Situation Ethics

Question 1

Situation ethics

Answer 1

• a christian ethical theory (though many churches disagreed) developed by Joseph Fletcher and it advocates a practical, flexible theory based on love (Agape)
  -argued love is what morality should serve, someone making a moral decision should be prepared to set aside the rules if it seemed love would be better served in doing so.
• identifies its roots in the New Testaments reference to Jesus setting aside the law or breaking established rule.

Question 2

Fletchers three approaches to moral thinking

Answer 2

legalistic ethics - has a set of predefined rules which direct how you should behave
antinomian ethics - doesn’t use any kind of law, rule of principle, or any system of ethics at all. Follow no pattern from one situation to another and are without rule
situation ethics - situationists enter into moral dilemmas with the ethics, rules and principles of their community. However, they are prepared to set aside these rules in the specific situations if love seems better served doing so

Question 3

Agape love

Answer 3

• unconditional love and is referred to in the commandment ‘love thy neighbour’. Such love is self-sacrificing, not self-satisfying
• for example, when God sent Jesus to die to pay for human sins

Question 4

The six propositions

Answer 4

First proposition - ‘Only one thing is intrinsically good; namely love, nothing else at all’. Actions aren’t intrinsically good or evil, they depend on if they promote the most loving result
Second proposition - ‘The ruling norm of Christian decision is love, nothing else’. Fletcher argued the commandments are not absolute, Jesus broke them when love demanded it.
Third proposition - ‘Love and Justice are the same, for justice is love distributed, nothing else’. Love takes everything into account, its not partial. This sometimes means calculating, such as when a doctor has to decide between a mother of 3 or a murdered, the mother is the preferred choice.
Fourth proposition - ‘Love wills the neighbour’s good, whether we like him or not’. Agape love goes to everyone; not just those we like, but also those we don’t
Fifth proposition - ‘Only the ends justify the means, nothing else’. The end must be the most loving result. Love is the goal or end of the act that justifies it means to achieve that goal
Sixth proposition - ‘Love’s decision are made situationally, not prescriptively’. Decides on each situation as it arises

Question 5

The four working presuppositions

Answer 5

Pragmatism - being practical rather than always following beliefs in ideologies or systems. Fletcher quotes William James “During times of difficulty, sometimes the options available all break one rule or another.”
Relativism - no fixed rules that must always be obeyed, however nor is it a free for all. There are different degrees of relativism, absolute relativism,in which decisions are random and anarchic and the situationist approach in which all decisions must be relative to agape
Positivism - proposes something as true or good without suggesting it. Fletcher posits love as true or good. Situation ethics depends on Christianity freely choosing faith that good is love
Personalism - ethics centred on people, rather then laws and objects. The situationist asks what to do to help humans best

Question 6

Conscience

Answer 6

• for a situationist, conscience describes the weighing up of the possible action before its taken, a kind of moral deliberation
• the error in thinking about conscience as a noun instead of a verb. There is no conscience per se, it is a word that describes our attempt to make proper decisions

Question 7

Strengths of situation ethics

Answer 7

• its flexible in that it gives personal freedom to people to describe what is most loving
• fits with the whole practical ethics of Jesus in the New Testament, he broke religious rules and dealt with everyone as individuals
• doesn’t completely reject laws but sees them as useful tools which aren’t completely binding

Question 8

Weaknesses of situation ethics

Answer 8

• love is subjective, there will always be a dispute on what the most loving thing to do is
• William Barclay argued that if law is “distillation of experience” that society has found to be beneficial, then “to discards law is to discard experience”
• laws are necessary, the laws and absolutes are there for protecting society