The Hypothesis of a Genuine Moral Dilemma and the Method of Thought Experiment in Ethics

Abstract

The article provides a critical overview of the hypothesis of a genuine moral dilemma and the method of thought experiment in ethics. The relevance of the research topic is due to a) the mess in academic publications on ethics created by the application of the expres­sions  “moral dilemma” and “thought experiment” to the same imaginary situation without clarifying their meaning and relationship, and also b) the increase of justified doubts con­cerning the concepts which are hidden behind these expressions. Between the examples of moral dilemmas and thoughts experiments is close connection because all the examples that the advocates of the possibility of genuine moral dilemmas put forward are thought experiments, but not all thought experiments, even if we allow the possibility of genuine moral dilemmas, are such examples. Moreover, thought experiments are used both in at­tempts to prove the possibility of genuine moral dilemmas and to negate this possibility. To consider at the theoretical level issues related to the possibility of genuine moral dilemmas, the place of thought experiments in ethics and the connection between them, I think it necessary to investigate the hypothesis of a genuine moral dilemma, that is, a conceptually formulated assumption about the possibility of unsolvable conflicts be­tween moral obligations in life, and the method of thought experiment, that is, a set of cri­teria and rules for creating imaginary cases. The hypothesis of a genuine moral dilemmas is, in reality, an assumption about the manifestation of morality in life, and the active ap­plication of thought experiments to the field of ethics is a fact, any reflection on which raises the question of the possibility and validity of using the method of thought experi­ment regarding moral matters.