Dilemma
- For the Nelly song, see Dilemma (song).
A dilemma is a problem offering two solutions, neither of which is acceptable. The two options are often described as the horns of a dilemma, neither of which is comfortable.
The dilemma is sometimes used as a rhetorical device, in the form "you must accept either A, or B"; here A and B would be propositions each leading to some further conclusion. Applied in this way, it may be a fallacy.
See also
- Euthyphro dilemma
- False dilemma
- Hedgehog's dilemma
- Horned dilemma
- Plutonia dilemma
- Prisoner's dilemma
- Security dilemma
- The Malay Dilemma
- Warnock's Dilemma
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From its use over time the word has come to mean a situation in which neither of the alternative courses of action (presented as the only ones open) is palatable. A famous dilemma is “Have you stopped beating your wife?” If one answers "yes" he has admitted to having beating his wife in the past. If he answers "no", it means he still beats his wife. In some cases, especially in ones in which there is some concept of measurement involved, at least an ordinal level measurement, the dilemma may be "resolved" via the use of fuzzy logic. Many of the interesting problems in life are sorites paradoxes, and the analog (continuous, not discrete) version of the dilemma may be considered to be constrained versions of the sorites paradox. The sorites paradox, as traditionally explained is related to the problem of induction in the sense that there is no halting. In other words, it implements an algorithm that does not halt. But the fuzzy dilemma is constrained to operate within limits. For example, a simple dilemma may be:
If we give medicine X, then the patient may die from it (possibly an overdose). If we don't give medicine X the patient may die from the disease itself.
Today these are typically done with anti-cancer treatments e.g. chemotherapy. However a milder form of it exists. For example, suppose Z is ill with some bacterial infection. Antibiotics are harmful to living things including humans. For example high doses of antibiotics can create various side effects, such as deafness (especially in children). But if we do not give antibiotics then the patient suffers from the bacterial infection. The "goodness" from the antibiotics (in the form of the killing of the bacteria) increases with the dosage. However, the "badness" from antibiotics increases with the dosage meaning that the "goodness" (reverse of badness) decreases with the dosage. These two forms of "goodnesses" must be balanced, and the balance is somewhere around the middle (e.g. between too much and nothing at all). Many problems in life are of this type including the classical supply-demand curves of economics theory. In the case of the supply-demand curves one can easily express them using a "happiness" criteria. As the price increases the happiness of the seller increases, and as the price decreases the happiness of the consumer increases. Therefore since both must be made "happy" in the exchange, we have to form the product of the two curves. If the curves are normalized increasing/decreasing straight lines, the optimum occurs somewhere in the middle, and this point is where in classical economics theory the "equilibrium" price exists.
