situation ethics

notes turned into flashcards

Joseph’s fletcher se book

new morality

based on agape (unconditional love)

moved from a deonotolgical approach to a

telelogical one

positivism

• the belief in the reality and importance of love

the focus is on

the intention which has the most loving outcome for the person involved

pragmatism

• doing the most practical thing which usually sits between antinominalism and legalism

• e.g- JC breaking sabbath laws

Jesus betrayal and links to SE

• JC tells god to, release me from this’ and ‘thy will be done’

• the surrender to god here is reflective of the self sacrifice to love other people, since Jesus was sacrificed as god loved humans

• it tells christians to love other people

• the sacrifice to god to become christian

personalism

people are at the centre of the theory

relativism

making the laws of SE relative to the situation

principled relativism

everything is made relative to one norm which is agape (showing agape to others is showing agape to god)

basis in JC (gospels)

• Luke 10:25-37 - parable of the good samaritan

• Matthew 12:10-12 - healing on the sabbath day

• mark 2:27-28 - ‘sabbath isn’t made for man’ (personalism)

FLETCHERS MORAL CATEGORY :LEGALISM

• predefined rules

• JF said this led to a legalistic mindset and morality was simply following laws

• accumulate more laws to different eventualities - e.g don’t kill, but what about in self defence

• JF rejected that approach

FMC:RESPONCE TO LEGALISM

• ethical theories such as natural law lead to unbending legalism

• this is the opposite to what Jesus preached - but this is debated by bible scholars and the situation can be unclear

• SE= our morality needs flexibility in order for us to be able to express our love +care for individuals (depending on the circumstance)

FMC:ANTINOMIALISM

• opposite to legalism

• people don’t follow/use rules or principles and each decision is unquie

• fletcher felt this led to ‘casual’ and ‘anarchic’ and ‘adhoc’ decision making thus he implored some rules to follow thus you are always doing the most loving thing

• links to existentialism, we don’t have a purpose that we are born with we create one for ourselves meaning we are free to make our own desicion moral making

FMC:SITUATIONAL

• a person enters a situation equipped with moral laws and principles

• however= love is supreme and those rules can be discarded if they inhibit a person from acting lovingly in that situation

• it avoids words such as ‘always and never’ as you are always focusing on the situation then applying the nesscary rules if they are relative to the situation

abortion and SE.

• legalistic approach = follow the laws if the country

• antinomial= do what they want to do regardless of law breaking

• SE= have the most pragmatic approach looking at the positivism of the situation in order to show the most amount of unconditional love e.g- putti g the mothers life before the feteus

• Savita Halappanavar as an example

situation ethics influences

• ‘there are times when a man has to push his moral principles aside and do the right thing’

• Joseph fleticher influenced by theologians, bultman, Barth and bohnhoffer

• bohnhoffer- devout christian who tried to kill hitler which despite going against the teachings of his faith it was a loving thing to do

• having faith is different from having religion

• taking a radical approach by arguing that we should establish rules but act in accordance with the principles which Jesus taught

• ‘to act’ - driven by love to act which is what is fundamental about your action

• there is one thing which is always intrinsically good in any context which is love

agape isn’t natural

• desire to having pleasure and avoid pain

• don’t want to show unconditional love and not be received anything back from it

agape

• unconditional love

• self sacarficing over self-satisfying

• referred to the principle ‘love thy neighbour

• ‘christian SE only has one normal principle and that is love’ principled and ideas are only valid if they serve love in any situation

• not a feeling or an attiude

six proportions

• what you should keep in mind whilst acting in a situation

• flexibility to avoid legalism

1

‘the only one thing which is intricicually good named love and nothing else at all’

• actions aren’t good or evil

• only good if they promote love as an end result

2

‘the ruling norm of christian decision making is love and nothing else’

• JC broke the commandments in order to do the most love ng thing and heal the sick on the Sabbath day

• commandments in the bible aren’t absolutes

3

‘love and justice are the same for justice is love distributed’

• justice is love at work for the whole community

• not emotional love but preferential love

4

‘love wills the neighbours good, whether we like him or not’

• love is an attitude

5

‘only the ends justifys the means’

• actions are a trans to an end

• if love is the goal of any act then it is justified

6

‘loves descions are made situationally, not perscriptively’

• love decides the right corse of action in each situation, it doesn’t require a set of laws to guide it

fletchers examples

• sacrificial l suicide

• abortion after rape

• patriotic prositution

• sacrificial adultery

view of consciousness

• seen as a verb rather than a noun

• conscience is the act f making a living decision

• SE is acting out of conscience

• COUNTER= conscience makes us relfect on our past actions -feeling guilt- bur for fletcher is is irrelevant as his intentions are only for the reasoning of future actions

• ‘there is no conscience; conscience is merely a word for our attempts to make decisions creating constructivily fittingly’

weakness of SE

• problem of consequential ethics → hard to calc exactly what the outcome of an action is going to be and whether it will be loving or not (iraq war example)

• love is very demanding value especially agape → unconditional love isn’t natural to us and we prioritize ourselves over others and there is an expectation of reciprocation which you dont get

• existential ethics → claimed to be so as you are applying your morality differently to each situation

christian criticisms

• dangerous since it waters down the important ethical principles

pope puis XII (SUMMARY)

augustine ‘love does not command what is possible, when he commands he commands’

• SE takes a pessimistic view of human nature (abortion link) whilst NL has high expectations of humanity

• god doesn’t command the impossible but it shouldnt be easy to live by his commandments

• church already makes rules which are less stringent than those set by JC + ST P

• SE is an attack on JC his teachings are more than just about love

• ‘adultery, the abuse of marriage etc.. are wrong regardless of the situation

• laws are to be applied not invented

incomplete view of JC

• fletcher’s reading of Jesus is limited + selective

• Jesus does preach about love and challenges legalism but apples strict rules to his teachings

• condemns divorce he warns about speaking in angry and looking at a women lustfully

• JC mentions hell more than he mentions heaven

• JC also tells his disciples to follow his commands which suggests there is more to meal decsion making than just love

love and agape critique

• no basis in christianity which

• little which separates it from act utilitarianism

A1:FLEXIBILTY

• legalistic approaches sich as NL cannot cope with the factors in many moral design making scenario

• descry to act with flexibility dfv

• injustice can be done when rules are applied with no reference to the context

• however → still has a clear principle underpinning it

A2:CONFLICTING DUTIES

• allows for people to alternate between different duties

• but provides us with guidance of how we can weight up our differing duties + obligations

A3:LOVE IS A GOOD PRINCIPLE

• love can overcome some of the issues of utilitarianism with the perseuction of humanity

• greatest good for the greatest number (train ethics thingy)

• protects agianst personal bias

• common across all cultures

A4:PERSONALISM

• by putting the person at the centre of ethics it avoids imposing your will upon people

• servere illness’s are not abstract concepts they manifest in people and therefore decisions about euthanasiasia shouldn’t be de;t with abstractly

• we need to look at what people experience and go through

C1:EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED

• there are no clear boundaries

• murdeing and torturing the innconcet could be seen as acceptable

• too flexible no sets on what can be permitted

• hard to see a theory like this be considered christian even in a seclaur sense how can they be seen as moral

C2:WHAT IS LOVE

• the idea of love is still very subjective

• what we see as loving differs from person to person

• ‘love thy neighbour as thy self’ → but what if you don’t love yourself

C3:TOO INDIVILSITC

• John MCquarrie argues that SE is too individualistic

• claims its impossible to apply to society as a whole

• each individual has a unique idea of how to behave

• we can’t know if the consquneces will be loving or not

• nesscary to apply rules and laws or else chaos can ensue

C4:WHERE DOES SITUATION START AND BEGIN

• difficult to define where the situation begins and ends

• how fat in the future you can calc

• morally responsible for your actions

C5:ULITILTRIANISM

• John stuart mill - said that SE was just christianised utilitarianism

C6:TOO EXTREME

• William Barclay - the examples used are too far fetched

• more logical to suggest that rules are maintained and adapted should an extreme situation occur rather than abandoning all rules because of a few extreme cases

• rules are important in protecting people from serious harm

• many people can’t make moral decisions since they are influenced by emotions so principles are needed to combat this