The elements of moral dilemmas
The elements of any moral dilemma are the following.
The act
Talking about the moral dilemma, we consider the moral act to be any human act made on the basis of one’s knowledge and with regard to one’s free will. It is always performed consciously so that the person realizes whether the act is morally good or bad and takes responsibility for it.
The consequences of the act
It is the outcome of the moral act, the way in which the dilemma was solved. It can be good and bad depending on the situation.
The moral agent
It is the one who faces a moral dilemma and is responsible for conducting the right or wrong act.
The false starts in moral philosophy: relativism and Divine Command
The false starts in moral philosophy mean that the individual believes some things to be good or bad without any decent evaluation and misinterprets the object making a mistake from the very beginning. In other words, one is partial and prejudiced, which prevents him/her from finding the normative truth. In this way, relativism presupposes the absence of absolute truth, and all conclusions are considered to be trustworthy only in the particular context. Divine Command, in its turn, presupposes that things are good and bad because God said so. Still, being critical we are to forget about such axioms and should consider everything though the general people’s views.
The practical and logical problems with Aquinas’ Natural Law moral theory
There are some problems with Aquinas’ Natural Law moral theory. First of all, it presupposes that all people can get to know the moral law of human nature just by their reason. But how can it happen when they interpret nature in different ways? Moreover, the traits of human nature are shown as positive and morally right, but if aggressiveness was a natural male characteristic, wars would be considered morally right, according to such beliefs. Aquinas believed in Divine Command but can such opinion be taken as an absolute truth when other philosophers connect our actions and perceptions with evolutionary theory and survival needs?
Ethics: always personal and often political
Ethics is said to be always personal because each person acts according to one’s moral. People tend to conduct good actions consciously so that they can gain good outcomes. Political ethics presupposes the collaboration between many people. They evaluate the situations and conduct actions that are commonly treated as good. Still, mainly individuals regard their own moral views, which differ from those the others have, that is why political or common ones are seen always but not often.