Word.ws English Dictionary

Heinz dilemma

Heinz dilemma proper noun: a thought experiment in ethics, involving a dilemma of whether saving a life justifies theft or other illegal activities.

Proper noun

Heinz dilemma

  1. A thought experiment in ethics, involving a dilemma of whether saving a life justifies theft or other illegal activities.
    • This study of the Heinz dilemma has led to the literature on the ethics of care. The Heinz dilemma is about a man who considers stealing a drug that he cannot afford to buy in order to save the life of his wife.2004, Ananta Kumar Giri, Creative Social Research: Rethinking Theories and Methods, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 93

Origin of Heinz dilemma

In one well-known version of the dilemma, used in Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, the dilemma is faced by a character named Heinz.

Questions about Heinz dilemma

What does Heinz dilemma mean?
Heinz dilemma means a thought experiment in ethics, involving a dilemma of whether saving a life justifies theft or other illegal activities.
What part of speech is Heinz dilemma?
Heinz dilemma is a proper noun.

Words near Heinz dilemma in the dictionary

  1. Heinz
  2. Heinz 57
  3. Heinz 57s
  4. Heinz bodies
  5. Heinz body
  6. Heinz dilemma
  7. Heinze
  8. Heinzen
  9. Heinzens
  10. Heinzes
  11. Heinzman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Heinz dilemma (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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