Situation Ethics

Agape

Unconditional, selfless love. Highest form of Christian love

• using agape love in situations is best demonstated by Jesus, jesus love isnt subjective but unconditional and selfless (e.g his death)

• quote from bible ‘love must be sincere‘ Romans 12:9

Antinominalism

Against law. The belief that there should be no laws or principles governing behaviour

Legalism

Strict conformity to all laws and regulations

Intrinsic Good

• Something that is (ethically) good in and of itself

• The only intrinsically good thing is love

• love is the only princople that is good and right in every situation.

Personalism

One of Flectcher’s 4 presuppositions:

• morality is about persons, not rules

• Situation ethics puts people at centre of concern rather than rules

Positivism

One of Flectcher’s 4 presuppositions:

• love is the only intrinsically good thing . Ethical norms are held by faith

• Christian ethics should be guided by love from the belief of God

Pragmatism

One of Flectcher’s 4 presuppositions:

• we should do whatever works in the situation

• seeking practical solutions

Relativism

One of Flectcher’s 4 presuppositions:

• morality is relative to the situation

• a situationaist will aviod absoultes like ‘never‘, ‘perfect‘ ect as it all depends

• other than love everything else is realtive

Teleological ethics

Look to the consequences or ‘end‘ of an action to determine whether it is morally right. Derived from ‘telos‘, meaning ‘purpose‘ or ‘ultimate aim‘.

Fletcher: Antinominalsim and Legalism

He rejects both of them sees them as two extremes, and makes a middle ground called situation ethics

Situational Ethics quotes

“love should be the predominat Christian impulse“ - Willam Temple

“Love is the only universal“- Fletcher

Love is not liking

• Love isn’t sentimental, it isn’t just an emotion like affection or sympathy, its brought from human will

• love doesn’t seek out the deserving norn makes judgements about the people

Love and justice are the same

because justice is love distributed

Stengths

Its grounded in Jesus key teachings

• Situational ethics is grounded in the teachings and examples set by Jesus

  Provides individual autonomy

• it promotes individual autonomy, people are empowered to make there own decisions in situations while legalism is counter-intuitive as it can make people to go against reason and emotion

• focuses on helping people, legalistic ethics often worship rules that have no moral force, e.g killing homosexuals and the point that these rules arent followed nowdays shows that there is no moral compass for legalism

• promotes social justice, forces people to analyse a situation in terms for a deised end also motivates people to cahnge for the better

Weaknesses

Gives to much responsiblity onto individuals

• puts a massive amount of reponsibility on the individual, alot to ask of a person to put their welfare below there neighbours (heavy burden)

  Its impactical to socitey: need clear rules

• William Barclay says that situation ethics only work in exteme cases and not everyday life.

• John McQuarrie suggest that its about the individuals making individual decision and cannot work for a society

  The end doesn’t alway justiy the means

• Situational ethics say that only love is intrinsically good but the Catholic Church maintains that there are intrinsically evil things like abortion