R. F. Holland: Absolute Ethics and the Challenge of Compassion

Abstract

In the moral dilemmas that are so often used in undergraduate ethics cours-es, students are confronted with a choice between ‘doing the right thing’, which has horrible consequences, and doing something which seems wrong but has a ‘happier’ result. In this way, these dilemmas appear almost to be primers for consequentialist thinking. Given the way such ex-amples are usually set up, students are forced to find sense in choosing ‘the lesser of the two evils’.