Moral Conundrum

Christian philosopher Victor Reppert raises an interesting question about moral choices (here).  He describes a hypothetical situation where one is faced with a dilemma - to choose between allowing a man to be murdered, or stealing a million dollars to prevent the murder from happening. This is his post in its entirety (which contains a mistake that I have bracketed):

Here is an interesting ethical question. Suppose Smith knows for sure that if he steals $1.000,000, Jones will not murder Williams. But if he does not steal $1,000,000, then Jones will [not] murder Williams. If he steals, of course he's a thief, but if he doesn't steal, does that mean he's an accessory before the fact to murder? See what trouble you get into when you ask questions like this to a philosopher? - Reppert

It's interesting to Victor, presumably, because of the moral conundrum.  The unfortunate person presented with this choice has no way to escape the commission of a sin.  No matter what his choice is, he is doing something wrong in the eyes of God.  And you get yourself into trouble by asking a philosopher to pontificate on this question.  I think what Victor really means to say is that you get the philosopher into trouble by presenting a question he is not prepared to answer.


And of course, Victor gives us no good answer to this question.  He leaves the reader to ponder it without the benefit of the philosopher's wisdom.  Without any guidance to help in navigating the ethical issues and finding a suitable answer.  I find this post interesting, not because of the moral dilemma it raises, but because the glaring lack of discussion that might lead to any kind of reasonable answer.  There is no discussion of different ethical systems, and how one might arrive at different answers depending upon the ethical system he follows.  More importantly, there is no discussion of how different ethical systems compare to each other with regard to their ability provide any kind of guidance to one who is faced with a moral dilemma.  Nor is there any discussion of ethical epistemology.  How do we know that something is right or wrong?  What makes it right or wrong?

These may not be easy questions to answer, but that's what philosophers do.  And that's why I was so struck by Victor's post.  He didn't even take a stab at it.  He simply states that asking a philosopher will get you in trouble.  Really?  I'm not a philosopher, but let me see if I can make some sense about this supposed moral dilemma.

Why is it a dilemma?  Because to most religious believers, there is apparently no "correct" answer.  Either choice is wrong.  But that simply illustrates a big problem with religious ethical systems in general: they don't work in real life.  The believer sees moral values as being concrete and absolute.  Murder is wrong.  Stealing is wrong.  Period.  In this situation, you'd be wrong, no matter which choice you make.  Under Divine Command Theory, God dictates whether things are right or wrong, but since moral values are absolute, there seems to be no wiggle room.  There is no right thing to do.  In deontological ethics, it is one's duty to follow the rules (as set out by God), but the rules say we shouldn't make either of these choices.  This is indeed a conundrum for the religious believer.  And let me add here that this particular scenario might never occur in real life, but there are many situations where one is faced with a choice between two things that are both considered to be wrong.  In fact, it happens all the time.

How does the believer muddle through these moral dilemmas?  By doing what we all do in real life.  He can't rely on absolute moral values, because that that would not allow him to make a choice.  But he has to make choice.  So what do we all do?  We decide which choice is better.  We make our choice, and we move on in life.  We don't choose the "right" thing - we choose what we consider to be the "best" thing from among the available choices.  In many cases, there is no conflict.  But when we are faced with two bad choices, we usually become consequentialists.  We are forced to consider the situation, and what will result from the choices we make.  This is what we do all the time, and that's true regardless of whether we think our moral values are absolute.  Look at the comments in response to Victor's post.

The fact of the matter is there are no absolute moral values.  Morals are a matter of judgment, and they differ somewhat from one person to the next.  What is morally right is what a person considers to be good.  Good and bad are always a matter of judgment, and they are generally made relative to something else.  (Many Christians will insist that there is no good unless there is also evil to distinguish it from.  This is often used as justification for the existence of evil in the world that God created.)  In the scenario outlined by Victor, the "good" or morally correct choice is clearly not what one would choose under different circumstances, nor is there universal agreement about what that choice should be.  If absolute moral values existed, there would be no conundrum, and there would presumably be little, if any, disagreement about what choice of action is dictated by those morals.

I have to ask myself how Christians can go on believing that God has set the standards for morally correct behavior, when they can see as well as the rest of us that those "standards" are not universal.  They differ from one time period to another, from one culture to another, and from one person to the next.  Victor sees a moral dilemma as an interesting puzzle.  I see it as solid proof that Christian beliefs about morality are seriously out of sync with reality.