The Trouble with Dilemmas: Rethinking Applied Ethics

One might expect that the character of moral problems would be well thought out after the attention given to practical or "applied" ethics in the last twenty years. However, from many recent discussions of practical ethics, and professional ethics and policy questions in particular, one would gain the impression that most moral problems are dilemmas and those that are not dilemmas are some other sort of multiple- choice problem. This essay examines the misrepresentation of moral problems as dilemmas and the sources of this mistake. These include including neglect of the perspective of the agent, the person called upon to act in the situation.