3B Situation Ethics: the principles as a means of assessing morality Flashcards

1
Q

Explain how agape is the “boss principle” of situation ethics.

A
  • Agape = most imp. type of love
  • As long as an action creates an agape outcome, it is the morally right thing to do
  • “What a difference it makes when love, understood agapeically, is boss.”
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2
Q

Which Old Testament teachings make it clear that agape is the most important principle of the Bible?

A
  • Hebrew, “chesed”, describes G’s steadfast love for his ppl; the Hebrew ppl were often reminded to consider this love of G in terms of the action it produced when G intervened in Exodus
  • Leviticus 19:18 - Hebrew, “aheb” = impulsive love towards G + fellow humans
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3
Q

How did St. Augustine develop agape?

A
  • Stated that it was the ultimate virtue
  • Fletcher: “Augustine was right to make love the source principle […] upon which all other ‘virtues’ hang”
  • Aquinas later developed this through NL: love = superlative virtue
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4
Q

What did C.S Lewis say about agape?

A

• It is the highest level of love known to humanity

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5
Q

Why did Fletcher develop the four working principles? What is their purpose?

A

∵ he understood that the boss principle can be vague

• If you follow them, you can be reasonably sure that your actions will produce the most loving consequences

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6
Q

List the four working principles.

A

1) Pragmatism
2) Relativism
3) Positivism
4) Personalism

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7
Q

Elaborate on the working principle of pragmatism.

A

• The solution to any ethical dilemma had to be practical (the idea = influenced by William James)
• F: “The key measure of the success of an ethical solution lay not in its thought but in its application”
- This does not mean that reason ≠ imp., but that pragmatic posture is at the head of the conference table.”

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8
Q

Elaborate on the working principle of relativism.

A
  • No action is right/wrong in itself
  • “the situationist avoids words like ‘never’, ‘perfect’, ‘always’, ‘complete’, and […] absolutely”
  • “agapeic love” = the measurement of relativity
  • Although every sit. = unique, this does not mean that the response is antinomian and archaic; the sit. = always relative to agape, not its own circumstance
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9
Q

Elaborate on the working principle of positivism.

A
  • Give preference to faith: “The Christian […] understands love in terms of God”
  • Statements of faith are accepted voluntarily and reason is used to work out one’s faith
  • “Only the divine being […] is love substantive: […] God is love. Men […] only do love.”
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10
Q

Elaborate on the working principle of personalism.

A
  • People come first
  • “Situation ethics puts people at the centre of concern”
  • Ethics deals primarily w/ ppl rather than r. rules
  • The disciples were given a command to love G’s ppl, not laws
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11
Q

List the six fundamental principles.

A

1) Love is the only intrinsic good
2) Love is the ruling norm of Christianity
3 Love equals justice
4) Love for all
5) Loving ends justfiy the means
6) Love decides situationally

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12
Q

Elaborate on the fundamental principle: love is the only intrinsic good.

A
  • Actions can only be morally good if they promote the most loving outcome
  • “intrinsically good regardless of the context”
  • Agape = a verb - “Love is […] something we do”
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13
Q

Elaborate on the fundamental principle: love is the ruling norm of Christianity.

A
  • R. moral laws have been given false high status in C.tian ethics
  • J. broke several r. rules: “the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath” - the rules serve the person instead of the rules becoming a dictator
  • “Jesus ad Paul replaced the precepts of the Torah with the living principle of agape.”
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14
Q

Elaborate on the fundamental principle: love equals justice.

A
  • “Love and justice are the same, for justice is love distributed”
  • Justice = true love at work in society
  • Any injustice = a lack of love (e.g. a starving child or a person falsely arrested)
  • If everyone worked towards creating loving outcomes there would be no injustices
  • Justice = selfless love on a community scale
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15
Q

Elaborate on the fundamental principle: love for all.

A

• Love wills the neighbour
- “love your neighbour”, “love your enemies”
• Act in a loving way to everyone
• Pure love = indiscriminate in its application
• Love = kenotic

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16
Q

Elaborate on the fundamental principle: loving ends justify the means.

A
  • F rejects the NL idea that the outcome should not justify the means, calling this an “absurd abstraction”
  • Any system that proposoes that means are intrinsically good (and ∴ absolute) = fundamentally flawed as one can then justify war, corporal/capital punishments etc
  • Loving outcomes can justify breaking trad. r. rules e.g. stealing bread to feed a starving family
  • However, the act ≠ justified if the loving outcome was accidental
17
Q

Elaborate on the fundamental principle: love decides situationally.

A
  • There should be no rules about what should/shouldn’t be done: we should only have the responsibility to create the most lving outcome in every situation
  • Humans have sought for laws to become slaves to, which leads to failure ∵ they are ultimately unfollowable as the principles are too petty or too rigid to fit the facts of life
  • “Imagine the plight of an obstetrician who believed he must always respirate every baby he delivered, no matter how monstrously deformed.”
18
Q

What are the four factors for judging a situation?

A
  • End
  • Means
  • Motive
  • Consequences