What is an Ethical Dilemma? Any situation where we need to make decisions which put us in a “Catch 22″ situation with respect to our need to act Vs our moral / ethical values can be called an Ethical Dilemma.
How does one deal with Ethical Dilemmas in life? Is there a way we could resort to the time tested wisdom that is embedded in the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita to deal with this? Let us step back a bit to see what Ethical Dilemma is all about.
Examples of Ethical Dilemma..
Is Honesty a Best Policy? - If you have to break the news to an ailing mother that her son had a serious accident – Is Honesty the best Policy? Or, if you are a salesman who has to make a living plugging a product that you are not too sure is good, can you expect to sell anything by telling your customer the truth?
Can I put others before Myself? – If I am a Pilot of an aircraft that I know is going to crash and there is one parachute and very little time, do I make an announcement or try and jump out? Or, does the CEO of a company that is losing big time sell their stock options before the markets get to know and tank??
Is All fair in Love & War? – In many movies we see the hero and his best friend are in love with the same girl – What should the hero do? In real life, should some one sacrifice his love or his friendship?
Can there be a free lunch? – If you are the waiter in a restaurant and a poor kid comes and eats there but doesn’t have enough money to pay the bill, should you let it go unnoticed if no one else has seen it?
Impact of Ethical Dilemma..
Not all Ethical dilemmas need to lead to severe emotional stress. However, in some situations, depending on the type of dilemma and the seriousness of the impact, these can lead to very severe mental trauma. One has to accept that ethical dilemmas are per se inevitable and a part and parcel of life. However, emotional trauma can be reduced or eliminated in the way one deals with Ethical dilemmas.
Insights from the Gita..
The very first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita can be called “Arjuna’s Ethical Dilemma” since Arjuna the warrior was confronted with two choices in the battlefield, neither of which was acceptable to him. He could not reconcile to the fact that his cousins and his elders and teachers who had been unfair to his family needed to be killed at all. He asks Krishna in anguish
“What use is the kingdom and the pleasures of this world, if the price to pay is so high?”
The rest of the Bhagavad Gita lays out to Arjuna how to deal with this Ethical dilemma..
Defining the Role: Arjuna is made to realize that his role was that of a warrior in a battlefield. Just as a policeman cannot have compunctions if he has to kill a dangerous terrorist, even if he was his own brother, Arjuna too was required to play his role for the better “social good”.
Cutting to Size: Krishna puts Arjuna’s task in perspective and cuts him down to size, so to say!. Arjuna is shown that he is no more than a cog in a wheel which would anyway roll and it was upto him to either be part of it or not. Often times, our problems assume larger proportions because under a cloud of megalomania, we give ourselves far too much importance in our ability to change fate. In reality, we realize very little is under our control. An IPL without a Lalit Modi or the USA without George Bush as its president may have seemed impossible at one point in time but a stark reality at another!
What really matters:When evaluating options, one needs to size up what is the impact of the choice. A pilot who is entrusted with his passengers should trust his expertise to land the plane and save the lives. The picture in this post is that of the “miracle” flight that Chesley Sullenberger landed on the Hudson river and saved 150 lives. The “miracle” is a testimonial that the Lord often provides the wind beneath the wings of a person that is doing their duty without selfish motives.
In conclusion, Arjuna’s Ethical dilemma of whether or not to kill his relatives caused him immense trauma. However, when he understood that his was not a war against people but against evil and injustice and was for the greater social good, it changed the situation around. So too, understanding the dilemma and seeing it in perspective and taking the guidance of an impartial counsellor or friend, can often save a person from substantial stress and mental trauma!
