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

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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

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Antinomian approach to ethics

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

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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

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Fletcher 4 Working Principles

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

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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

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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

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Positivism

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

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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

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The 6 Propositions- fundamental principles

• Aim of these propositions is to help us apply agape

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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

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2. 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

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3. Love and justice are the same

• Justice is love distributed
• Justice is love at work in the whole community for the whole community

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4. Love wills the neighbours good, whether we like him or not

• “Love thy neighbour”: new testament agape love

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5. 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

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6. 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

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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

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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.

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