moral dilemmas and vagueness

Moral Dilemmas and Vagueness

Matjaž Potrč & Vojko Strahovnik

Received: 15 January 2011 /Accepted: 2 December 2011 /Published online: 30 December 2011# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract In this paper we point out some interesting structural similarities betweenvagueness andmoral dilemmas as well as between some of the proposed solutions to bothproblems. Moral dilemma involves a situation with opposed obligations that cannot all besatisfied. Transvaluationism as an approach to vagueness makes three claims concerningthe nature of vagueness: (1) it involves incompatibility between mutually unsatisfiablerequirements, (2) the underlying requirements retain their normative power even whenthey happen to be overruled, and (3) this incompatibility turns out to be rather benign inpractice. Given that transvaluationism is inspired by moral dilemmas, these claims areassessed in respect to them. Transvaluationism provides a smooth account of the men-tioned claims concerning vagueness. Following a brief discussion of Sorensen’s views onmoral dilemmas and conflict vagueness, we offer a model of moral pluralism accommo-dating structurally similar claims about the nature of moral conflict and moral dilemmas.

Keywords Moral dilemma . Vagueness . Transvaluationism . Duties and principles .

Pluralism

1 Preliminaries

After providing some examples of moral dilemmas, we present three claims that areshared by moral dilemmas and vagueness. Given that these claims about moral

Acta Anal (2013) 28:207–222DOI 10.1007/s12136-011-0140-2

M. PotrčDepartment of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Aškerčeva 2,SI 1000 Ljubljana, Sloveniae-mail: [email protected]

V. Strahovnik (*)IPAK institute and Faculty for Government and European Studies, Kranj, Sloveniae-mail: [email protected]

V. StrahovnikUlica Hermana Potočnika 21, SI 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

dilemmas are made from the point of view of transvaluationism, we look at itsapproach to vagueness. Moral dilemmas can then be reevaluated.

1.1 Moral Dilemma Cases

Before taking a look at three claims concerning moral dilemmas, it is useful to getacquainted with some cases. Moral dilemma may be summarized in the followingmanner:

(MD) Do A! Do B! You cannot do both A and B.

A well known example is Sartre's WWII student who is torn between two duties:A: Stay at home and help the aging mother! B: Fight the occupiers and so fulfill yourpatriotic duty! Obviously, there is a dilemma because the student cannot follow bothA and B at the same time. So what to do? The situation requires making a judgment inrespect to the available alternatives. Doing Awill exclude B. Deciding for B will ruleout A. Usually someone in such a situation will make a judgment in one way oranother.

A different example involves myself driving in order to meet you just as I havepromised. On my way, I encounter an accident with someone badly injured. I happento have some medical knowledge, and there is nobody else around that could help. SoI am in a moral dilemma situation, torn between principles (A) Fulfill my promise toyou! and (B) Help the one in need! If I act according to B, I will bail out on A, and theother way round.

As a third example, consider a professor torn between two duties: (A) Write arecommendation letter, as you have promised! and (B) Write a good paper for asymposium! The situation leading to this conundrum was a promise the professor madeto his colleague, and also his acceptance of a symposium invitation, both of thesecommitments being made quite a while ago. In the meantime, the professor was sub-merged by other current and pressing work. But now as deadlines for his formerly agreedupon obligations loom, the professor realizes that there is no way to fulfill them both, forthis would require a lot of time to carefully and responsibly study the applicants' work,and to study and compose an excellent paper for a demanding prospective audience.

1.2 Three Claims About Vagueness and Moral Dilemmas

Here are three claims about vagueness and moral dilemmas proposed by transvalua-tionism as an approach to vagueness (Horgan 1995, 2010):

(P1) Vagueness and dilemmas involve a kind of incompatibility, a tension betweenthe mutually unsatisfiable requirements.

(P2) Irrespective of what happens in vagueness or in moral conflict, the eventuallyoverruled requirements retain their normative power.

(P3) In judgmental practice, the incompatibility is rather benign: we solve vague-ness or (most) moral conflicts without much difficulty; normally there is noradical indecision threat.

We will first take a look at these claims in relation to vagueness and then at moraldilemmas.

208 M. Potrč, V. Strahovnik

2 Vagueness

2.1 Vagueness Case

Vagueness is ubiquitous in language and thought. Predicates such as rich and poor,bald and having a scalp full of hair do not have strict boundaries of application. Thesituation of vagueness is often presented through sorites sequences. Let us look atsuch a sorites sequence for the case of baldness. At the beginning of the sequencethere is a man with only one hair on his scalp, then comes the man with two hairs,then with three and so on. Here is the modus ponens reasoning. If a man with one hairon his scalp is bald, then the man with two hairs on his scalp is bald as well. But aman with one hair on his scalp is bald indeed. So, a man with two hairs on his scalp isbald. One can generalize the inference in the following iterative manner. For eachperson with the property of being bald, his successor will be bald as well. But aperson with one hair is bald. So the successor with 10,000 appropriately positionedhairs on his scalp is bald as well. This impeccable logical reasoning leads to acounterintuitive result. If you take a look at the whole sequence of 10,000 men, eachone of them with one more hair on his scalp than his predecessor, then you see thatthe beginning ones are bald indeed, that there are obviously hair endowed persons atthe opposite end of the sorites sequence, and that there is a kind of indecisive greyarea somewhere in the middle. Vagueness of the predicate ‘bald’ is due to the fact thatthere is no precise boundary n, n+1, such as 5,000 and 5,001, so that the man with5,000 hairs would be bald and the one with 5,001 would not be bald. According tothis understanding, vagueness is tied to boundarylessness, to the no fact of the matterabout transition in the sorites sequence. We believe that boundarylessness is anappropriate mark of vagueness.

2.2 Vagueness Structure and Ingredients

We thus take boundarylessness to be a mark of vagueness, and we also take theview of transvaluationism with regard to a specific account of vagueness. Weview the structure and ingredients of vagueness according to transvaluationism,because they are quite general and not easily disputed facts about the phenom-enon of vagueness.

The structure of vagueness may be described by conditions, principles and pro-hibitions, as these are applied to the sorites sequence (Horgan 1995, 2010).

First, there are two conditions of vagueness:

Difference condition: At the beginning of the sorites sequence there are itemswith a certain status, and at the end of the sequence there are eventually itemswith an opposite status.1

Transition condition: There is no fact of the matter about the status transitions inthe sorites sequence.

The difference condition states the situation in a sorites sequence in respect toassigning statuses to the items appearing in it. Notice that this condition alone does

1 It may be added that neighbors of items have the same status.

Moral Dilemmas and Vagueness 209

not yet introduce vagueness, because according to it there may well exist a boundarybetween the statuses,2 and so there would not be any vagueness, understood asboundarylessness. The transition condition supplies just that, namely the impossibil-ity of pinning down a transition boundary in the sorites sequence. Thus, both of theseconditions are needed for vagueness to be present.

The second structural condition for vagueness is provided by the involved princi-ples. This focuses on constituents involved into the transition condition (no fact of thematter about status transitions) that prove to be the following principles:

ISS Principle or Individualistic Same Status Principle requires each item in thesorites sequence to be assigned the same status as its neighbors.CSI Principle or Collectivistic Status-Indeterminacy Principle says that there isno correct attribution of statuses to all items in the sequence.

Notice that the above principles are incompatible, for the ISS Principle requiresthat the same status be extended over all items in the sorites sequence, whereas theCSI Principle argues against such a practice. Both principles are required for there tobe vagueness, because the first principle's same-status requirement, taken alone,would avoid it, whereas the second one introduces it.

The last structural ingredients of vagueness are prohibitions:

ISA Prohibition or the Individualistic Status-Attribution Prohibition says that oneis not allowed to attribute a specific status to an item and a different status to itsimmediate neighbor in the sorites sequence.CSA Prohibition or Collectivistic Status-Attribution Prohibition commands younever to affirm any determinate overall assignment of statuses to items in asorites sequence.

Both the same-status attribution throughout the sorites sequence by the ISAprohibition and its blocking by the CSA prohibition are affirmed. This again leadsto an incompatibility between underlying principles.

Principles (Be honest!) are more general than prohibitions (Don't lie!). Because ofvagueness you cannot entirely follow principles by satisfying them (ISS and CSIprinciples are incompatible). Prohibitions restrict the semantic spelling out of thematters (what is allowed or not allowed inside the sorites discourse). Prohibitionspresent ways to respect incompatible principles in the judgmental/affirmatory practicedealing with the sorites sequence. If at some position in the sorites sequence you donot express yourself in respect to the prohibition (Don't lie!) you did not infringeagainst the principle. More about this soon.

2.3 Three Statements Applied to Vagueness

Here are three statements in respect to vagueness:

(V1) Two or more incompatible principles apply to some situation.(V2) Each of these principles retains power, despite the mentioned incompatibility,

even if the principle is not followed in practice.

2 Actually, such a boundary would be questionable by the neighbors' same-status requirement.


(V3) Incompatibility turns out to be rather benign in practice.

We now provide a first quick glance at these points, to be further elaboratedin a while. V1 is true for vagueness cases because the ISS and CSI principles,which are parts of the phenomenon supporting the transition condition, happento be incompatible. It is not possible for both of these principles to be mutuallysatisfied.

Principles retain their power, even if they are not satisfied: V2. This is possible byabandoning the direct principles satisfaction requirement and by embracing appro-priate semantic standards (the mentioned prohibitions) that exhibit respect for prin-ciples, although not as a direct form of satisfaction, but rather in an indirect manner.So even if principles cannot be satisfied, they still retain their power in the semanticpractice of dealing with the sorites sequence.

The weak incoherence of vagueness does not lead to a strong contradiction. Thismeans that in judgmental/affirmatory practice, vagueness is not blocked by theincompatibility of the involved principles governing it: V3. One can also expressthis point as a simple observation that vagueness is a benign feature of language andthought, as is often demonstrated by the joy of our conversational practices and by therichness of poetic expressions.

2.4 Zoom-in on Vagueness

Using the ingredients and structure of vagueness as our guide, we may now point atthe transvaluationist respect for boundarylessness and at the difference between statusprinciples and adherence to them in evaluative practice.

The inspiration for the name of transvaluationism as an approach to vaguenesscomes from the Nietzschean transvaluation of all values as a way of counteringnihilism. Transvaluationism as an approach to vagueness was first introduced byHorgan (1995, 1998) and then fully developed within the context of austere realismand contextual semantics by Horgan and Potrč (2008). It can be briefly characterizedas a general approach to vagueness that “makes two fundamental claims. First,vagueness is weakly logically incoherent without being strongly logically incoherent.Second, vagueness is viable, legitimate, and indeed essential in human language andthought; its weak logical incoherence is benign rather than malevolent. Just asNietzsche held that one can overcome nihilism by embracing what he called thetransvaluation of all values, transvaluationism asserts that vagueness, although log-ically incoherent in a certain way, can and should be endorsed and embraced, notnihilistically repudiated.” (Horgan and Potrč 2008: 79-80)3

Cases of vagueness in language and thought involve sorites sequences, and theseimply boundarylessness, i.e. no fact of the matter about status transitions in the soritessequence. Boundarylessness is enabled by the difference and transition conditions.The transition condition involves the ISS and CSI principles, which cannot be jointlysatisfied. In fact, their direct satisfaction would lead to the impossibility not just of the

3 Horgan and Potrč (2008: 199) also point out that they are using Nietzschean term transvaluationism inorder to emphasize that it is not a species of what Williamson termed nihilism, e.i. the view that vagueexpressions are empty.


ontological, but also of the language and thought related vagueness. Despite the factthat these status principles (governing the attribution of statuses to the items in thesorites sequence) cannot be jointly satisfied, though, they still exercise their influencethrough the following of practice standards—the ISA and CSA prohibitions. Thetransvaluationist proposal as a way out of the nihilistic deconstruction danger intro-duces the distinction between status principles and between practice standardsthrough which the first ones are followed.

The incompatibility of involved principles is pointed out by V1. Respectingboundarylessness seems to require satisfaction of both the ISS and CSI principles.Satisfaction of ISS will not introduce any boundary into the sorites sequence. So it isincompatible with the difference condition, and with the CSI principle. It is thusimpossible for a sorites sequence to satisfy both principles. Thus the very phenom-enon of vagueness seems to be impossible.

Statement V2 then claims that, despite the mentioned incompatibility, prin-ciples still retain their power. In the case where one of principles would not befollowed, that principle continues to have some relevance in the situation. Thatprinciples retain power in this manner enhances point V1, for each of theprinciples continues kicking even in a case where it is not explicitly endorsed.This adds to the incompatibility and it strengthens the nihilistic threat directedat the phenomenon of vagueness.

A possible way out would be to soften the too-strict requirements that seem togovern V1 and V2. But just how could this be done? First, what is meant here by too-strict contextual requirements? Their interpretation depends on the manner in whichincompatibility is understood. If it is understood as strong logical incompatibility orcontradiction, then the threat of deconstruction and impossibility of the phenomenonof vagueness is lurking, indeed. If incompatibility, on the other hand, is allowed tosome extent in certain non-deconstructive manners, it may be rather productive andbenign. This seems to be exactly what is happening in vagueness as it manifests inlanguage and thought. If language and thought as used in everyday communicationwere always sharp and nonvague, this would make communication very hard to comeby or even impossible. It is thus important, for practical pragmatic reasons, thatconcepts as we use them be endowed with vagueness and so with boundarylessness.This means that a weak logical incompatibility of vagueness is rather benign and is aviable feature of language and thought.

If so, then there may be a way out, indeed, of the conundrum posed by V1and V2, namely to soften the incompatibility of V1 and the power exercisingprinciples of V2 to a less strict and benign everyday level. This is exactly whatV3 claims.

In other words, we need a story according to which principles stay in power andexercise their impact upon the sorites sequence, even if they are not followed in thestrongest manner. Here is a story: status principles, such as ISS and CSI, cannot besatisfied in the sorites sequence so that boundarylessness and thereby the phenome-non of vagueness would be preserved. Despite this, such principles still exercise theirimpact upon the sorites sequence through practice standards, such as the ISA andCSA prohibitions. Taking all of V1, V2, V3 on board is enabled by the benignincoherence stated by V3, with its subsequent impact upon the weaker and viableincompatibility interpretations in V1 and V2.


A look at what would be an appropriate manner to handle things in the case offorced march along the sorites sequence can illustrate how status principles can stayin power (V2), although they are incompatible and so cannot all be satisfied (V1).The CSA and ISA prohibitions are practice standards that can be used in an approachto the sorites sequence. Being force-marched along the sorites sequence confrontsyou with the task of assigning statuses to each item in the sequence answering by Yesor No to the question such as “Is it true that this man is bald?”, as you proceed alongthe sequence featuring first a man with one hair, then each of his successors havingincreased their number of hairs by one. The semantically appropriate and responsiblething to do in such circumstances is to respect principles (by never assigning a certainstatus to some guy and a different status to his immediate neighbor, say). You canrespect principles, though without satisfying them, by exercising a Zen-like attitudein respect to the forced march along the sorites sequence. You can do this by notassigning statuses to them all, i.e. by refusing to assign statuses at some undeterminedpoint along the sorites sequence. You still respect principles—although you do notsatisfy them—by assigning statuses to some items in the sequence. In this way, thereis a dominance of the CSI principle over the ISS principle.4 A Zen attitude is a sort ofsilent tranquility in the face of the persistent queries in the sorites sequence, while stillrespecting the ISA and CSA prohibitions (cf. Horgan and Potrč 2008: 81).Refusing to assign statuses is justified by endorsing boundarylessness as the basicclaim related to the phenomenon of vagueness, and in this way exercising mutualrespect for both the ISA prohibition and the CSA prohibition. By adopting the Zenattitude one does not attribute a specific status to an item and a different status to itsimmediate neighbor in the sorites sequence, and one also does not affirm anydeterminate overall assignment of statuses to items in a sorites sequence. Thepossible worry about deferring the boundary quest to subsequent levels is therebyavoided.

In this sense this approach to vagueness “transvaluates” all values in the soritessequence by refusing to exercise direct satisfaction of incompatible principles and byintroducing weak and benign form of inconsistency and the power interpretation ofthese principles. Thus it is able to escape the impossibility threat and to recognizeboundarylessness, together with the phenomenon of vagueness. The status principles/practice standards distinction makes it possible to recognize vagueness and boun-darylessness as a benign and a viable phenomenon. In the case of vagueness, werespect principles but we cannot follow them across the board without exceptions.Zen-attitude can pull us out of this conundrum by allowing the following of princi-ples, but not for all cases, so that we can remain silent about ascription of statuses insome formerly undetermined area. The Zen attitude is a consequence of theimpossibility of following both the ISS and CSI principles and of the manner inwhich we can nevertheless follow practice standards. As principles are inconflict, and as they have claims to universal value, they cannot all really befollowed, although they may still be respected in practice. There are practicestandards that determine how principles may be followed. Some principles will

4 The ISS principle is generalist in that it does not allow any exceptions to the same status requirement foreach successor in the sequence. The collectivistic prohibition allows the CSI principle to be followed,although not in all cases.


be disciplined in respect to their generalist universal value, according to theinvolved practice standards.

3 Moral Dilemmas Reconsidered

We now critically evaluate moral dilemmas with respect to the claims about them thatwere made from the point of view of the transvaluationist approach to vagueness.Horgan (1995, 2010) suggests that there is structural similarity between the wayvagueness and moral dilemmas work and he further claims that he modeled histransvaluationism solution of the vagueness problem according to the proper under-standing of moral dilemmas.

In the case of moral conflict or of moral dilemma, a moral agent happens to besubjected to several distinct moral requirements, all of which cannot be simultaneous-ly satisfied in a given situation. Whatever the agent decides about the morally bestthing to do and whatever she does, the requirements that are not satisfied seem toremain in force and are not defeated.5 Furthermore, as both requirements cannot besatisfied, one of those will nonetheless override and dominate the other.

We will now reassess claims (P1)-(P3) with respect to moral dilemmas and offer amodel of moral pluralism that can easily accommodate them (just as transvaluation-ism related three claims concerning the phenomenon of vagueness).

3.1 Moral Dilemmas and Moral Conflict

Let us be a little bit more specific in the way in which we talk about moral dilemmas.There is a quite common distinction in moral theory between a moral conflict and amoral dilemma, although the facets of this distinction differ from one author toanother, and some even use the terms synonymously. The above description isintentionally left open and unspecified in order to initially cover both cases and tostay neutral on this issue. Horgan (2010) himself notices this and later specifies thatwhat he had in mind with a moral dilemma is actually closer to the notion of a moralconflict. Let us sketch a distinction according to which moral dilemmas are a sub-class of moral conflicts.

A moral conflict is a situation where there are good (moral) reasons to do A, on theone hand, and good (moral) reasons to do B on the other hand, and the situation issuch that the agent cannot do both. Usually the reasons on one side are stronger thanon the other and they prevail, resulting in an agent recognizing a greater stringency ofdoing either A or B (cf. Brink 1996). Most moral conflicts are thus soluble, whichmeans that there is a right or a morally best thing to do.

A moral dilemma is an “insoluble” moral conflict where reasons on both sides areequipollent; there are two equally pressing moral requirements facing the agent whois now caught in a genuinely hard case of having to decide what she should do, since

5 "Consider, as a suggestive model, a kind of situation that sometimes arises in the sphere of morals: aperson finds himself with two conflicting moral obligations; both obligations remain in force, even thoughthey conflict; yet the person is morally required to uphold one of these obligations specifically, and toviolate the other one specifically.” (Horgan 1995)


unfortunately the situation is such that she cannot do both.6 We can also say that bothactions are equally morally right or equally morally wrong (Hare 1978; Donagan1993; Foot 1983; 2002). We can add a further requirement for a moral dilemma, e.g.that any action would lead to serious moral consequences or would mean a breach ofa very stringent moral duty, in order to rule out the possibility of equipollency ofreasons in a relatively morally unimportant case as counting as a moral dilemma, butthat is not really relevant for the situation that we are presenting here.

The simplest characterization of the moral dilemma is therefore the following one,where the situation is described as being obliged to do A, being obliged to do B andnot being able to do both A and B:

OAOB~ ◊ (A&B)

Most of what we say in what follows will pertain to moral conflict, althoughwe believe that the model we are advancing could also cover cases of moraldilemma.

3.2 Three Claims Applied to Moral Conflict

The three considered structural claims applied to the case of moral conflict and moraldilemmas are:

(M1) An agent is faced with two (different) moral obligations that cannot both besatisfied.

(M2) Both obligations remain in force rather than being defeated (even though oneor both of them might have defeasibility conditions that are unmet in thecircumstances).

(M3) One of the obligations (in most cases) dominates the other, so that there is anall-things-considered action that is morally best, making the moral conflictresolvable in practice.

We will first argue that these claims are plausible and indeed quite attractive giventhe considerations about our moral life, ordinary moral experience and moralphenomenology.

3.2.1 Incompatibility of the Involved Obligations and the Tension Between TwoRequirements

In a sense, the first claim simply follows the definition of a moral conflict. Itstates that in such situations there are really two distinct moral requirements atwork and that we are facing a genuine moral conflict or a dilemma and notsimply an epistemic dilemma of, e.g., not being sure about the facts of the

6 We leave aside the debate as to whether such genuine moral dilemmas are actually possible at all and alsothe debate about what is the proper deontic logic interpretation of moral dilemmas. We also wish to remainneutral regarding what proper metaethical, i. e. cognitivist or expressivist, interpretation one should adopt inthe light of such dilemmas.


case, being unsure whether some moral principle applies in a given case orbeing unable to relevantly assess the consequences of alternative actions(McConnell 2002). In other words, the problem is not the shortage of the epistemicevidence for decision, but as Jonathan Dancy puts it “that the world itself could be amorally nasty place, and not just for the reasons that we ourselves could not graspand resolve the issue” (Dancy 1993: 125).7

If there are different moral principles underlying obligations or duties for an agentto perform action A and action B, then the outcome in a moral conflict is that it is notpossible for the agent to follow the lead of both principles, satisfying the requirementsfor fulfilling both A and B. So it seems that A and B, and their underlying principles,are incompatible (in the sense that we cannot perform both actions) and that thisgenerates an inconsistency in moral thought.

We saw that in the case of vagueness there are incompatible principles atwork, namely the ISS principle and the CSI principle, creating tension. In thecase of a moral conflict, strictly speaking, the (presumably) two moral princi-ples involved are not incompatible. Let us take the case of helping the accidentvictim and keeping a promise to a friend about meeting her in town: there is nostraightforward inconsistency between “Save the life of an innocent humanbeing” and “Keep your promises.” Also moral requirements, instructing us todo A and to do B, are not inconsistent. What makes a situation problematic arecircumstances in which we cannot do both. (Of course one could form contra-dictions and paradoxes out of OA, OB and~◊ (A&B) using some fairlyplausible modal and deontic principles, like the “ought implies can” principleand agglomeration; cf. Brink 1996.)

Thus duties and their underlying principles are not incompatible as such, but theybecome incompatible in a situation where they happen to find themselves in specialcircumstances. The incompatibility of obligations in moral conflict, thus, is contex-tually bound.

3.2.2 Obligations Retain Power

In the case of moral conflicts and moral dilemmas, both obligations that the agentfaces remain somehow in force, rather than one being completely defeated or silencedby the other.

This is most directly shown through facts about moral phenomenology. When weeventually decide on the overall best thing to do (or that we should do A or B), theremaining requirement or obligation does not simply go away. It retains its normativepull; moral reasons do not disappear after being defeated.

This is what Bernard Williams had in mind when he put forward a prerequisite fora moral theory not to “eliminate from the scene the ‘ought’ that is not acted upon”(Williams 1978:99). The remaining moral requirement represents the so-called moralresidue. The moral conflict is not soluble without remainder. In this case, moralconflict is radically different from the situation where we have two conflicting

7 This still allows both moral dilemmas and epistemic dilemmas to often appear together and for theexistence of a "grey area" between them, as, e.g., in the case of not knowing whether a given moralprinciple applies to the case at hand, which could be a moral and an epistemic issue.


ordinary beliefs that cannot both be true.8 One way for this residue to manifest itself isin specific forms of moral phenomenology, e.g. in an attitude of regret or remorse thatwe often feel in such situations. The other way is emergence of a subsidiary or residualduty, e.g. to apologize to a friend andmake up for the broken promise. Themoral residuecan also affect the way we carry out the selected action (e.g. paying close attention to aperson’s feeling, etc.). Williams then uses those facts about moral phenomenology toargue for non-cognitivist interpretation of moral judgments, since these considerationslead him into thinking that moral judgments are more akin to desires than to beliefs.9

Analogous things happen in the area of vagueness where the collectivistic conceptualpole (the CSI principle) dominates the individualistic one (the ISS principle) withoutdefeating or silencing it, since one still follows the ISA prohibition saying that in thesorites sequence one is not allowed to attribute a specific status to an item and a differentstatus to its immediate neighbor. We still acknowledge the pull of the requirement thatthe two neighboring cases in the sorites sequence should have the same status.

3.2.3 Incompatibility of Moral Requirements Proves to be Benign in Practice

Most cases of moral conflict are easily handled in practice. When we consider our morallives closely, and given the preceding definition of a moral conflict, we can see thatmoral conflict is in fact a frequent phenomenon, but most of the time we solve moralconflicts without any problem, since the reasons for doing one thing noticeably out-weigh other reasons.When the defeated reasons are important enough, we think that it isappropriate, e.g., to feel remorse or to make reparation for the duty that we decide not tofollow in the situation. The same is true about vagueness; we employ vague predicatessuch as “bald”, “flat” or “being a heap” without much difficulty in most situations, andthus resolve the underlying tensions between ISS and CSI principle.

Even cases of moral dilemmas (however tragic and regrettable they might be) canbe handled in such a way that one does not try to satisfy both (all) moral requirementsin an exclusionary manner, and rather in the way of inclusive disjunction (where theinclusion is brought into the situation by the overruled tendency of regret). So whatwe get is a disjunctive duty to do either A or B in order to fulfill our duty in the caseof a moral dilemma, e.g. as in the solution offered by Brink (1996) claiming that inthe case of a moral dilemma we must use a weaker principle of agglomeration ((O(a)& O(b) &~◊ (a & b))→O(a V b)) and by Foot (2002: 187).

3.3 Sorensen on the Relation Between Vagueness and Moral Dilemmas

Sorensen (1991) is one of the rare authors pointing out important parallels betweenvagueness and moral dilemmas. He uses the notion of conflict vagueness in order to

8 Regarding this aspect, moral conflict is radically different from the situation where we have twoconflicting ordinary beliefs (A,B) that cannot both be true. When faced with such a situation and resolvingit in the end (e.g. finding out that A is true) the false belief does not “survive” past this point. (Williams1978)9 We wish to avoid this particular debate here. Although we later argue for moral pluralism, which mostoften harbors a cognitivist view of moral judgments, we will not argue against Williams’s argument. Youcan find the arguments against Williams in Strahovnik (2008, 2009). The model we are presenting herestrives to be independent from this metaethical dimension.


show how the traditional opponents of the existence of genuine moral dilemmas can usethis notion to defend their position, showing that moral conflict and moral dilemmas arenonthreatening for moral thought and practice. Sorensen relates the vagueness of a termto the existence of borderline cases, as in the examples of words such as “tall” or “heap”,which have predictable borderline cases and grey areas of application. But there are alsosurprising borderline cases, as in the example of “being next in a waiting line”, whichSorensen understands as arising from two or more different meanings of words. Beingnext in a line could mean being the next person, who physically stands in a waiting lineor the next person being there with intention to, e.g., buy or order something.

Interestingly, and somewhat analogous to our interpretation of the three clams thatreveal the structural similarity of vagueness and moral conflict, Sorensen relates the latterkind of vagueness with the existence of “two rules we could be following.” Consideringconflicting behavior emerging out of that and the case of a yellow traffic light, Sorensensays that in this case one could easily become enmeshed between the “Stop!” and “Go!”intentions. And in the case mentioned just before, there are two principles involved for thevendor in deciding whether he should serve the lady after her whim decision to buy thesame treat as her friend. The first principle underlying the formation of judgment inrespect to this is that she is physically there in line. The second principle is that ofcategorizing her as someone who intends to buy. As these principles are interlockedbetween themselves, the basis for the formation of judgment is not clear. This feature ofconflicting vagueness is thus analogous to claim P1 about the incompatibility of differentprinciples in a given case. Sorensen then claims that before we encounter conflictingcases, the concept seems to be OK (e.g. the vendor understands who is the next customer).But if you envision or make salient both principles, the first and the second, the clerk willget in trouble. And even as we resolve such quandaries in practice we still see the force ofthe incompatible principles behind them. This is then analogous to claims P3 and P2.

Sorensen claims that those are the resemblances between the case of conflictingvagueness and the inner conflict experienced by victims of moral dilemmas orirresolvable moral conflicts. He thus offers a very similar analysis about what is inthe background of vagueness and of moral dilemmas as the one presented above, buthis overall dialectics is aimed at the debate about the existence of genuine moraldilemmas and consequences for moral theory.10

10 Sorensen (1991) locates five structural aspects involved in the debate on conflict vagueness and moraldilemmas, namely (i) source statements, which represent the description of a dilemma and moral require-ment involved in it; (ii) the modal consequences of these requirements (e.g. that you are obliged to do A andto do B); (iii) the counterfactual that highlights weird consequences of the case, e.g. that you have a non-overridden obligation to do both A and not to do A; (iv) the claim about the impossibility of having anobligation to do A and not to do A; and (v) the claim that such described scenarios are possible. If we applythese elements to a well-known case of Sophie’s Choice dilemma (in the novel Sophie's Choice (1979) byWilliam Styron one of the main characters, Sophie is confronted by a difficult choice forced on her by asadistic doctor in a Nazi concentration camp; she has to choose which of her two children will dieimmediately in the gas chamber and which will be left to live on in the camp), we get the following. 1.A mother must save her child from any foreseeable disaster. 2. If so, then Sophie is required to save child Aand child B. 3. If Sophie were required to save child A and A can be saved only by not saving child B (andvice versa), then she has a non-overridden requirement to save A and a non-overridden requirement not tosave child A. 4. It is impossible for Sophie to have a non-overridden requirement to save child A and a non-overridden requirement not to save child A. 5. It is possible that Sophie only is able to save one child by notsaving another. Sorensen argues that the best way to resolve the issue is to deny 3; accepting instead that shehas an obligation to do A or B (Sorensen 1991: 300-308).


3.4 A Model of Moral Pluralism

We now return to the analogy between vagueness and moral conflict that is embodiedin claims P1-P3. We wish to put forward and defend a Ross-style model of moralpluralism that can accommodate the exposed features of moral conflict, in a waysimilar to the case of transvaluationist vagueness. Such Ross-style moral pluralism asa moral theory embodies features that can explain the above mentioned threecharacteristics.

3.4.1 A Brief Statement of Moral Pluralism

Moral pluralism claims that there exists a plurality of moral duties (or moral princi-ples), that there is no meta-principle that underlies those duties and could serve as abasis for determining the priority rank among them,11 that these duties can conflictand that in resolving such a conflict one must exercise moral judgment in order toresolve it. One of the prominent defenders of moral pluralism, W.D. Ross, famouslycalled such moral duties prima facie duties, with the most stringent duty in a givensituation constituting an all-things-considered duty or duty proper (Ross 1930,1939).12 Given this model we can now claim that the incompatibility of prima facieduties represents a genuine moral conflict, that prima facie duties (as tendencies)retain their normative pull even when overridden and that in practice we often solvesuch moral conflicts without difficulties.

3.4.2 Prima Facie Duties and Genuine Moral Conflict

Prima facie duties are best understood as basic moral reasons and/or as moraltendencies in a situation. As such they can be defeated or overridden. They are notmerely apparent duties or conditional duties. They represent in some sense genuinemoral obligations. If we go back to the case of helping an accident victim and keepinga promise, we have a prima facie duty of non-maleficience and a prima facie duty offidelity that are in conflict. An agent facing this choice therefore encounters a genuinemoral conflict and must exercise moral judgment and carefully attend to the details ofthe case in front of her. That is why Ross also spoke about prima facie duties astendencies or as responsibilities. "We have to distinguish from the characteristic of

11 Using a different terminology one could say that this multitude of principles or moral values that areassociated with them are incommensurable and therefore one cannot formulate the meta-principle thatwould prioritize or weight them.12 Here is the definition of a prima facie duty provided by Ross that stirred much controversy and variousinterpretations over the years. "I suggest `prima facie duty´ or `conditional duty´ as a brief way of referringto the characteristic (quite distinct from that of being a duty proper) which an act has, in virtue of being of acertain kind (e. g. the keeping of a promise), of being an act which would be a duty proper if it were not atthe same time of another kind which is morally significant. Whether an act is a duty proper or actual dutydepends on all the morally significant kinds it is an instance of. The phrase `prima facie duty´ must beapologized for, since (1) it suggests that what we are speaking of is a certain kind of duty, whereas it is infact not a duty, but something related in a special way to duty. […] (2) `Prima´ facie suggests that one isspeaking only of an appearance which a moral situation presents at first sight, and which may turn out to beillusory; whereas what I am speaking of is an objective fact involved in the nature, though not, as dutyproper does, arising from its whole nature." (Ross 1930: 19-20)


being our duty that of tending to be our duty. Any act that we do contains variouselements in virtue of which it falls under various categories. In virtue of being thebreaking of a promise, for instance, it tends to be wrong; in virtue of being an instanceof relieving distress it tends to be right. Tendency to be one's duty may be called aparti-resultant attribute, i.e. one which belongs to an act in virtue of some componentin its nature. Being one's duty is a toti-resultant attribute, one which belongs to an actin virtue of its whole nature and of nothing less than this" (Ross 1930: 28). Primafacie duties are not merely apparent duties or conditional duties.

3.4.3 Prima Facie Duties Retain Their Normative Pull Even When Defeated

Once one of the prima facie duties is defeated by another (in that concrete situation)more stringent prima facie duty, it does not simply disappear. It remains a moralfactor and plays a role in the overall situation.

Ross explicitly notices that, by claiming that “[when] we think ourselves justifiedin breaking, and indeed morally obliged to break, a promise in order to relievesomeone's distress, we do not for a moment cease to recognize a prima facie duty tokeep our promise, and this leads us to feel, not indeed shame or repentance, butcertainly compunction, for behaving as we do; we recognize, further, that it is ourduty to make up somehow to the promisee for the breaking of the promise" (Ross1930: 28). Ross thus clearly states that there is a ground for rational regret in respectto a certain aspect of our action, even if one has clearly before one’s mind what oneoverall should do. A strong prima facie duty that would be left unfulfilled suffices toexplain regret. Prima facie duties, even when defeated, still provide reasons and thesereasons survive the point of deciding what one overall should do. Remorse or regretare appropriate whenever a prima facie obligation has been violated, regardless ofwhether it was morally permissible to violate it given a more pressing obligation.

This is then the basis for the residue, the “remaining ought” in a situation and canreadily explain the moral phenomenology of moral residue manifesting itself in aform of regret or remorse.

3.4.4 Most Moral Conflicts are Soluble in Practice

Putting aside the issue of proper moral dilemmas, when there would be two equallypressing prima facie duties present in a situation, most moral conflicts are soluble inpractice. So although moral conflict is prevalent in moral thought and practice (e.g.Ross claims that situations where there would be only one prima facie duty presentare rare indeed (Ross 1930: 19, 33)), this is not malevolent for such a model of moralpluralism. In the case of an ordinary moral conflict we must carefully judge the caseat hand and discover which reasons are stronger.

Given the pluralist distinction between duties proper and prima facie duties, aRossian pluralist sees the situation of a moral dilemma as an agent being faced with aprima facie duty to do A and a prima facie duty to do B while she cannot do both. Asit appears in dilemma a prima facie duty to do A is not more stringent than primafacie duty to do B and vice versa. The agent is left with two equally strong primafacie duties. For something to be our absolute duty or duty proper it is not enough tobe undefeated by other duties, but it must itself defeat all other duties. One of the


conditions for duty proper is that there is no other action that would fulfill the moralconsiderations involved in a situation. For an action to be obligatory (duty proper) itmust be (i) morally right and (ii) every other action in that situation must be morallywrong. Ross can therefore claim that in the case of a moral dilemma we are left withtwo morally right actions (A, B) and only one duty, that is to do A or B. (Ross 1939:43) Falling to do A or B would constitute a morally wrong action.

4 Conclusion

Our aim was to flesh out interesting structural similarities between the problem ofvagueness and moral dilemmas. The analogy was used to highlight the three claimsrelated to both philosophical problems (P1 – P3). Regarding the problem of vague-ness we have showed how the transvaluationist approach analyses the phenomenonof vagueness in terms of conflicting conditions and principles and how these can berelated to the mentioned claims. We have followed the analogous problem-solutionsmodel of reasoning and tried to develop a pluralist moral theory model that is able toaccommodate the nature of moral conflict in a similar way. Just as Horgan (2010)claims that in the light of boundarylessness most solutions of the vagueness problemshould come in one or another form of transvaluationism, we claim that the mostelegant solutions of the moral conflict should embrace a form of moral pluralism andthat they should account for the above claims M1–M3.13

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Dancy, J. (1993). Moral reasons. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Donagan, A. (1993). Moral dilemmas, genuine and spurious: a comparative anatomy. Ethics, 104(1), 7–21.Foot, P. (1983). Moral realism and moral dilemmas. The Journal of Philosophy, 80(7), 379–98.Foot, P. (2002). Moral dilemmas revisited. In P. Foot (Ed.),Moral dilemmas (pp. 175–188). Oxford: Oxford

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13 We are aware that there might be other positions that would be able to handle moral conflict byaccommodating claims M1-M3 and would strictly speaking not count as “moral pluralism.” In that casetheir plausibility would depend upon giving a proper picture about the relationship between moral reasonsand moral principles in order to account for M1, i.e. there being a genuine moral conflict.


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