A moral dilemma is not merely a difficult or shocking question. It arises when two legitimate moral requirements or values conflict and cannot both be fully honored. Read the scenario, choose A or B before discussing it, explain the value you are trying to protect and use the follow-up. Answers may change and do not provide a moral score, diagnosis or verdict about anyone’s character.
5 dilemmas about truth
Truth can conflict with care, confidentiality or the wish to avoid disproportionate harm. An option is not automatically right simply because it sounds more honest.
Notice which facts are missing and what duty each person holds. Do not invent convenient details merely to make the choice easier.
- 01
A close friend is preparing intensely for a role at your company. From a confidential conversation, you know the hiring process will probably be paused, but the information is not public.
When does care for a friend outweigh a duty of confidentiality?
- 02
Your partner gives you a handmade gift and sincerely asks whether you like it. The gesture moves you, but the object itself is not to your taste at all.
Can an untrue statement be a legitimate form of care?
- 03
After a client praises your team’s report, you notice a small error that does not change the conclusion. Correcting it now would delay the next stage and may create distrust.
Should process transparency matter more than the actual impact of the mistake?
- 04
You see a volunteer break a minor rule to help a vulnerable family quickly. The rule exists to ensure equal treatment, and the coordinator asks you directly what happened.
When does context justify departing from a rule designed for fairness?
- 05
Someone asks you for a personal fact about an absent friend because it would affect an important decision. Your friend asked you to keep that information private.
Whom do you owe more: the person who trusted you or the person deciding without all the facts?
5 dilemmas about loyalty
Loyalty can mean support, discretion or solidarity, yet it can conflict with integrity and another person’s autonomy.
Discuss whether a close relationship creates a special obligation and where that obligation risks turning into favoritism.
- 06
Your group is planning a surprise party even though the guest of honor has repeatedly said they dislike surprises. Everyone else believes this time will be different.
Can loyalty to a group take priority over one person’s autonomy?
- 07
A colleague who is also your friend made a mistake you can quietly fix before the team review. The review is intended to establish a fair distribution of responsibility.
When does protecting a friend become unfair to the rest of the team?
- 08
A family member asks you to support a decision publicly even though you privately believe it is wrong. Others would interpret your refusal as a lack of solidarity.
What does solidarity mean when you do not share a loved one’s decision?
- 09
Your team proposes naming you as the project’s lead author because your reputation may secure funding, although the others performed most of the work.
Is inaccurate recognition acceptable when the entire team benefits?
- 10
A close friend applies for a role in your organization and asks for a strong recommendation. You know their strengths but have serious reservations about their fit for this role.
What does loyalty owe a friend: support or honesty?
5 dilemmas about fairness
Identical treatment and equitable treatment do not always produce the same result. These scenarios set consistent rules, merit, need and context against one another.
Before voting, state the criterion you could apply to a future case, not only the outcome you prefer today.
- 11
You can award one scholarship. One candidate has exceptional results and extensive resources; another has strong results achieved with far fewer opportunities.
Does fairness require identical criteria or criteria adjusted for context?
- 12
One place remains in a community course. The first person registered on time; the second is a caregiver who could not confirm earlier because of an emergency.
Does an exception correct an injustice or create a new one?
- 13
You must divide a team bonus. Visible results were uneven, but a significant amount of supporting work cannot be measured clearly.
How should important work that remains hard to see be recognized?
- 14
A community project can provide a small benefit to many people or life-changing help to a much smaller group. The budget cannot cover both.
Is it fairer to maximize the number helped or the depth of the help?
- 15
Two employees missed the same deadline. One faced unexpected caregiving duties, while the other planned their time poorly; policy prescribes the same consequence.
When does equal treatment produce an inequitable result?
5 dilemmas about freedom
Individual autonomy meets safety, shared rules and effects on others. Care and control may look remarkably similar from the outside.
Ask who chooses the risk, who carries the consequences and whether the decision can be renegotiated later.
- 16
Your shared apartment has a quiet-hours rule. A musician housemate asks for one exception to rehearse for an urgent audition, while the others need rest.
When may an individual need outweigh a collective agreement?
- 17
A friend wants to take a legal solo trip with real risks and asks for your honest opinion. You know that strong pressure from you may cause them to cancel.
Where does care end and control begin?
- 18
You moderate an online community where someone posts a false, potentially harmful claim that is not immediately dangerous. Removing it would protect members but limit debate.
What responsibility does a shared space have toward freedom of expression?
- 19
A parent and teenager agreed to phone-location tracking for safety. The teenager now asks to stop it, while the parent believes the risks have not changed.
How should freedom be renegotiated as responsibility changes gradually?
- 20
After a theft, neighbors propose mandatory cameras in every shared hallway. They may deter another incident but would permanently record every resident’s movements.
How much privacy should be traded for an uncertain increase in safety?
5 dilemmas about responsibility
Sometimes responsibility is not absent; there are simply too many obligations at once. Promises, roles and urgent needs may demand incompatible actions.
Choosing one obligation does not make the other unimportant. Discuss what repair may still be possible after the decision.
- 21
You lead a project that can meet its deadline only if an already tired team works overtime again. A delay would seriously affect the partner organization.
To whom does the leader carry the greater responsibility at this moment?
- 22
You promised to help a friend move, but an unexpected family need arises on the same day. Both people rely on you, and no perfect alternative exists.
Is an obligation’s priority determined by promise, closeness or urgency?
- 23
You discover a problem in material published anonymously by your team. You can quietly fix it, but doing so will delay another important task that only you can complete.
How far does responsibility for a collective mistake extend?
- 24
You manage a community emergency fund. You can use it for a real need today or hold it for a severe storm that is forecast but still uncertain.
How do you compare a certain need with a possible but more serious one?
- 25
A team member contributes less and seems to be facing a problem they do not explain. Quietly redistributing the work protects their privacy but burdens everyone else.
How do you balance compassion for one person with responsibility to the group?
5 dilemmas about consequences and uncertainty
Decisions become harder when a large benefit is only probable while a smaller cost is already visible. Reversibility and response time can change the balance.
Compare not just the hoped-for result but also who bears the risk if the assumptions prove wrong.
- 26
An organization can fund prevention that will probably help many people or immediate intervention for one identified person who needs help now.
Should certainty about one person’s need outweigh the probable impact on many?
- 27
You hold preliminary information about a public risk. An early announcement gives people time to prepare but may cause panic; waiting adds certainty but reduces response time.
How much uncertainty should be accepted before warning the public?
- 28
You can test an innovation that may greatly improve a service in the future, but the experiment will cause real inconvenience to current users.
Who should bear the cost of uncertain progress?
- 29
You discover a vulnerability in an important digital service. Publishing quickly would warn users but might help attackers before a fix is available.
When does temporary secrecy protect people, and when does it conceal danger?
- 30
A community can choose a modest, reversible and reliable improvement or a far more impactful solution that will be difficult to undo if its assumptions are wrong.
How strongly should reversibility influence an important decision?
How we balanced the 30 moral dilemmas
The 30 original editorial scenarios are divided into six themes of five: truth, loyalty, fairness, freedom, responsibility and consequences. For each one, we aimed for A and B to protect different but defensible values, so the difficulty comes from the trade-off rather than from writing one option to sound bad.
Every scenario also includes a follow-up. Its job is to change an assumption, expose the criterion behind a choice or ask what new information could move the first vote.
- 6 themes × 5 scenarios = 30 original dilemmas.
- Two options kept comparable in tone and perceived cost.
- One follow-up question for every dilemma.
- No answer is treated as a moral score or verdict about the player.
Definitions and research
- 01View source
Moral Dilemmas
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · 2022
Explains conflict between moral requirements and why a conflict with one clearly overriding option may not be a genuine dilemma.
- 02View source
Ethical dilemma
APA Dictionary of Psychology · 2018
Defines an ethical dilemma as a situation in which two moral principles conflict.
- 03View source
An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment
Science, 293(5537), 2105–2108 · 2001
Two fMRI studies suggest that dilemma types vary in emotional engagement, which can influence judgment.
- 04View source
The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice
Science, 211(4481), 453–458 · 1981
Shows that the framing of the same problem can shift preferences, supporting the need for options balanced in tone.
You have the ideas. Now let the group choose.
Start a DILEMMIX round and see how the conversation changes when answers and predictions appear together.