A

Situation Ethics

Agape

  • Unconditional and unwavering love
  • Highest form of love and love that Jesus has for humanity
  • Feeling so much love for others that you put them first
  • “Love one another as I have loved you” John 13:34-35
  • 1 Corinthians 13: St Paul describes what agape love is
  • Luke 10:25-37: Parable of the Good Samaritan which explains the strategy of love
  • Luke 6:27-36: Jesus teaches that we should love our enemies

Legalism

  • A way of making moral decisions where you rigidly apply rules or guidance with no consideration of context
  • Simply follows a strict set of rules as laid out in the Bible for example
  • This is following of strict rules does not allow for complex situations to be considered
    • Eg. ‘Do not kill’ doesn’t consider self-defence
  • This approach leads a cold, textbook, just following rules blindly
  • Fletcher rejects legalism

Antinomian approach to ethics

  • Opposite of legalistic ethics
  • Literally means against law
  • Unprincipled, unguided, chaotic
  • No rules at all
  • Fletcher rejects antinomianism

Fletcher’s Middle Way

  • Situationalism
  • Consider each situation on its own merits and apply the one absolute rule of agape
  • Principled relativism
    • Rejected legalism and did not embrace antinomianism
  • “The situationist follows a moral law or violates it according to loves need” -Fletcher
  • Agape love is the guiding principle which is unexceptionable
  • No action is intrinsically right or wrong
  • For situationists, all moral decisions are hypothetical
    • Depend on what best serves love
    • Don’t say that ‘giving to charity is a good thing’ but instead ‘charity is a good thing if…’
    • Lying is justified if love is better served by it
  • Situation and context determine an actions value and permissibility
  • An action has value if love is best served by following it in that situation

Fletcher 4 Working Principles

  • Fletcher seeks to give some practical guidance on applying situation ethics via his ‘presumptions’ ie. 4 working principles

Pragmatism

  • The solution to a moral dilemma must be practical- it must work and it must be achievable
  • “The good is what works”
  • Ethics is about providing guidance for real world situations so these solutions must be practiced and work
  • Fletcher hoping to avoid his approach being too abstract and purely theoretical

Relativism

  • There are no fixed laws that must be obeyed
  • Our decisions do not create “universal guidelines”
  • Everything is relative to love
  • Fletcher rejects words like ‘never’ and ‘always’
  • Using these words is not compatible with acting in relation to love
  • Eg. Never murder could not be a Situation Ethics principle as murder could in theory be the most loving act

Positivism

  • Christian love (agape) comes first
  • We make rational decisions on what to do based on agape

Personalism

  • Person comes first, not rules
  • Individual firmly at the centre of concern
  • Agape is relationship- centred, not abstract or distant
  • Contrast with other theories that prioritise following rules over the needs of the individual
  • Eg. Catholic Church not allowing abortion to child victim of rape etc
  • These 4 presumptions are our starting point when it comes to ethical decision-making
  • They are the foundations of situation ethics

The 6 Propositions- fundamental principles

  • Aim of these propositions is to help us apply agape
  1. Only one thing is intrinsically good, namely love. Nothing else at all
  • Love is all that matters
  • Actions are not intrinsically good or bad ie. It is good if it is the most loving action
  • The value of an action is based upon its ability to serve love
  1. The ruling norm of christian decision is love: nothing else
  • Jesus put love first; he rejected the Torah and traditions of the time
    • Eg. Spent time with the diseased and undesirables as it was the most loving thing to do
  • Jesus was happy to break laws if love commanded it
  • Matthew 7:12- The Golden Rule= do to others what you would have them do to you
  1. Love and justice are the same
  • Justice is love distributed
  • Justice is love at work in the whole community for the whole community
  1. Love wills the neighbours good, whether we like him or not
  • “Love thy neighbour”: new testament agape love
  1. Only the end justifies the means, nothing else
  • Moral actions and their value must reference the consequences of the action
  • Only the consequences provide value even if the intentions are good
  • Pragmatism link
  1. Loves decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively
  • Make decisions in the moment, not pre-decided through rules
  • Jesus happily reacted against the law if the situation demanded it

Evaluation

Strengths:

  • Appeals to non-religious moral agents- though there is a strong Christian foundation
  • Straightforward motivation- do the most loving thing- easy to understand what love is as it is not an abstract concept
  • Focuses on what is best for the individual- not strictly just following the law
  • Flexibility- able to react to the situation and do what is best in that particular situation eg. Can pick the least bad option when legalism cannot do this
  • Practical-focus is on providing a solution that works ie. Pragmatism
  • Personal and tailor-made for the individual- not a one size fits all approach that legalistic approaches take
  • Sensitive to circumstances so can adopt and avoid the detached and cold approach of legalism

Weaknesses:

  • Lacks clear guidance on how to act- what does the most loving thing actually look like?
  • Not clear what love is- individual ideas of love could contradict each other
  • Difficult to implement- hard to convince all consequences of certain actions and work out the most loving one
  • As a consequentialist theory, it cannot say that certain abhorrent acts are wrong in and of themselves- eg. Racism is only wrong if it doesn’t produce enough love- this seems wrong
  • Excludes most basic universal truths- only accepts them if they produce the most love
  • Subjective and relies on individuals’ perception of the situation to be correct- ie. Assumes the individual can correctly weigh up the situation and consequences
  • Agape might be too high a standard to achieve for humanity
  • Lack of consistency- each situation treated individually so different results will occur- ideally we would like a oral approach that we could rely on to produce similar results each time
  • Does the end justify the means? Do we need to consider the consequences of genocide to decide whether it is good or bad?
  • Too much focus on the individual- the most loving thing for each individual might not be the most loving thing for the community- need to focus on maximising the love for all not just individuals.