To "bite the bullet" is to endure a painful or otherwise unpleasant situation that is seen as unavoidable. The phrase was first recorded by Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 in his 1891 novel The Light that Failed

The Light that Failed

The Light That Failed is a novel by Rudyard Kipling that was first published in 1890 in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Most of the novel is set in London, but many important events throughout the story occur in Sudan or India. The Light that Failed follows the life of Dick Heldar, a painter who...

. It is often stated that it is derived historically from the practice of having a patient clench a bullet

Bullet

A bullet is a projectile propelled by a firearm, sling, or air gun. Bullets do not normally contain explosives, but damage the intended target by impact and penetration...

 in his or her teeth as a way to cope with the extreme pain of a surgical procedure without anesthetic, though evidence for biting a bullet (rather than a leather strap) during surgery is sparse. It may also have evolved from the British empire expression "to bite the cartridge

Bite the cartridge

Refusing to "bite the cartridge" was a turn of phrase used by the British in India of Native Indian soldiers who had mutinied in 1857.It derives from the act of biting open a paper cartridge containing gunpowder in order to load contemporary rifles....

", which dates to the Indian Rebellion of 1857

Indian Rebellion of 1857

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...

. In this version of the etymology, the idea of tolerating necessary hardship refers to the British wish that the sepoy

Sepoy

A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...

s would ignore any small presence of animal fat in their paper cartridge

Paper cartridge

Paper cartridge refers to one of various types of small arms ammunition used before the advent of the metallic cartridge. These cartridges consisted of a paper cylinder or cone containing the bullet, gunpowder, and, in some cases, a primer or a lubricating and anti-fouling agent...

s.

In philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, a more specific meaning of the phrase is to accept unpleasant consequence

Consequence

Consequence may refer to:* In logic, consequence relation, also known as logical consequence, or entailment* In operant conditioning, a result of some behavior...

s of one's assumed beliefs. Sound reasoning requires its practitioner to always sustain a consistent set of beliefs. This may involve accepting a disturbing belief that is a consequence of one's currently held beliefs. It may be disturbing because it is counterintuitive or has other disturbing consequences. Given a philosopher's currently held beliefs that he or she is not prepared to give up, he or she may have to bite the bullet by accepting a particular claim offered as an extreme case or putative counterexample

Counterexample

In logic, and especially in its applications to mathematics and philosophy, a counterexample is an exception to a proposed general rule. For example, consider the proposition "all students are lazy"....

.

Examples

• A modern example is the bite the bullet campaign on wasteful military spending. This argues that the Australian Government's military spending is excessive and calls on Australians to speak out against this, in favour of a more modest defence force and more spending on better services for the community. The bite the bullet campaign was funded by the Mercy Foundation and is carried and sponsored by the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition.
• The strict utilitarian
  Utilitarianism
  Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
  
   will be forced to admit that if it can be shown that punishing an innocent person would increase the total happiness of the whole society, then there are times when it is morally right to punish an innocent person. (See telishment
  Telishment
  Telishment is a term coined by John Rawls to illustrate a problem of the utilitarian view of punishment. Telishment is an act by the authorities of punishing a suspect in order to deter future wrongdoers, even though they know that the suspect is in fact innocent. The concept is put forward as a...
  
  ) An ethically 'easy' example would be when an informed person voluntarily accepts the 'punishment' or risk of 'harm' for the greater good – e.g. an army cadet.
• The Euthyphro dilemma
  Euthyphro dilemma
  The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks Euthyphro: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"...
  
   can be resolved in the mind of a divine command theorist
  Divine command theory
  Divine command theory is the meta-ethical view about the semantics or meaning of ethical sentences, which claims that ethical sentences express propositions, some of which are true, about the attitudes of God...
  
   by simply accepting that if God
  God
  God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
  
   tells us to do something which appears to be immoral, then we are to accept that it really is moral in the bigger picture, and that it only appears to be immoral.
• A consequentialist believes that what is called right or wrong depends on what consequences come about as a result of a proposed action. As a way to test this view, some counterexamples may be considered which are intended to find out if this view holds up in extreme cases. One may object, for example, that some actions appear to be right in principle even when terrible consequences have resulted from them. Also, there may be times when an action appears to be wrong in principle, but has wonderful consequences. A person wanting to stay faithful to the consequentialist view in the face of an extreme case may have to bite the bullet by taking the position that even though these counterexamples do exist the original view still holds up:

Even though both drivers were driving recklessly, only the one who gets in an accident gets a severe penalty. It's okay that some people are treated differently based solely on their luck.

Accepting the existence of moral luck

Moral luck

Moral luck describes circumstances whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences even though it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences...

may seem counterintuitive or even unreasonable to some, so this statement of acceptance can be seen as biting the bullet.