Moral conflict and its structure

Abstract

Moral dilemmas should be understood as conflicts of all- things- considered obligations. Besides the familiar paradox that results from combining dilemmas with agglomeration and voluntarism, other paradoxes are derived that have more secure deontic foundations. These paradoxes motivate skepticism about dilemmas. Though insoluble conflicts are possible, they do not generate dilemmas, because the only obligation in an insoluble conflict is the disjunctive obligation to satisfy one or the other conflicting prima facie obligation. This disjunctive analysis is morally acceptable and rests on an independently attractive account of prima facie and all-things- considered obligations. Moreover, this analysis of moral conflict subverts a familiar argument from moral conflict to noncognitivism.