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Ethical Dilemmas

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Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management
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Synonyms

Ethical conflict; Ethical problems; Moral conflict; Moral dilemmas; Moral problems

Definition

Ethical dilemmas refer to those situations in which the individual has to choose between two alternatives that are both considered unacceptable from a moral point of view. The decision maker is in a conflictual state of mind and needs to analyze the problem more thoroughly in order to make the best decision in those circumstances. In most cases, the individual will have to make a compromise. One of the strongest dilemmas in the literature is known as Sophie’s choiceafter the novel with the same name written by William Styron in 1979 or the trolley dilemma. When facing with an ethical dilemma, the decider has the following choices: one of the opposing alternatives or not choosing anything at all. In order to make the best or the right decision in a specific situation, the individual should address the right questions and formulate as clear as possible the ethical dilemma and the...

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Puiu, S. (2021). Ethical Dilemmas. In: Idowu, S., Schmidpeter, R., Capaldi, N., Zu, L., Del Baldo, M., Abreu, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_570-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_570-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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