strengths + weaknesses, discussing situation ethics

what are 4 strengths of situation ethics?

• situation ethics is able to stay up-to-date with our rapidly changing modern society, including ideas about sexuality, medical ethics, etc

• relativist, flexible - rejecting moral absolutism allows for individualised responses to different contexts

• pragmatic - situation ethics suggests solutions that work, it is a useful, easily applicable theory

• personalist - puts people before rules, as jesus often did. he said ‘sabbath was made for man and not man for sabbath’, also broke social rules/norms by interacting with women, sinners, the poor, acting with love

what are 4 weaknesses of situation ethics?

• allows for evil; lying, theft and murder can all be consequences of taking actions with the most loving outcome

• william barclay, argues ‘if all men were saints, then situation ethics would be the perfect ethic’. however, humans can’t be trusted to always do the right thing, either because they are incapable or do not want to act with agape love

• vague - difficult to determine what the ‘most loving outcome’ is, this varies from person to person, also difficult for SE to be systematised and applied to larger issues like war, wide-spread poverty, etc

• romans 13:1 (st paul) - let everyone submit to the governing authorities, since there is no authority except from god, and the authorities that exist are instituted by god’ - therefore to break the law and disregard authority in the name of love can be seen as going against god

fletcher vs sola scripture

one of the strengths of situation ethics is that fletcher founded it on a liberal approach to the bible, arguing that traditional legalistic approaches to the bible face a dilemma. rules can be interpreted differently + it is impossible to know which interpretation is correct, and not everyone can or wants to live exactly as the bible commands

• fletcher concludes that the bible should not be thought of as a legalistic ‘rules book’, but rather ethical suggestions, e.g. sermon of the mount. although the bible states that many things (e.g. killing, homosexuality and adultery) are wrong, he believes a christian shouldn’t view those as unbreakable rules. whatever maximises agape is allowed, no matter the action

• fletcher focuses on the most prevalent ethical theme of the bible: love, and things which follow from love like forgiveness

HOWEVER although love is central, fletcher faces criticism that SE cannot be considered properly christian, as it ignores/makes it possible to ignore most of the teachings in the bible

• martin luther’s theory of ‘sola scriptura’ argues that the ‘bible alone’ is the source of moral authority, not the autonomous individual deciding the demands of agape in their situation.

• fletcher has diluted christian ethics into just wanting the best for others, which is not distinctive from secular morality

is SE entirely individualistic and subjective? (NO)

• fletcher would argue it does not abandon absolutes but instead holds onto love and makes all things relative to love

• the human experience is faced with all manner of ethical dilemmas, and legalistic, absolute ethics with fixed moral certainty can fall short in successfully answering to these dilemmas in a pragmatic way

does SE truly represent the ethics of jesus?

Whether situation ethics truly represents the ethics of Jesus

A strength of Fletcher’s situation ethics is that it fits with the approach to ethics taken by Jesus. Jesus overturned rules (like that of Moses’ eye for an eye & life for a life), allowed the breaking of rules (like the sabbath) and said that the greatest commandment was to love your neighbours as yourself.

If one command is greater than another, then it seems like that means it takes priority and thus the lesser rule should be broken if it’s the loving thing to do. Fletcher’s situation ethics is a reasonable interpretation of what Jesus said. It’s hard to see what Jesus could have meant by agape being the greatest commandment except that it was greater than the others which seem to imply taking precedence over them.

Weakness: Richard Mouw points out that it makes no sense to reduce Christian ethics to only one of Jesus’ commands when Jesus made other commands too. It makes no logical sense to follow some of Jesus’ commands but not all of them. We either regard him as a source of moral authority or we don’t.   Pope Pius XII criticised situation ethics on similar grounds. Christ himself frequently spoke of the importance of following all the commandments. (Matthew 19:17 & John 14:15).  Fletcher is therefore unwittingly attacking Christ. Fletcher claims the ends justifies the means, but Romans 3:8 condemns that.

Final judgement defending situation ethics:

Mouw and Pius XII’s arguments are unsuccessful because they beg the question regarding the validity of taking a legalistic approach.

Certainly if we take all of Jesus’ commands as individually true, it is incoherent to only follow one of them. Fletcher’s point however is that the example of Jesus himself goes against that legalistic method of ethical accounting. Jesus himself was an example of taking a progressive and situationist approach to ethical commands. Reading and following Jesus like an inflexible legalist fails to incorporate that side of his approach. A full appreciation of Jesus’ ethics involves both legalism and situationism. In that case, it cannot be viewed legalistically. Fletcher does not want to disregard rules and commandments, only the insistence on the legalistic approach to their application.

Final judgement critiquing situation ethics:

Furthermore, would Jesus have bothered to make any other commandments if agape is the only one that is ultimately matters? If a commandment is only to be followed when it accords with agape, and should be ignored if it conflicts with agape, then agape is the only commandment you actually need.

It seems more logical to think that by calling it the ‘greatest’ commandment Jesus meant something else, such as only that it was the one which would be relevant to the most number of situations.