Situation Ethics Flashcards
(12 cards)
The origins of agape in the New Testament
+ definition
Agape is a Greek word meaning love and it was adopted by Christians to refer to Jesus’s sacrificial and unconditional love for others reflecting that which God has for humanity
- Saint Paul rights to the church in current the Corinthians about the importance of love
“ Love is patience love is kind it does not envy. It does not boast.” - When Jesus is asked what the most important commandment is he responds
“Love the lord God’
“Love your neighbour as yourself”
+“love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”
Jesus also cause upon his disciples to break the law if they are unethical for example the Pharisees or Jewish leaders of the time were asked by Jesus if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath
Difference scenario- Jesus said “the law was made from mankind, not mankind for the law “
Development in Fletchers writing
He wrote that “utter frustration will follow if we turn the Bible into a rules book “
I’ve never been so He argues that love is the key to Christian ethics in ‘the new morality’
- He wanted an ethical system that was less focused on deontological rules and was less absolute.
- He drew on Paul Tillett who wrote “love is the ultimate law” The right thing in any situation is dictated to achieve the most loving outcome.
- He also wanted to follow the morality displayed by Jesus One that was prepared to go beyond the law If it was the right thing to do
- argued love is not individualistic or relativistic because love is absolut
He wrote the morality of an action depends on the situation
The six propositions
Love is the only thing that is intrinsically good
love is the ruling norm in ethical decision-making and replaces all laws.
Love and justice are the same thing- justice is love that is distributed
Love wills the neighbours good regardless of whether the neighbours liked or not
love is the goal or end of the act and that justifies any means to achieve that goal
love decides on each situation as it arises without a set of laws to guide it.
Issues with the six propositions
idealistic and utopian (human love is not the same as gods) and it would only be effective if everyone followed it
Aristotle did not believe that love could be impartial he believed “ just as one cannot be in love with many people at once”, one cannot be a friend to many in a prefect friendship
- similarly to Bunbars number, which upholds that we can only maintain 150 connections at once
It is demanding prioritising other needs over our own or over the people we know and applies to strangers just as much as friends
If arrived from the life of Jesus, he sacrificed himself and died at the hands and anger of his enemies because he loved them and wished to offer salvation
“ if that’s how God has loved us then that’s how we should love one another”- Fletcher
The 4 working principles
Relativism = there are no fixed laws. Each decision should relate to that unique situation based on making the absolute laws of Christian ethics relative.
Personalism people should be at the centre of all moral considerations rather than a need to follow laws
positivism = Christians must choose a belief in a God of love and to root their actions in this faith (belief in the reality and importance of love)
Pragmatism = moral actions must be realistic + practical and use experience rather than theory
Conscience
Traditional understanding of conscience as a noun or mistaken it is not a resulting sense of guilt after an action has been committed, but rather a verb and activity we do in the process of deciding
He sites Paul’s reference to conscience who believed it was a gift from God and is a safeguard for Christian faith in life
“ the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness”
Fletcher states that each Christian should learn how to apply love with prayerful consideration and believe that thoughtful decision-making was ‘doing conscience’
Issues with Fletchers interpretation of conscience
The Bible also states that their conscience is weak and they feel they are defiled by the food
Due to original sin as a result of the part of the photo simple also writes about the weakness of Will “ I do not understand what I do for what I want to do. I do not do.”
He outlines what will later be referred to as divided/paradoxical will
Strengths of Situations ethics-
In being so people centred it fits with Jesus in the new Testament who broke religious rules and dealt with everyone as individuals in accordance to the circumstance
As well as his actions it also applies to his statements that the most important of the Commandments after love the Lord God was love your neighbour as yourself
+is centralised on a concept that is legitimately pure/ perfect
Doesn’t reject laws but sees them as useful tools that are not absolutely binding as opposed to a legalistic who follows rules absolutely who could be placed in extremely challenging situations. The situation is going overcome laws in the name of the most loving outcome.
Scholars defence of situations ethics
Is flexible and is therefore able to deal with exceptional circumstances and avoid legalism the other ethical theories may lead us to. It enables people to keep the spirit of law without becoming so obsessed with absolute rules and helps to remove confliction of duties such as do not kill but protect people.
John Robinson argued that it was a Democratic ethic for a man, of age as it takes seriously the claim of existentialists who assert the importance of human freedom when making moral decisions .
He argued that many teachings of the new Testament are not legislative laws, but instead
“ illustrations of love me at any particular moment require of anyone”
Weaknesses of Situations ethics
(Two scholars)
William Barclay argued that law is the distillation of experience that society has a whole has gathered to believe to be beneficial therefore “to disregard law is to disregard experience” and the valuable wisdom and inside that they contain
Linked to the idea that laws and absolute are therefore the protection of society
He argues that humans are still in our infancy and are incapable of operating without rules
Reverend John MacQuarrie
Argue that situationalism is fundamentally an incurably individualistic and should never serve as a basis for social morality
“ radical situational ethics suffers from the allied vice of subjectivism”
Convincing as the most loving option in each situation is subjective similar to the scenarios used by Fletcher a woman choosing whether or not to have an abortion. Maybe leave that the most loving option for the child is to get it aborted without considering other parties involved.
It is an adequate as a system as it rejects absolute rules that would guide two different people if they came to varying conclusions about the most loving outcome
Weaknesses of situations ethics
Fetches view doesn’t reflect all of the new Testament which appears to have clear moral views on concept such as theft, adultery and murder thou shall not steal thou shall not commit adultery- the 10 Commandments which suggest written absolute infer legalistic point of view
