Moral dilemma: What does it mean in our everyday context:

Moral dilemma is a conflict in which you have to choose between two or more actions and have moral reasons for choosing each action. Now it is for us to decide on the extent to which morality is important. If it is important, then how it could be taught. If it has to be taught, it should be taught at home or school, or both.

Now morality is not a subject on the curriculum of most schools, at least in the sense in which mathematics is. And the only specialists in its structure are moral philosophers. It is often said, too, that willy-nilly every teacher is a teacher of morals. A teacher could teach the child how 'borrowing', is distinct from 'stealing', with classroom experiences, and considerable amount of instruction and explanation. (Peters, 1974). For this a regular subject teacher could also play a role to imbibe this cognitive ability in the children.

What, then, is to be said about learning the content of morality? Do we have to be concerned only with the learning of its form and have to be stressing the role of various social influences in promoting what Kohlberg calls 'cognitive stimulation'. There are at least three questions which demand an answer. Firstly, is the learning of a content necessary in moral education? Could not children just develop a form of thinking which enables them to work out a content for themselves? Secondly, if it is, what should this content be? Thirdly, how should it be learnt if development of a rational form of morality is to be encouraged? (Peters, 1974). This requires instruction, explanation, and other teaching methods by means of which content is marked out. Aids to learning, such as reinforcement, should not be confused with processes of learning (Peters, 1974).

We will try to take a live example which happened in Cincinnati Zoo of United States of America. Below is the 2016 news report.

Cincinnati zoo kills gorilla to save child who slipped into enclosure:
As per news report on 29th May 2016 (CNN):

The Cincinnati Zoo shot and killed a western lowland gorilla on Saturday after a 4-year-old boy slipped into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said at a news conference.
Harambe, a 17-year-old, 400-pound gorilla, carried the boy around its habitat for about 10 minutes in what the zoo's dangerous animal response team considered a life-threatening situation, Cincinnati Zoo Director Thane Maynard said at a press briefing.
After the gorilla was shot with a rifle, the child was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, CNN affiliate WKRC reported.
Maynard said it appeared the boy went under the rail, through wires and over the moat wall.
Two female gorillas were called out of the habitat, Thane said, but the male gorilla went to the moat, picked up the child and began dragging him around the enclosure. “The child was not under attack but all sorts of things could happen,” Thane said. “He certainly was at risk.” Thane said Zoo officials decided against shooting Harambe with a tranquillizer because the drug takes effect too slow. “You don’t hit him and he falls over”, Thane said. “It takes a few minutes”. Thane said the zoo security team’s quick response saved the boy’s life but all the zoo employees are devastated at losing a rare species.

As soon as the incidence took place, internationally there were strong debates on the social networks, there were various views expressed on this incident. One said, the fault of kid's parents killed the gorilla. Parents should have been responsible enough to take care of the child. And tranquilizer could have helped to save guerilla. Another said, they did not had to kill that gorilla. The Wild conservationists said, they have killed an endangered species. Another said let the zoos close down and animals live in their natural habitat. 

Take a movement and think as to what kind of dilemmas these authorities at zoo have gone through to take this decision. How did they take this particular decision to kill gorilla. The central question of moral development theory is how individuals develop internalized controls over behavior. Contemporary schools of psychology view morality predominantly in terms of personality, social, or cognitive factors (Wilson, 1983).

Rights are enjoyed or sought; obligations are something that one takes on oneself. In terms of moral maturity, obligations involve individual responsibility for one's actions, governed by awareness of the goals of others and empathy for their feelings. Obligations thus entail both a responsibility to ensure that others have access to fair shares and a responsibility not to do those things that will unduly repress others (Wilson, 1983).

In some sense we can say that each one of us have an obligation on the other member in any context. Obligations are responsibilities taken in families, schools, job settings, local politics, and, in fact, in every social context. The violation of responsibility by a parent, for instance, may affect other family members just as much, or more, as the lack of responsibility on the part of a local political boss or work manager. There, is, in a sense, a seamless web of obligation among all members of a society, at all levels, and in all contexts (Wilson, 1983).

To conclude, we can aware ourselves that there has to be platform for our children to understand morality. Should have capacity to think in multiple angles, how ones thinking and action is affecting self as well as equally affecting others too.

References

Peters, R. (1974). Moral Development and Moral learning. Oxford Journals.

Wilson, R. W. (1983). Moral Development and Political change. Cambridge University press.

Maaz Mohammed A.Q. The author is learning strategist at Ccels La Education, Bangalore.