Abstract

The dissertation develops a model for judging as better and worse alternatives which are desirable in one respect but undesirable in another because there are conflicting criteria for comparing them. I construct what I call a 'bargaining' model of choice based on the ethically neutral categories of alternatives, attributes, preferences and criteria for choosing, and claim that, in situations of moral dilemma, only the agent's preferences and not the agent's moral principles need to be compromised. The general importance of introducing a model extrapolated from simpler, nonmoral cases to more complicated moral ones is that it gives us a way to understand how making choices in situations of moral dilemma is possible and provides a general framework for giving reasons for such choices. By emphasizing the agent's problem of choosing an alternative rather than the critic's problem of justifying an action I conclude that what we can say about alternatives and what we can say about kinds of actions differs. For example, kinds of actions may be incomparable, but as alternatives, comparable; judgments about kinds of actions may be universalizable, but judgments about the betterness of individual alternatives are not universalizable; determining the kind of thing an action is is not the same as determining which alternative to choose in situations of multiattribute choice. Not by determining an obligation but by 'bargaining,' agents can assess the comparative values of alternatives and make a choice which is moral--because alternatives are evaluated only with reference to moral standards--but which is not morally justifiable--because it is not covered by a principle of moral obligation, but only by the non-moral principle of 'the best bargain.' The model is normative only in that it is put forward as the way we ought to understand the agent's problem and not in the sense of a decision procedure or a logic of choice. Emphasizing the role of moral norms as value standards rather than as rules, and emphasizing the distinction between better and worse , the model provides a way to argue about moral dilemmas which is neutral with respect to normative ethical theories