Moral dilemmas without solutions
Some dilemmas stem from the conflict between different moral frameworks. Others are much tougher because they cut almost literally through our heart
‘People respond to incentives’ – perhaps one of the incontrovertible iron laws of human behaviour (and indeed of life in general). This insight is certainly helpful when we want to stimulate or discourage certain behaviours. Crime prevention, for instance, would involve identifying and eliminating any existing incentives that encourage it, and avoiding making choices that, maybe inadvertently, act as a stimulus for committing crime. Take abductions, for example – if the standard response is to pay the ransom first, then try to trace and arrest the perpetrators, that may well present a financial incentive to would-be kidnappers: abduction as a simple, low-risk way towards riches. We would therefore not favour conceding to ransom demands too quickly by paying up at once.
Yet we saw Savannah Guthrie, the NBC television news anchor, announce that she and her siblings were willing to pay the ransom demanded for the release of their 84-year-old mother, Nancy, shortly after she was abducted on 31 January. They are undoubtedly as wary of incentivizing kidnappers as you and me – yet they had no hesitation to make their offer. Most of us will unconditionally sympathize: if someone close to us was abducted, we would also want to do anything for their safe return, just like we would give up all our savings for an expensive treatment that would save their life. On the one hand, we don’t want to create an incentive for kidnappers, and on the other, we are immediately prepared to do just that. Isn’t that odd?
Single standard, double identity
Blatant hypocrisy, perhaps? When someone promotes certain beliefs about what people should or shouldn’t do, while themselves violating those beliefs, we are usually not backward in calling out the double standards. But is that the case here? It is not “one rule for thee, another one for me”. We don’t condemn the Guthries for offering to pay the ransom (we would instead find them heartless if they decided not to, and risk their mother’s life) – and we would reason in just the same way if we were in their situation.
The asymmetry we observe here is not the common one of individual-me vs. individual-you, but me-as-individual vs. me-as-member-of-a-collective. The conflict arises in the fact that we have both a private, individual identity, with moral concerns and obligations regarding our loved ones, and a societal, public identity that supports norms and policies that are in the interest of the group. It is our own private interest, framed within one identity, that conflicts with our societal interest framed in the other one. Pursuing our moral obligations in one frame inevitably violates our moral obligations in the other. It is as if we form coalitions with others along each identity separately, and the conflict between the two coalitions runs right through us.
This makes the moral dilemma here quite different from the well-known Trolley Problem, where the choice is between two clear moral frameworks. We adopt either the one reflecting Kantian duty-based rules (“thou shalt not kill”), or we opt for the utilitarian, outcome-based one (save the most lives): the conflict is with a framework that is not ours. Here we tend towards narrow consequentialism in our individual capacity (prioritizing the fate of our loved ones, even if it goes against a societal norm), and towards rule-utilitarianism in our societal capacity (prioritizing what is best for the collective, even if it requires personal sacrifice). Both identities co-exist in us: we are supposed to side with our loved ones in one capacity, and with the group in the other – at the same time. This makes our dilemma tougher than the Trolley Problem, where we can choose one of two competing external frameworks and walk away with our integrity intact. Here, the conflict is deep within us—we cannot satisfy both our identities at once.
The unsolvable inner tension
Both perspectives are legitimate, inherent in our psychology as social beings, with an innate tension between our individual self-interest, and the interest of our tribe. Few such conflicts involve the life-or-death drama of an abduction, but less intense examples abound. Say, a mediocre member of our team is being made redundant and asks us for a reference. The societal frame would require us to be honest and refrain from polluting the reference system that people rely on to inform their hiring decisions; the personal frame would consider that he needs the work and while technically not stellar, he is friendly and helpful, so we write a glowing letter. Or we have an appointment for a haircut in town – a 15-minute walk, but it’s raining cats and dogs. The societal frame would have us go on foot, regardless of the weather, avoiding an unnecessary short, disproportionately polluting car trip; the individual frame would argue that we’re still recovering from a bad chest infection, and taking the car will avoid us getting drenched and perhaps relapsing.
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[Walk or drive – which identity prevails? (photo: Nehla Jafer/Pixabay)]
We cannot formulate a single rule of life that resolves all such conflicts. It’s like the lens in our eye, which cannot focus on nearby objects and the horizon simultaneously. Nearby—where our loved ones are—our decisions are shaped by the urge to protect. Into the distance, they’re shaped by abstract, societal concerns. Recent research on proximity and moral decision-making by Federica Alfeo and colleagues found that even perceived physical proximity—not just emotional closeness—shifts people toward protecting the individual, away from more distant or abstract concerns. The effect is robust: our moral reasoning shifts based on how close we feel to whoever is being harmed.
This feels profoundly uncomfortable, because we can only toggle between frames, never occupy both simultaneously – and in either frame we feel we have no choice but to dismiss the other. But there is no ‘right’ frame. The only honest approach is to acknowledge which frame we’re in, not pretend we’re in the other one —and certainly not expect others to adopt ours.
Some moral dilemmas simply have no solution.