Americans' views on the moral acceptability of sexual behavior and marriage have shifted significantly over the past 20 years. Americans' negative view of the state of moral values has changed little in the past year -- but this masks sharp shifts among partisans. Nearly six in 10 Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade, similar to their stance since Laws banning abortion after 18 weeks, in the case of fetal disability or once a heartbeat is detected, also spark majority opposition.
While Americans support transgender military service, a majority believe birth gender, rather than gender identity, should govern participation in sports. Gallup finds 5. Twenty-nine percent of U. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday. Samples are weighted on the basis of gender, age, race, education, region and phone lines. Demographic weighting targets are based on the March Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in continental U.
All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
View complete question responses and trends PDF download. Seventy-four percent of U. Read more. Tweaking genes to prevent your child dying early from a genetic disorder would be acceptable to most people, but we need to ask how far we should go. If more people thought and acted in the same way, societies would probably be happier and safer.
But at what cost? The battle between online privacy and national security is reaching fever pitch. Where we end up depends on which Faustian bargains we are willing to strike.
Indeed, if Sophie did not experience such guilt, we would think that there was something morally wrong with her. In these cases, proponents of the argument for dilemmas from moral residue must claim that four things are true: 1 when the agents acts, she experiences remorse or guilt; 2 that she experiences these emotions is appropriate and called for; 3 had the agent acted on the other of the conflicting requirements, she would also have experienced remorse or guilt; and 4 in the latter case these emotions would have been equally appropriate and called for McConnell , pp.
In these situations, then, remorse or guilt will be appropriate no matter what the agent does and these emotions are appropriate only when the agent has done something wrong. Therefore, these situations are genuinely dilemmatic and moral failure is inevitable for agents who face them.
There is much to say about the moral emotions and situations of moral conflict; the positions are varied and intricate. Without pretending to resolve all of the issues here, it will be pointed out that opponents of dilemmas have raised two different objections to the argument from moral residue.
The first objection, in effect, suggests that the argument is question-begging McConnell and Conee ; the second objection challenges the assumption that remorse and guilt are appropriate only when the agent has done wrong. But the negative moral emotions are not limited to remorse and guilt. Among these other emotions, consider regret.
An agent can appropriately experience regret even when she does not believe that she has done something wrong. For example, a parent may appropriately regret that she must punish her child even though she correctly believes that the punishment is deserved.
Regret can even be appropriate when a person has no causal connection at all with the bad state of affairs. Not only is it appropriate that I experience regret in these cases, but I would probably be regarded as morally lacking if I did not. For accounts of moral remainders as they relate specifically to Kantianism and virtue ethics, see, respectively, Hill , — and Hursthouse , 44—48 and 68— With remorse or guilt, at least two components are present: the experiential component, namely, the negative feeling that the agent has; and the cognitive component, namely, the belief that the agent has done something wrong and takes responsibility for it.
Although this same cognitive component is not part of regret, the negative feeling is. And the experiential component alone cannot serve as a gauge to distinguish regret from remorse, for regret can range from mild to intense, and so can remorse.
In part, what distinguishes the two is the cognitive component. No doubt, it is appropriate for him to experience some negative feeling. To say, however, that it is remorse that is called for is to assume that the agent appropriately believes that he has done something wrong.
Opponents of dilemmas can say that one of the requirements overrides the other, or that the agent faces a disjunctive requirement, and that regret is appropriate because even when he does what he ought to do, some bad will ensue. Either side, then, can account for the appropriateness of some negative moral emotion. To get more specific, however, requires more than is warranted by the present argument. This appeal to moral residue, then, does not by itself establish the reality of moral dilemmas.
Matters are even more complicated, though, as the second objection to the argument from moral residue shows. The residues contemplated by proponents of the argument are diverse, ranging from guilt or remorse to a belief that the agent ought to apologize or compensate persons who were negatively impacted by the fact that he did not satisfy one of the conflicting obligations. The argument assumes that experiencing remorse or guilt or believing that one ought to apologize or compensate another are appropriate responses only if the agent believes that he has done something wrong.
But this assumption is debatable, for multiple reasons. First, even when one obligation clearly overrides another in a conflict case, it is often appropriate to apologize to or to explain oneself to any disadvantaged parties. Ross provides such a case , 28 : one who breaks a relatively trivial promise in order to assist someone in need should in some way make it up to the promisee. Even though the agent did no wrong, the additional actions promote important moral values McConnell , 42— Second, as Simon Blackburn argues, compensation or its like may be called for even when there was no moral conflict at all Blackburn , — If a coach rightly selected Agnes for the team rather than Belinda, she still is likely to talk to Belinda, encourage her efforts, and offer tips for improving.
Third, the consequences of what one has done may be so horrible as to make guilt inevitable. Consider the case of a middle-aged man, Bill, and a seven-year-old boy, Johnny. It is set in a midwestern village on a snowy December day. Johnny and several of his friends are riding their sleds down a narrow, seldom used street, one that intersects with a busier, although still not heavily traveled, street.
Johnny, in his enthusiasm for sledding, is not being very careful. During his final ride he skidded under an automobile passing through the intersection and was killed instantly. The car was driven by Bill. Bill was driving safely, had the right of way, and was not exceeding the speed limit.
Moreover, given the physical arrangement, it would have been impossible for Bill to have seen Johnny coming. Yet Bill experienced what can best be described as remorse or guilt about his role in this horrible event McConnell , Bill did nothing wrong. Certainly Bill does not deserve to feel guilt Dahl , 95— A friend might even recommend that Bill seek therapy. But this is not all there is to say. To see this, imagine that Bill had had a very different response. It is a terrible thing.
But it certainly was not my fault. When human beings have caused great harm, it is natural for them to wonder if they are at fault, even if to outsiders it is obvious that they bear no moral responsibility for the damage.
Human beings are not so finely tuned emotionally that when they have been causally responsible for harm, they can easily turn guilt on or off depending on their degree of moral responsibility. See Zimmerman , — Work in moral psychology can help to explain why self-directed moral emotions like guilt or remorse are natural when an agent has acted contrary to a moral norm, whether justifiably or not. Many moral psychologists describe dual processes in humans for arriving at moral judgments see, for example, Greene , especially Chapters 4—5, and Haidt , especially Chapter 2.
Moral emotions are likely the product of evolution, reinforcing conduct that promotes social harmony and disapproving actions that thwart that end. So both supporters and opponents of moral dilemmas can give an account of why agents who face moral conflicts appropriately experience negative moral emotions.
But there is a complex array of issues concerning the relationship between ethical conflicts and moral emotions, and only book-length discussions can do them justice. See Greenspan and Tessman In the literature on moral dilemmas, it is common to draw distinctions among various types of dilemmas. Only some of these distinctions will be mentioned here.
It is worth noting that both supporters and opponents of dilemmas tend to draw some, if not all, of these distinctions. And in most cases the motivation for doing so is clear. Thus, contrary to your view, there are some genuine moral dilemmas. One distinction is between epistemic conflicts and ontological conflicts.
For different terminology, see Blackburn , — The former involve conflicts between two or more moral requirements and the agent does not know which of the conflicting requirements takes precedence in her situation. Everyone concedes that there can be situations where one requirement does take priority over the other with which it conflicts, though at the time action is called for it is difficult for the agent to tell which requirement prevails.
The latter are conflicts between two or more moral requirements, and neither is overridden. This is not simply because the agent does not know which requirement is stronger; neither is. Genuine moral dilemmas, if there are any, are ontological. Both opponents and supporters of dilemmas acknowledge that there are epistemic conflicts. There can be genuine moral dilemmas only if neither of the conflicting requirements is overridden.
Ross , Chapter 2 held that all moral precepts can be overridden in particular circumstances. This provides an inviting framework for opponents of dilemmas to adopt. But if some moral requirements cannot be overridden—if they hold absolutely—then it will be easier for supporters of dilemmas to make their case. Lisa Tessman has distinguished between negotiable and non-negotiable moral requirements Tessman , especially Chapters 1 and 3.
The former, if not satisfied, can be adequately compensated or counterbalanced by some other good. Non-negotiable moral requirements, however, if violated produce a cost that no one should have to bear; such a violation cannot be counterbalanced by any benefits. If non-negotiable moral requirements can conflict—and Tessman argues that the can—then those situations will be genuine dilemmas and agents facing them will inevitably fail morally.
It might seem that if there is more than one moral precept that holds absolutely, then moral dilemmas must be possible. Alan Donagan, however, argues against this. He maintains that moral rules hold absolutely, and apparent exceptions are accounted for because tacit conditions are built in to each moral rule Donagan , Chapters 3 and 6, especially 92— So even if some moral requirements cannot be overridden, the existence of dilemmas may still be an open question.
Another distinction is between self-imposed moral dilemmas and dilemmas imposed on an agent by the world , as it were. If an agent made two promises that he knew conflicted, then through his own actions he created a situation in which it is not possible for him to discharge both of his requirements. For supporters of dilemmas, this distinction is not all that important. But among opponents of dilemmas, there is a disagreement about whether the distinction is important.
Some of these opponents hold that self-imposed dilemmas are possible, but that their existence does not point to any deep flaws in moral theory Donagan , Chapter 5. Moral theory tells agents how they ought to behave; but if agents violate moral norms, of course things can go askew. Other opponents deny that even self-imposed dilemmas are possible. They argue that an adequate moral theory should tell agents what they ought to do in their current circumstances, regardless of how those circumstances arose.
Yet another distinction is between obligation dilemmas and prohibition dilemmas. The former are situations in which more than one feasible action is obligatory.
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