# Right vs. Right: Can LLMs Make Tough Choices?

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.19926 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.19926/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 27 Dec 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Towards Alignment-Centric Paradigm: A Survey of Instruction Tuning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.17184/) (2025)
- [Who Gets the Kidney? Human-AI Alignment, Indecision, and Moral Values](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.00079/) (2025)
- [AI Agents and Hard Choices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.15304/) (2025)
- [Cross-cultural value alignment frameworks for responsible AI governance: Evidence from China-West comparative analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.17256/) (2025)
- [Probing Ethical Framework Representations in Large Language Models: Structure, Entanglement, and Methodological Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23659/) (2026)
- [Are LLMs Bad at Moral Reasoning?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.11635/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

An ethical dilemma describes a choice between two "right" options involving conflicting moral values. We present a comprehensive evaluation of how LLMs navigate ethical dilemmas. Specifically, we investigate LLMs on their (1) sensitivity in comprehending ethical dilemmas, (2) consistency in moral value choice, (3) consideration of consequences, and (4) ability to align their responses to a moral value preference explicitly or implicitly specified in a prompt. Drawing inspiration from a leading ethical framework, we construct a dataset comprising 1,730 ethical dilemmas involving four pairs of conflicting values. We evaluate 20 well-known LLMs from six families. Our experiments reveal that: (1) LLMs exhibit pronounced preferences between major value pairs, and prioritize truth over loyalty, community over individual, and long-term over short-term considerations. (2) The larger LLMs tend to support a deontological perspective, maintaining their choices of actions even when negative consequences are specified. (3) Explicit guidelines are more effective in guiding LLMs' moral choice than in-context examples. Lastly, our experiments highlight the limitation of LLMs in comprehending different formulations of ethical dilemmas.