethics - This branch questions how individuals develop their morality, why certain aspects of morality differ between cultures and why certain aspects of morality are generally universal.
• Descriptive Ethics - This branch is more scientific in its approach and focuses on how human beings actually operate in the real world, rather than attempt to theorize about how they should operate.

Knowing how to best resolve difficult moral and ethical dilemmas is never easy especially when any choices violates the societal and ethical standards by which we have been taught to govern our lives.