Moral Dilemma In Relationships

1082 Words5 Pages
Moral Dilemma in Relationships: Have you ever faced a situation in which you feel obliged to take two or more actions (at a time), but then realized that it would not be possible? Moral philosophy/ethics refer to such situations as “moral dilemmas”. Moral dilemmas distinguish themselves from other forms of dilemma in that the agent feels obliged to execute each of two or more actions; the agent is capable of executing each of those actions; but he cannot carry out both (or more) of the actions (Rachels & Rachels, 2006). Consequently, the agent risks moral failure no matter what he does. For instance, the Bible, and indeed the society encourage people to love their neighbors. Now, imagine a situation in which an armed person decides to rape his; if he executes the beastly act, that neighbor will most likely not love him. On the other hand, if she restrains him, this then fails the test of love. Ideally, the result of the action the agent may opt to take will be wrong, or not in accordance with his will. For any moral dilemma to be valid, neither of the conflict obligations should override the other. Moral dilemmas occur in almost every sphere of our daily lives, ranging from real life issues (such as relationships, dating, sexuality, friendships, and others), in businesses (such as management decisions, profit motives, class struggles, among others, and in the larger context of society like laws vs. conscience, citizens vs. government, and religion vs. laws. I opt to discuss relationship dilemmas because, in my career as a high school teacher, I get innumerable concerns on relationships from my students. I have known this student, Mark, since his early schooling years, and he has confided a lot of his personal life issues in me, as his teacher. The other day, I noticed that he was acting rather withdrawn in my afternoon philosophy class. As usual, after the class
Open Document