Does Fletcher’s agape mean nothing more than wanting the best for the person involved in a given situation? Flashcards
(9 cards)
Introduction
Fletcher’s situation ethics is founded on the Christian concept of agape, often defined as selfless love for one’s neighbour. At first glance, this could be interpreted as simply “wanting the best for the person involved” in any moral scenario
However, the implications of Fletcher’s theory go much deeper. He positions agape as a radical, overriding principle that guides all moral action and even justifies traditionally immoral acts like killing or adultery if they serve a loving outcome. This essay will explore whether Fletcher’s theory truly reduces agape to a benevolent intention for others or whether it attempts to construct an entire moral framework around a theologically rich, yet deeply subjective concept.
The argument presented is that Fletcher’s use of agape does attempt to mean more than just ‘wanting the best’, but in doing so, it collapses under the weight of its own subjectivity and fails to provide a reliable moral standard.
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1: Fletcher’s Situation Ethics – Agape as More Than Just Goodwill
Paragraph 1: Fletcher’s Situation Ethics – Agape as More Than Just Goodwill
A01
Fletcher rejected both legalism (rule-following) and antinomianism (total rule-rejection), advocating for situationism, a middle ground that focuses entirely on love—agape.
Agape, for Fletcher, is not mere goodwill or wanting the best—it is the only intrinsic good, the ruling norm of Christian ethics, and identical with justice.
All moral decisions must serve agape, which Fletcher defined through six fundamental principles and four working principles:
• Pragmatism, personalism, positivism, and relativism guide ethical decision-making.
• The moral status of actions like killing a baby (in Fletcher’s hypothetical case of hiding from bandits) is judged not by their type but by their loving outcome.
Paragraph 1: Fletcher’s Situation Ethics – Agape as More Than Just Goodwill
A02
This clearly shows that agape is more than just a soft intention to ‘want the best’—it’s a moral absolute that overrides any rule, justified through outcomes alone. However, this is precisely where Fletcher’s theory becomes problematic. The theory’s pragmatism and relativism slide toward antinomianism—ironically the view Fletcher explicitly rejects. If the only norm is love and love is decided in each case individually, then ethical boundaries become dangerously vague.
Barclay critiques this by warning that Fletcher gives humans too much autonomy. People, he argues, are not saints, and in the absence of moral laws, they won’t choose love—they’ll choose selfishness. Examples like the Stanford Prison Experiment and historical breakdowns of law (e.g., Canada 1969 police strike) support the view that without legal constraints, people often become morally corrupted.
Fletcher’s view is thus more than simply wanting the best—but the broader moral framework he constructs around agape is too subjective to work in real life. As Hitchens argues, even the way we love ourselves is subjective—so loving one’s neighbour as oneself becomes an unstable foundation for moral action. For example, if someone loves themselves in a destructive or narcissistic way, acting in agape toward others becomes equally problematic. This undercuts the objectivity Fletcher hoped to preserve.
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2: Is Fletcher’s Use of Agape Truly Christian or Biblically Grounded?
Paragraph 2: Is Fletcher’s Use of Agape Truly Christian or Biblically Grounded?
A01
Fletcher argued that situation ethics, centred on agape, is the authentic core of Christian moral teaching. He claimed Jesus prioritised love over rule-following—evident when Jesus healed on the Sabbath or overturned Moses’ laws (e.g., “eye for an eye”). Fletcher saw agape as the overarching biblical principle, and viewed biblical commands as expressions of love—not absolute moral rules.
However, critics like Richard Mouw and Pope Pius XII reject this. They argue Fletcher cherry-picks Jesus’ teachings, ignoring commandments like “do not kill” (Exodus 20:13) and “if you love me, you will obey my commands” (John 14:15). They point out Jesus never presented love as a substitute for the law but as its fulfilment. Romans 3:8 explicitly rejects Fletcher’s consequentialist ethics—“doing evil so that good may come.”
Paragraph 2: Is Fletcher’s Use of Agape Truly Christian or Biblically Grounded?
A02
This challenges the idea that agape can be the sole measure of moral goodness. If Fletcher interprets agape as sufficient to justify breaking any rule—including those from Jesus himself—then it undermines Christianity as a rule-based religion entirely. Fletcher’s claim to be more Christian by focusing on love actually appears less Christian, because it discards commandments Jesus reaffirmed.
His response—that the Bible should be interpreted liberally and that no one truly lives by literal scripture—is inadequate. If biblical interpretation is subjective, then Fletcher’s reliance on agape as the central theme doesn’t solve anything—it just replaces one type of subjectivity with another. Whether we focus on individual verses or thematic interpretation, we still lack an objective basis for moral judgment.
Mouw and Pius XII’s interpretation of Jesus is more coherent. If love is the greatest commandment, this may simply mean it’s the most universally applicable, not the only valid one. Fletcher’s reading oversimplifies Jesus’ teachings and renders all other commands irrelevant, which diminishes Jesus’ authority and results in ethical chaos. Therefore, Fletcher’s agape is more than “wanting the best,” but in inflating it to the only criterion for action, he misrepresents Christian moral teaching and strips it of its structure.
Conclusion
Fletcher’s use of agape clearly intends to be more than simply “wanting the best” for someone in a moral situation. It is meant to be a revolutionary principle that overrides rule-based ethics and guides moral action through selfless love.
However, in trying to elevate agape as the sole foundation of ethics, Fletcher’s theory becomes subjective, unbiblical, and ultimately unworkable. It gives too much autonomy to individuals in defining what love is, undermines the authority of biblical commandments, and risks collapsing into the very antinomianism Fletcher sought to avoid.
LOA
While Fletcher’s agape goes beyond wanting the best in intent and structure, its radical subjectivity and rejection of Christian commandments mean it fails as a stable or authentically Christian ethical theory.
Therefore, Fletcher’s agape is not just wanting the best—but it ends up being no more useful than that due to its failure to ground ethics in anything objective or reliably Christian.
