Since the beginning of time, people have been faced with ethical and moral choices that have tested their mental fitness in the ability to make the right choice. Sometimes it's a small choice like “should I eat a good breakfast before I take this test?” but sometimes the choice isn't that small, like “should I try to save that child from the burning building or should I go get help?” In these types of situations, the major ethical dilemma is usually caused by two ethically right choices that you see can both have a good outcome. Going in and saving the child from the burning building will be quicker than waiting for firemen, and they have a better chance of surviving. But what if you fall and hurt yourself in the building and die? Calling the fire department would take longer but they know what to do to keep everyone as safe as possible. These types of decisions that have two ethically correct choices are called a right vs. right choice. Within these rights vs. right choices, there are four dilemma paradigms to classify the situation. The paradigms are: Truth vs. loyalty, individual vs. community, short-term vs. long term, and justice vs. mercy. These four paradigms can classify any right vs. right situation into at least one of the categories.
Truth vs. loyalty can be explained as honesty vs. promise keeping, or integrity vs. commitment. A situation Kidder explains in his book about this paradigm is one of a librarian, who receives a call from a man asking for information of the rape laws of that city. She thinks it's probably for a school project, takes his name and number and says she would call him with the information. An officer in the library overhears this phone conversation and asks for the person's information, saying there have been a few rapes in the city and this person might be the criminal. The librarian could either give him the information, or the “truth”, or she could keep “loyal” to her code of librarian ethics of not giving out personal information of people to others. In another situation that I myself have experienced; on the last day of school a bunch of kids decided to make a slip and slide out of the school hallway, with soap and water. The teachers were questioning everyone about who did it and trying to find the people responsible for the mess. When I was asked, I had to decide if I would be truthful and tell the teacher who exactly did it, or remain loyal to my fellow students and not rat them out.
In an individual vs. community situation, you have to choose from helping yourself, or a small group of people, vs. helping a much larger group of people. Kidder's situation in the book is a story of a man owning a hospital in the mid 1980s. In this time, no one really knew much about AIDS, or how they were spread. A few patients in the man's hospital needed care, but he discovered that they might have AIDS. He had to face the following decision; should he give the individual patients the help they are entitled to, risking the health of his nurses and doctors, or should he keep these patients quarantined away from everyone, to save his community of workers. A situation I once faced that reflected an individual vs. community ethical dilemma may be a bit more childish, but was a dilemma nonetheless. Playing a kickball type game in my gym class last year, I was on third base with about five other kids, ready to run to home base once the ball was kicked. When it was kicked and we started to run, the girl in front of me, who I never talk to before, slowed down all of a sudden. I smashed into her from behind and we both fell over to the ground. I was fine and got right up, but right before I started to run again, I noticed she was still on the ground. The game was very close and we needed me to score, but I also wanted to help the girl up considering it was me that knocked her over. If I helped her up, we both would get out without scoring, letting our team down, but I wouldn't look like a prick for knocking her over (individual). If I ran to home base I would score to put our team in the lead (community) but it would look like I had no remorse for knocking her down.
In short-term vs. long-term, you must make a decision that would benefit you either immediately, or would rather be helpful in the long run. Kidder explains short-term vs. long-term in a story of a man who graduated with his science degree. His job was a great job, got married and had two kids. Twelve years later he got another job that promised advancement, but to do so he would have to go back to school, soaking up most of his time with the family, this coming during his kids teen years when they need support for this often difficult transition in life. He has to decide if he should be there for his kids in the short period in life where his kids need guidance from both of their parents the most (short-term), or should he think of the future and the money he could make with more education, that would help support his kids for the future (long-term). A short-term vs. long-term situation I faced was at the end of the school year. We have open mic coffeehouses once a month at my high school, and the final one of my senior year was coming upon us. It would be my last chance to play music with many people who were going to different schools, but at the same time a band I was currently in wanted to have a major practice that very same night. I could either go to the coffeehouse for one final goodbye to old friends (short-term), or I could have band practice, considering the band was very promising and we had very high hopes for it, aiming to have a record out within the next few months (long-term).
