Which term describes situations that do not have a clear right or wrong answer?

• A. Moral Distress
• B. Moral Dilemmas
• C. Ethical Dilemmas
• D. Professional Ethics

Answer: (C)

Ethical dilemmas are situations where two or more ethical principles pull in opposite directions, leaving no clearly right or wrong choice. In nursing, you might face conflicts such as honoring a patient’s autonomy while acting in what you believe is the patient’s best interest, or balancing truth-telling with the duty to protect a patient from harm. Each option may be ethically supportable, but they pull you in different directions, so a straightforward, perfect solution doesn’t exist.

Moral distress, by contrast, happens when you know the right action to take but are blocked from taking it by external barriers. Professional ethics is the broader framework that guides decision-making in practice. So the scenario described fits an ethical dilemma because it involves competing moral duties with no single clearly correct answer.