Situation Ethics Flashcards
(12 cards)
What are the 4 working principles of situation ethics?
4 Working princaples of situation tehics
Pragmatism – Practical approach to tehics. You can actualy use it to help you make moral descisions and it has to work in daily life, has to be practical
Positivity – Positive approach to ethics. Positive because it’s based on doing something instead of what you cannot do - it must put faith before reasoning – “I am a Christian, so what should I do?”
Personalism – Personal approach tto ethics. People should be at the centre of the theory
Relativism – It’s relative to every situation so there cannot be fixed laws
What are the 6 fundamental principles?
- Love is the only absolute (it is intrinsically good)
- Christian decision making is based on love
- Justice is love distributed
- Love wants the good for anyone, whoever they are
- Only the end justifies the means
- Love is acted out situationally not prescriptivally
What is SE based on?
It is based on agape love (Christian unconditional love), and says that we should always do the most loving thing in any situation.
Which Scholar is known for SE?
Joseph Fletcher
Advantages of SE?
The key advantage is that it uses rules to provide a framework but allows people to break rules to reflect life’s complexities.
Disadvantages of SE?
It does not provide a clear definition of what love actually is.
Some might say it is too subjective – because decisions have to be made from within the situation. Humans do not have a bird’s eye view on a situation so have difficulty in seeing what the consequences will be.
Agape love is too much to aspire to and may be polluted by a selfish human tendency.
It is human nature to love family more than strangers.
We do not know whose rules to follow.
What Approach to Ethics is Situation Ethics?
A consequentialist Approach - it considers what will happen s a result of an action - opposite to deontological (rules that must be obeyed, consequences don’t matter).
SE considers what action results int he most love.
It’s also a relative approach to ethics. - what’s considered to be good or bad can vary from person to person.
What was Fletcher’s book about SE?
Situation Ethics: The New Morality
What is Legalism?
Provides a set of moral laws that people follow without exception. (Deontilogical). An example of this is Natural Moral Law.
Fletcher rejected this approach as he believed it was to restrictive and didn’t apply to modern ethical dilemmas.
What is Antinomianism?
Rejects the idea of fixed laws about moral behaviour, instead suggesting people should make moral decisions without laws or guiding principles.
Fletcher rejected this as he said it could lead to moral anarchy (lawlessness). Anyone can claim what stye are doing is right.
What is Situationalism?
The middle way between Legalism and Antinomianism.
Based on guiding principles of agape love.
List the Joseph Fletcher quote
“Wether any form of sex is good or evil depends on wether love is fully served”.
