Lemmon and the Logic of Moral Terms - by A. J. Davis

E. J. Lemmon makes particular effort to go into great detail distinguishing between duty, obligation, and moral principal. While erecting his framework he also discusses the modalities of 'ought' and 'must', as they are related to duty, obligation, and moral principal, in an effort to demonstrate that "ought" and "ought not" are not contraries of one another. I believe he makes this argument in order to preserve the existence of the notion of moral dilemmas, as many have argued against the existence of moral dilemmas by showing that the logic arrived at after a semantic consideration of the nature of the dilemma is a contradiction. Though I do believe that moral dilemmas exist, I don't believe Lemmon's argument properly preserves their existence. He assumes all the dilemmas he refers to are 'ought' 'ought not' situations. All the moral dilemmas he refers to are conflicts, in different degrees of complexity, of duties, obligations, and principle. And from his premise, "It follows logically . . . that a man ought to do something if it is his duty (obligation, convicted moral principle) to do that thing,' he infers that these conflicts become 'ought' 'ought not' situations, which are not contraries, allowing for the existence of the dilemma. However, one could not also make the claim, "It follows logically that a man *must* do something if it is his duty (obligation, strongly held moral principal)." I hear that kind of language all the time when people speak about duty and obligation and such. "As it is my duty as a police officer, I *must* uphold the law." Although, duty and the others do entail 'ought' they also entail 'must' and in fact I find 'must' to be a more accurate description of what is truly expected of those who are obligated and such. If moral dilemmas are truly 'must' 'must not' situations, keeping consistent with Lemmon's belief, moral dilemmas would not exist as he finds 'must' 'must not' to be contradictions of one another. "...an explicit contradiction is derivable from the assumption that a man must and must not do something."