Term for situation where alternative choice is not really one [duplicate]

Solution 1:

You may be thinking of a Hobson's choice:

A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered. As a person may refuse to take that option, the choice is therefore between taking the option or not; "take it or leave it". The phrase is said to originate with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England. To rotate the use of his horses, he offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in the stall nearest the door or taking none at all.

Morton's fork and Scylla and Charybdis are related concepts.

Solution 2:

You can consider the lesser of two evils (also a lesser evil).

the less unpleasant of two choices, neither of which is good:

But allowing a criminal to go free is perhaps the lesser of two evils if the alternative is imprisoning an innocent person.

^{http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/the-lesser-of-two-evils}

Solution 3:

the most common phrase for this is between a rock and a hard place:

Being in a dilemma where the only two available options are both unsatisfying or bad.

The other term is dilemma:

a situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives.

_{Knowyourphrase.com and Dictionary.com}

Solution 4:

Hugh Rawson, in his book Unwritten Laws, considers Shakespeare's First Law as an alternative to Hobson's Choice. It comes from The Taming of the Shrew, (1593-1594)

There's small choice in rotten apples

Solution 5:

Plenty of alternatives in previous answers, but a modern variation would be a "sophie's choice." [Spoiler Alert] In William Styron's book (and the movie of the same name), the main character, a mother with two young children, is demanded by a Nazi officer to choose which child will go on a train to the camps, in order to preserve her own and the other child's life. (It's a choice she never really recovers from.)