Life Skills · 5 lessons

Ethics & dilemmas

Think clearly about hard choices where good values pull in different directions, and use your power responsibly. 5 short lessons with worked examples.

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Think clearly about hard choices where good values pull in different directions, and use your power responsibly.

The lessons

• When two good values collide — The hardest choices are rarely good against bad. They are usually good against good, such as loyalty against honesty or fairness against kindness.
• Four lenses: consequences, duties, character, fairness — Looking at a hard choice through several lenses shows more than any one alone. Each asks a different question about the same decision.
• Honest and kind at the same time — Honesty and kindness rarely have to be traded. Most of the time, the question is how and when to tell the truth, not whether.
• Responsibility for side effects — Our choices affect people we never meant to affect. Taking responsibility means considering those side effects before acting, not only afterwards.
• Respecting other people's choices — Respecting people includes respecting their right to make choices you would not make, while still speaking up about real harm.

Practise

Describe a real dilemma you or someone you know has faced. Name the two values in tension, then look at it through the four lenses: consequences, duties, character and fairness.

• A considered answer tends to include: names two values that genuinely pull in different directions
• A considered answer tends to include: considers people affected beyond the obvious ones
• A considered answer tends to include: notices where the lenses agree and where they differ

Try it this week

This week, before one significant decision, ask who else it will affect and how, and adjust one thing if you find a harm you had not seen.

Reflect

Which value do you find hardest to compromise on, and where did it come from in your life?