Chapter 9 Are There Unresolvable Dilemmas in Bioethics?

A moral dilemma is a situation in which agent S morally ought to do a and morally ought to do b but cannot do both, or agent S ought to do a and ~a at the same time. The dilemmas we consider unsolvable can appear thoroughly in such moral theories which acknowledge unconditional moral norms. To exceed such norms is always morally wrong. When we raise the question about unsolvable moral dilemmas in bioethics we understand bioethics as a subdiscipline of ethics which accepts unconditional moral norms, especially the norm “thou shalt not kill”, its positive interpretation being: “protect life”. The vast majority of dilemmas in bioethics, including those that are called unsolvable, are connected with this norm. However, a closer analysis highlights that not all situations called bioethical dilemmas are really unsolvable dilemmas. First at all we should discriminate difficult (sometimes dramatic) choices from dilemmas. In the former, we know the answer although it could be very difficult for us, in the latter we don’t know the answer. For example – the decision about the abortion of a severely handicapped child could be very difficult for the parents but this doesn’t mean they don’t know what to do. It also happens that we call dilemmas the situations of moral perplexity in which our present decisions are dependent on the previous ones, made either by us or by other people. When no possible solutions are morally accepted by us, we cannot afford to be passive and come back to the starting point, we try to choose such a solution which is least contrary to our acceptable moral order.