Moral Dilemmas are not a Local Issue

Abstract

W. A. Hart argues that Martha Nussbaum does not make a convincing case there are genuine moral dilemmas to be found in Aeschylus' Agamemnon. Hart claims that the impossibility of moral dilemmas flows from the Kantian principle that ‘ought implies can’. A certain understanding of OIC does rule out the possibility of moral dilemmas. However, this particular formulation of the OIC principle does not fit well with the eudaimonist framework common to ancient moral philosophy. It emerges that there are trade offs to be made between the ancients' views on the point of moral evaluation and ours. Thus the possibility of moral dilemmas is an issue that in inextricably enmeshed in larger issues in moral philosophy.