59. Integrity is expressed in the battle over moral dilemmas
The battles SPs fight over moral dilemmas are signs of integrity, because they show that (1) SPs have aspirations for different values, (2) these values are equally important, (3) the choice between them is difficult, and (4) this affects the SP. For this reason SPs should not be too hasty in avoiding dilemmas. Dilemmas are also building blocks for personal integrity. Confrontation with dilemmas is not a sign of weakness as long as they have not been caused unnecessarily by the SP. SPs should prepare well for potential dilemmas.
SPs can be confronted with dilemmas, situations in which values are in conflict. There are dilemmas of many different kinds. A classic example is the mayor’s wartime dilemma, whereby mayors are confronted with the question of whether to step down to avoid working with the enemy regime or to stay in order to inflict less pain than a hostile mayor would. Whatever you do, it goes against one of the values you stand for: doing reprehensible things yourself versus limiting the reprehensible things done. Similar dilemmas include the issue of whether or not to agree to the demands of hostages, terrorists, criminals, and reprehensible regimes. At the start of the 1990s, after the murders of two lawyers, the Italian government was presented with the choice of whether or not to agree to the mafia’s offer to moderate their campaign in exchange for lower prison sentences and better treatment for convicted Mafiosos.351 For the government it was a choice between security and maintaining law and order. US president Gerald Ford was also confronted by a dilemma as to the application of the law. He was faced with the decision of whether to punish Nixon for the Watergate scandal or to grant him a pardon, giving Ford freedom to govern (which was necessary for the sake of the country). Ford opted for the latter, on the basis that Nixon had been punished enough already, although Ford knew this would cost him his next term in office.352 According to Barack Obama there are few other professions in which one has to make as many daily decisions as in politics; decisions include those “between different sets of constituents, between the interests of your state and the interests of the nation, between party loyalty and your own sense of independence, between the value of service and obligations to your family.”353
Integrity dilemmas consist of a choice between two or more evils.354 Whatever you do, you cannot get it right: you have to act in conflict with one value, principle, or interest or another. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith expresses this strongly with respect to politics: “Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”355
Dilemmas are unavoidable choices. A choice must be made, because doing nothing is a choice too. It is therefore farcical to think that we can escape dilemmas by passing on decisions to others, putting them off, or doing nothing at all. All of these involve choices, and the choice to do nothing, like any other, reveals what you stand for.
Moral dilemmas can arise from the diversity of values an SP holds. According to value monism all values can be placed in a hierarchy and there are no real ethical dilemmas, because one value always outweighs another and therefore becomes the deciding factor. According to value pluralism, values can come into conflict, because there is no absolute hierarchy.356 This does not change the fact that not all values are equally valuable, nor every choice equally good, contrary to value relativism and value subjectivity. A moral stand can be taken on a choice, and it can be discussed.
A dilemma is therefore a situation in which different values come into conflict. With respect to integrity the question is whether this conflict is experienced as such by the person. The conflict, after all, reveals aspirations for a variety of values, showing that these values are seen as important, and equally important, and that the choice between them is difficult and affects the person.357 As philosopher James Gutman puts it, “Such inner tension is one measure of integration and is commensurate with the richness and magnitude of the values which it seeks to organize.”358 The inner conflict is a sign of integration, of integrity.
It is therefore important not to avoid dilemmas but where possible to take the time for them and involve others. This shows how much effort the decision takes, that the SP has taken the dilemma to heart and carefully studied the options. Moreover if you give up easily on a value this suggests that it has little value to you and that you have not thought it through.
The fact that SPs