Non-Ethical Considerations
These are human wants, needs and desires that distract all of us from purely ethical analysis. They are not necessarily unethical; indeed, they include most of the motivations that get us through our lives. Comfort, avoidance of pain; money, greed, and the need to be able to buy necessities or luxuries; hunger, fun, sex or lust; shame, fear, anger, jealousy, revenge, envy, ambition …you can name many more. The list is as long as human nature is complex. These non-ethical considerations act as magnets pulling the clapper of our ethics alarms away from the bell.
Non-ethical considerations can be very powerful, and almost every ethical decision involves them. Sometimes they are so powerful that they win out and overwhelm the ethical and moral arguments. Staying alive is often a non-ethical consideration, for example. The activating virtues are especially necessary to overcome non-ethical considerations when they are particularly strong.
When strong non-ethical considerations oppose an ethiacl course of action, it is called an ethical dilemma.
