situation ethics Flashcards
INTRO
Situation ethics is an an approach to moral decision making most commonly associated with Joseph Fletcher
a flexible and practical theory, based on selfless love, which is consistent with the representation of Jesus in the Bible
pragmatism
Rests on four fundamental working principles (there to guide and help)
+ six fundamental principles/propositions are axioms which follow from agape being at the centre of ethics.
pragmatism = acting in a way that is practical, rather than following belief in ideologies or systems
- based on experience rather than theory, following the question of ‘what works?’
Fletcher quotes William James, who said that ‘a pragmatist…turns away from abstraction and insufficiency…, from fixed principles’. Instead, pragmatism is more relevant for today’s life - feasible
Fletchers cases are extreme one (eg. mrs bergmeier). As Barclay puts it ‘it is much easier to agree that extraordinary situations need extraordinary measures than to think that there are no laws for ordinary everyday life’
conscience
includes a way to be sure that you acting in a practical way - following your conscience. he believed that conscience is an act (verb) rather than innate knowledge
- antecedent to events, directing peoples own actions and playing an active role in their responses
- conscience is a work of moral and practical reasoning that is acting creatively with love, taking into account consequences
Aquinas believed that humans are drawn to do good and avoid evil. however it is foolish to believe that everyone has the same innate human nature and morals
- fletcher - much more applicable to our everyday lives, as it is much less absolute and fixed in its principles, and molds itself to our everchanging world
relativism
described by Fletcher as a ‘third way between legalism and antinomianism
there is never an action where one can say with absolute certainty that it is always wrong, independent of the situation that it presents itself with
Pope Pius XII condemned
but, Fletcher sees relativism in the behaviour of Jesus, as when he rejects the fixed rule mentality of the Pharisees in Mark 2.27, allowing his followers break the rules about work on the Sabbath
Barclay (1971) ‘Ethics in a Permissive society’ made the point that Fletcher overestimates the value of being free from rules - dangerous amount of freedom + forces us into constant decision making
- Barclay argues mankind has not yet come of age
- however, alternative is legalism - has worse downsides - inflexible
Allows people to take responsibility for their own decision and make up their minds about what is right and wrong - ‘an ethic for humanity come of age’. - Bishop J.A.T Robinson.
positivism
Fletcher understanding that love is posited as true or good naturally
- Christians freely choosing that God is love
love that Fletcher refers to can be best summed up with ‘agape’, the Greek term for selfless love, including the rational as well as the emotional.
we can deduct that the moral precepts of Jesus are not intended to be understood legalistically - illustrations of what love may at any particular moment do to help a certain person to the greatest extent
Rudolph Bultmann argued that ‘Jesus had no ethics apart from love thy neighbour as thy self’
W. L. Craig argues that the Bible shows that God’s Justice is just as important as his love.
Fletcher is still right that justice is just love distributed - 3rd proposition
It is difficult to decide what ‘agape’ entails, as there is no way to measure it. Therefore, any action can be justified as long as one can argue that it is performed with the intention of agape
5th proposition - Only the end justifies the means; nothing else
the presence of one parameter would let society and the people in it continue to work productively. Situation ethics in effect becomes a pastoral application of love, when the typical legalistic approach, as seen with Natural Law, crashes due to the complexity of moral dilemmas and human nature
personalism
ethics centred on people, rather than laws or objects
‘ethics deals with human relations… obligation is to persons, not to things’
a Christian acting with agape is inherently selfish because at its core it is about salvation and benefiting yourself
doesn’t take into account the nuanced and multifaceted nature of humans - a person could be acting with agape for multiple reasons (how can one measure the ‘percentage’ of selfishness one person brings into a situation?)
- advocates against people getting used or exploited
