The Concept of Ethical (Moral) Dilemmas
A moral dilemma (from Greek di(s) meaning twice and lemma meaning assumption) is a situation in which a person faces two possibilities, where choosing one violates one set of moral prescriptions, and the opposite choice violates another set. Dilemmas are problems that do not have a clear-cut solution; they contain contradictions that are not amenable to formal analysis.
The field of moral dilemmas is a common context of psychological practice. A client, finding themselves in a complex situation of comprehending a moral dilemma, turns to a psychologist as an expert. They expect help in solving their problem. The situation of moral choice becomes the subject of the psychologist’s professional reflection. However, the absence of algorithms for resolving moral dilemmas and criteria of morality that are absolutely correct for all people and for a specific person places the psychologist themselves in a situation of complex moral choice. Now they must make their choice and accept not entirely ideal decisions. These may concern questions of defining the boundaries of confidentiality of client information and persons from their circle, the possibility of discussing counseling cases with colleagues or describing them in literature, concealing traumatic information from the client, the degree of openness in relationships with clients, and the level of intervention in personal life.
From the experience of solving moral dilemmas, from reflections on them, from reasoning in the process of their analysis, applied ethics has essentially grown.
Moral dilemmas are divided into two types:
- the first, when a person is obliged to simultaneously perform two opposite acts, since both are correct (for example, informing the mother of an underage girl about her intimate relationships and keeping the secret of the conversation with the child);
- the second, when a person simultaneously should and should not perform the same act (for example, intentional termination of life-sustaining treatment in the case of a persistent and irreversible coma).
When solving ethical dilemmas, a psychologist needs to set priorities between moral norms of professional ethics, personal convictions, public opinion, management requirements, etc.
Varieties of the Psychologist’s Moral Dilemmas
Let’s start with an example. A staff psychologist at a bank consults a female employee. She came with a problem of obsessive fears. The client feels that she is being watched, that people seek to cause her pain or even kill her. Such behavior adversely affects the condition of colleagues, whose level of neuroticization has reached a critical point. The bank management’s requirement is “creating conditions for dismissal,” as the psychologist’s job duty is “increasing employee productivity.” On one hand, the psychologist as a staff employee must submit to the bank administration. On the other hand, the basic principle of psychological help is the protection of the client’s interests, and dismissal or any other pressure can provoke social isolation of the client and, as a consequence, serious exacerbation of her condition. At the center of the described ethical dilemma is the discrepancy between the requirements of psychological professional ethics (primacy of client interests) and the needs of the employer organization (high labor productivity).
In life, various cases occur when it is necessary to make an independent decision on an ethical task and it is impossible to rely on professional standards. For example: whether to inform clients about hacking