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Solving Ethical Dilemmas Essay

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An ethical dilemma is defined as a complex situation that will often involve an apparent mental conflict between moral imperatives in which to obey one would result in transgressing another . When individuals are faced with an ethical question, we tend to search for a “correct answer” when responding. However, these types of questions do not always seem to have a straightforward answer. The arguments which may arise from an ethical dilemma question are typically examined in two ways: whether people are being consistent in their judgment and whether the alleged facts on which those judgments are based are truth. In this essay, the ethical dilemma being presented is as followed: A man cheats on his wife early in their marriage. Twenty years …show more content…

Furthermore, it is most similar to what Aristotle would resolve because neither extreme—the marriage completely ending or the man continuing to keep the secret—is being chosen. Instead, a balance between the two extremes has been found. This balance would be the couple receiving counseling and the man being relieved of his guilt. Philosopher Spinoza's ethics are slightly different from those of Aristotle. Much like the stoics—individuals who believed that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions —Spinoza believed all things are logically determined. To clarify further, since each man's particular essence is directly tied to his fate—the time and place of his existence—ethical standards cannot be absolute. Rather, they are relative to the individual's mind and body or his/her culture. In addition to those, Spinoza thought that happiness comes from understanding limits and accepting a determined fate within a universal scheme. Spinoza's philosophies are similar to the modern beliefs held by many societies today. Based on Spinoza's viewpoint of ethic relativity, his answer to the above moral dilemma would be that the men not tell his wife. The infidelity occurred twenty years before, which means the man's values towards the importance of marriage and honesty were almost non-existent

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