Dealing with Ethical Dilemmas Introduction Ethical dilemmas have been described as trying to choose between right and right. Because they often have no clear answer, they are very difficult to solve. This paper considers what ethical dilemmas are and how they can be dealt with. Discussion There are many types of ethical dilemmas, ranging from small things like telling a “little white lie” about a friend’s choice of wardrobe (“Yes those pants DO make you look fat”—who would say that?) to facing a decision as to whether or not to turn in a loved one who’s doing drugs. Many ethical dilemmas are problems “because of a certain kind of conflict between the rightness or wrongness of the actions and the goodness or badness of the consequences of the actions” (Ross, 2005). Examples of this kind of dilemma might be a lifeboat, where some people have to be thrown out so that the majority can survive; or the “fat man in the cave (where the fact man, stuck in the entrance, must be killed to save the others” (Ross, 2005). While we normally consider murder the most heinous of crimes, in both of these examples it seems to be necessary: one life is sacrificed so many more can be saved. This is what leads to the dilemma: “If doing what is right produces something bad, or if doing what is wrong produces something good, the force of moral obligation may seem balanced by the reality of the good end” (Ross, 2005). Ross suggests that we can “have the satisfaction of being right, regardless of the damage don