On Conee - by AJ Davis

In Earl Conee's "Against Moral Dilemmas" he attempts to deny the existence of moral dilemmas by providing dilemma-free accounts in all the case-arguments posited by dilemma advocates. The final case he deals with is that of Ruth Barcan Marcus. Her view is the following: similar to Williams, individuals in moral dilemmas do experience guilt after a decision is made (the presence of that guilt is evidence that it was a dilemma) and that guilt strengthens one's desire to arrange his life in such a way that future dilemmas are avoided. Conee then tries to provide a dilemma free account by claiming that there can still be a negative feeling associated with the decision, that is not guilt (if it is not an emotion like guilt that infers something wrong was done the argument for the existence of dilemmas in Marcus's case fails) but still provides an inclination to arrange one's life in such a way that it avoids future conflicts. His negative emotion is, "abhorrence of ensuing evils." Such a negative feeling would provide the above inclination but this feeling is only suitable in conflicts like that of the spy who had to torture and lie or allow for nuclear war. That is it only suitable in cases where both choices in the conflict are independently evil. However, in the more common cases like having two obligations to meet two friends for lunch at the same time, but you can only meet one the negative feeling Conee recommends does not apply. In this case, there is ensuing evil as he would see it, only the evil of having to fail to meet one of your promises to your friend. In these more common cases the evil can only be captured by the stronger negative feeling of guilt.