We’ve all been there: stuck with a tough ethical dilemma, feeling like there is no right way to solve it. It’s a tough situation to be in no matter your age, race, or gender, and it never gets easier. I am 17 years old and have had to deal with this dilemma more times than you would think and it doesn’t get easier. But to help with this tough decision and to know what decision is more justified in this complex moral dilemma, first we must take a look and analyze both sides to help us find the most morally sound solution.

Honesty is essential for moral integrity and unbiased ethical consistency. To ensure you don’t give bias to any one person and stay morally true and to have ease of mind, a well-held belief is to just be honest. This is called the Kantian philosophy. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant relays how this is a top priority not only for you and your ease of mind knowing you’re doing the right thing but also relays how it is your obligation to society. This stems from the idea that any lie held or said actively harms society as a whole one way or another, backed up by the philosophy that a completely honest society would be perfect. 

Although honesty is your societal obligation, loyalty and trustworthiness are your obligations to your friends, as they are two of the most critical qualities of being a good friend. Famed Greek philosopher Aristotle has an ideology stating, among all of the qualities in people, loyalty is regarded as the highest quality in one. There is a reason these qualities are the hardest to build and can be voided with the slightest action, further heightening the stakes. Because of this, we can conclude that if the secret would not cause long-term or extreme amounts of harm or misfortune, then the secret should be kept, as betraying your friend’s trust and loyalty, which are very hard-to-come-by qualities, may cause your friend more harm and emotional turmoil than good.

Moreover, the final choice should be for the greater good and a small morally wrong action such as telling a secret is justified as long as the results outweigh the means of getting them. A commonly accepted belief within the philosophical world is that of Utilitarian ethics: To be morally just in doing an unjust action, the results must outweigh the process of achieving these results. If your friend is threatening themselves or others and told you as a secret, it can be tough to decide whether to tell someone, and it’s not an easy choice to make, but the utilitarianism belief for the greater good calls for action. But if the secret is something that does not harm anyone if it is not told, then to do the right thing, you should keep it to yourself and stay loyal to your friend. With this we can decide the best action to take, which can be summarized as: Honesty is generally a moral virtue; betraying a friend’s trust by telling the truth is only morally justified if the secret threatens to harm someone.

To wrap this up, there is never a perfect answer when it comes to these sorts of moral dilemmas and whichever side you choose to take, following through is never easy, knowing you may have caused some sort of harm to anyone trying to do the right thing and everyone has been there. Whether it was this scenario or another, you’re not alone in the experience of stressing over morals. But I hope this could help with your current dilemmas and even similar ones in the future I know it will help me. Good luck!