Applied Ethics in Afghanistan

Gerald Dworkin at 3 Quarks Daily asks if three Navy Seals in Afghanistan, who were killed as a direct consequence of their decision to spare civilian life, should have acted otherwise. Dworkin defines a moral dilemma as a time when “an agent is faced with two courses of action, only one of which can be chosen, and are such that there seem to be compelling reasons for each choice…Recently,” says Dworkin, “I ran across a book—The Lone Survivor—which is an account of a group of Navy Seals on a mission in Afghanistan told by the only survivor of a failed mission. It presents an account of a moral choice that this group of four men had to make.”