the three levels of moral dilemmas before we start talking about these levels let us first quickly Define what a moral dilemma is a moral dilemma is a situation in which a person is forced to choose between two or more conflicting options neither of which is morally acceptable to her take note that the key here is being forced to choose an option that is morally unacceptable if a person then is in a difficult situation but isn't forced to choose then it cannot be said that she is in a moral dilemma but rather merely in a problematic
situation if you want to know more about moral dilemmas please check our video Linked In the card above with that let's now proceed to the three levels of moral dilemmas moral dilemmas can be classified into three levels personal organizational and structural the first level of moral dilemmas are personal moral dilemmas these dilemmas are experienced and resolved on the individual or personal level since many moral decisions are made individually or personally most moral dilemmas belong or boil down to this level a classic example of a personal moral dilemma is Lawrence Kohlberg's Heinz dilemma which you can
watch through the card above another famous example is the case of an ectopic pregnancy which goes one day Mary a deeply moral and religious woman is found out to have an ectopic pregnancy as is well known an ectopic pregnancy is a type of pregnancy that occurs outside the uterus usually in one of the fallopian tubes in an ectopic pregnancy therefore the development of the fetus endangers the life of the mother hence if Mary continues with her pregnancy then it is probable that she will die according to Medical experts the best way to save her life
is to abort the fetus which implies killing it if Mary on the other hand does not abort the fetus then she as well as the fetus will die moral dilemmas experienced and resolved by social organizations belonged to the second level of moral dilemmas or organizational moral dilemmas these dilemmas include those in the medical business and public sectors for example a hospital that believes that human life should not be deliberately shortened and that unpreventable pain should not be tolerated encounters a moral dilemma in resolving whether to withdraw life support from an unconscious and dying patient or
not another example would be a business confronted with the decision whether during a pandemic such as the covid-19 to require its employees to report to work despite the increased risk of getting infected or to lay off workers in order to cut costs and sustain business operations still another example is the moral dilemma of local government officials face to decide whether to allow mining corporations who help fund their political campaigns to operate in their town or to keep their promise to protect the Virgin forests of their indigenous people the third level of moral dilemmas is the
structural moral dilemmas these dilemmas involve a network of Institutions and operative theoretical paradigms because they usually Encompass multi-sectoral organizations and institutions they may be larger in scope and extent than organizational moral dilemmas an example of a structural moral dilemma is the high prices of medicine in poor countries for the benefit of the public the government on the one hand may want to lower them by lowering the production cost of Medicine but doing so may ruin the interests or legal rights of the involved researchers scientists investors and pharmaceutical companies which own the patent of the medicines
or Health Care Technologies on the other hand the government can increase the Public's access to medicine and Health Care by allocating more budget to the health sector doing so however will necessarily cut the budget of other essential sectors and services such as education and Public Works to recap moral dilemmas are situations in which a person is forced to choose between two or more conflicting options neither of which is morally acceptable to her the three levels of moral dilemmas are personal which are experienced and resolved on the individual or personal level organizational these dilemmas include those
in the medical business and public sectors and structural which involve a network of organizational sectors or institutions if you learn something new from this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our Channel thank you and see you in our next one
