Trilemma
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A trilemma is a difficult choice from three options, each of which is (or appears) unacceptable or unfavourable. There are two logically equivalent ways in which to express a trilemma: it can be expressed as a choice among three unfavourable options, one of which must be chosen, or as a choice among three favourable options, only two of which are possible at the same time. The term derives from the much older term dilemma, a choice between two or more difficult or unfavourable alternatives. The earliest recorded use of the term was by the British preacher Philip Henry in 1672, and later, apparently independently, by the preacher Isaac Watts in 1725.
A trilemma is a difficult choice from three options, each of which is (or appears) unacceptable or unfavourable. There are two logically equivalent ways in which to express a trilemma: it can be expressed as a choice among three unfavourable options, one of which must be chosen, or as a choice among three favourable options, only two of which are possible at the same time. The term derives from the much older term dilemma, a choice between two or more difficult or unfavourable alternatives. The earliest recorded use of the term was by the British preacher Philip Henry in 1672, and later, apparently independently, by the preacher Isaac Watts in 1725.
The trilemma of censorship
In John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, as a part of his argument against the suppression of free speech, he describes the trilemma facing those attempting to justify such suppression (although he does not refer to it as a trilemma, Leo Parker-Rees (2009) identified it as such). If free speech is suppressed, the opinion suppressed is either: True – in which case society is robbed of the chance to exchange error for truth; False – in which case the opinion would create a 'livelier impression' of the truth, allowing people to justify the correct view; Half-true – in which case it would contain a forgotten element of the truth, that is important to rediscover, with the eventual aim of a synthesis of the conflicting opinions that is the whole truth.
Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1378429886 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.