Moral Issues vs. Moral Dilemmas: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters

Moral Issues - A moral issue can be understood as an issue to be resolved not only by considering the technical stuff but also by keeping moral values in mind. 

• Moral issues are those which involve a difference of belief and not a matter of preference - a moral dispute would involve a factual disagreement (or a disagreement in belief) where one or the other or neither belief is correct. It would not involve a disagreement in attitude (or a disagreement in feeling).
• Moral issues are those, which involve the experience of a special kind of feeling - This feeling is said to differ intuitively from other kinds of feelings such as religious or aesthetic feelings. (E.g., some people think these feelings arise from arise from conscience.) Such feelings can be those of satisfaction, shame, or guilt.
• Moral issues are those actions which have the potential to help or harm others or ourselves - is a version of consequentialist ethics and has a number of objections. very few human decisions or actions are not of some moral concern since very few, if any, decisions have no consequences helping or harming ourselves or others. On this view, only decisions with no possible consequences helping or harming would qualify as nonmoral actions. Decisions such as the latter are difficult to imagine. Thus, it may well be that any decision made and any action performed is of some ethical concern.

Moral Dilemma

What is common to the two well-known cases is conflict. In each case, an agent regards herself as having moral reasons to do each of two actions, but doing both actions is not possible. Ethicists have called situations like these moral dilemmas. The crucial features of a moral dilemma are these: the agent is required to do each of two (or more) actions; the agent can do each of the actions; but the agent cannot do both (or all) of the actions. The agent thus seems condemned to moral failure; no matter what she does, she will do something wrong (or fail to do something that she ought to do).

A moral dilemma is an irresolvable moral conflict, i.e. no fully satisfactory resolution is possible since all possible options for action leave behind a remainder that does not cease to be morally binding.

Moral dilemmas are often used to help people think through the reasoning for their beliefs and actions, and are common in psychology and philosophy classes. Some examples of moral dilemmas include:

• The classic “lifeboat dilemma”, where there are only 10 spaces in the lifeboat, but there are 11 passengers on the sinking ship. A decision must be made as to who will stay behind.
• A train with broken brakes is speeding towards a fork in the tracks. On the left, there is a woman crossing with her two children; on the right, there is a man doing routine maintenance on the tracks. The engineer must decide which side to aim the speeding train towards.
• A husband learns he has a terminal illness and he decides to ask his wife for assistance in ending the pain before it gets too bad.

Moral dilemmas also provide interesting social topics for students to examine in position and research papers. Common topics for such assignments often include:

• The Death Penalty
• Doctor-Assisted Suicide
• Ending the Drug War
• The Draft
• Government Spying
• Prison Reform
• Legalizing (or decriminalizing) Marijuana
• Fossil Fuels vs. Renewable Energy

Steps in confronting moral dilemmas - In order to face/overcome the above said moral dilemmas, one can follow one or more of the following steps.

• Step 1: Identifying the pertinent moral factors and reasons. It involves addressing solutions for conflicting responsibilities, opposing rights, and incompatible ideals involved.
• Step 2: Collecting all the available moral considerations, which are relevant to the moral factors involved.
• Step 3: Ranking the above collected moral considerations on the basis of importance as applicable to the particular situation.
• Step 4: Making factual inquires. In other words, finding alternative courses of actions to resolve the moral dilemmas and following the complete implications of each. 
• Step 5: Inviting discussions, suggestions from colleagues, friends, and other involved persons to critically examine the moral dilemmas.
• Step 6: Taking the final decision i.e. selecting the more reasonable solution by weighing all the relevant moral factors and reasons.

 Moral Autonomy

Moral Autonomy is the philosophy which is self-governing or self-determining, i.e., acting independently without the influence or distortion of others. The moral autonomy relates to the individual ideas whether right or wrong conduct which is independent of ethical issues. The concept of moral autonomy helps in improving self-determination.

Moral Autonomy is concerned with independent attitude of a person related to moral/ethical issues. This concept is found in moral, ethical and even in political philosophy.

Moral Autonomy – Skills Needed:

• Ability to relate the problems with the problems of law, economics and religious principles − It is essential to have the ability to analyze a problem and finding the relation with the existing law or the topic of issue with the existing principles on that topic. The ability to distinguish between both of them and finding the moral reasons.
• Skill to process, clarify and understand the arguments against the moral issues − If the issue is against some moral values or the ethical values to be followed in the society, then clarity should be maintained about the differences and similarities. Both of these differences and similarities are to be judged based on why they are a matter of concern and in what aspect.
• Ability to suggest the solutions to moral issues on the basis of facts − If the moral issues are not fulfilling and needs to be, then the solutions are to be suggested according to the moral issues based on the facts and truths of the issue. These suggestions must be consistent and must include all the aspects of the problem. No partiality is to be allowed in any such aspect.
• Must have the imaginative skill to view the problems from all the viewpoints − After having known about the facts and illusions of the issue, a clear understanding is attained in viewing the problem in all kinds of viewpoints. This enables one to be able to suggest a proper alternative solution.
• Tolerance while giving moral judgment, which may cause trouble − When the whole analysis is made considering all the viewpoints of the issue, the final output might be or might not be pleasing to the persons involved. Hence while declaring the judgment or the decisions taken, a detailed description of the actions done should be given, while the actions ought to be done should be presented in a better way, to ensure others that the decisions have been taken without any partialities towards any party.
• Tolerance while giving moral judgment, which may cause trouble − When the whole analysis is made considering all the viewpoints of the issue, the final output might be or might not be pleasing to the persons involved. Hence while declaring the judgment or the decisions taken, a detailed description of the actions done should be given, while the actions ought to be done should be presented in a better way, to ensure others that the decisions have been taken without any partialities towards any party.