DILEMMA

in syllogistic, or traditional, logic, any one of several forms of inference in which there are two major premises of hypothetical form and a disjunctive (either . . . or) minor premise. For example: If we increase the price, sales will slump. If we decrease the quality, sales will slump. Either we increase the price or we decrease the quality. Therefore, sales will slump. In logic signifies if . . . then; signifies either . . . or. Symbolically, therefore, a dilemma is an argument of the form A C, B C, A B, therefore C. It is not necessary that a dilemma should have an unwelcome conclusion; but from its use in rhetoric the word has come to mean a situation in which each of the alternative courses of action (presented as the only ones open) leads to some unsatisfactory consequence. To take a familiar example, a person who is asked, Have you stopped beating your wife? is presented with a rhetorical dilemma. In this more complicated version of the dilemma, however, two unwelcome results are presented instead of one (C, above). Thus, the conclusion itself becomes a disjunction: Either you have been beating your wife or you are continuing to beat her.