CH2.2 Situation Ethics

Question 1

What is situation ethics described as by its supporters?

Answer 1

it is described as a Christian ethic

Question 2

What do supporters suggest it is consistent with?

Answer 2

With the image of Jesus in the Gospel

Question 3

What is it viewed as by advocates?

Answer 3

as a flexible and practical theory, based on love

Question 4

What do critics think of it?

Answer 4

Many critics think it is unjust, individualistic, and socially destructive.

Question 5

What is it viewed as by many Churches?

Answer 5

Many churches view it as controversial and was rejected by the Catholic church and many conservative Protestant Churches.

Question 6

What did Joseph Fletcher argue about love and morality?

Answer 6

he argued that love was what morality should serve. He thought that someone making a moral decision should be prepared to set aside rules if it seemed that love would be better served by doing so.

Question 7

Give a quote that reflects Fletchers ideas on morality serving love

Answer 7

“The situationist follows a moral law or violates it according to love’s needs”

Question 8

what is meant by the 6 fundamental principles that Fletcher developed?

Answer 8

These are the principles that the situationist should apply. They should be kept in mind when seeking a decision.

Question 9

What are the 6 fundamental principles?

Answer 9

1:Only love is intrinsically good
2:The ruling norm of Christian decision is love, nothing else
3:Love and justice are the same, for justice is love distributed
4:Love wills the neighbour’s good, whether we like him or not
5:Only the ends justifies the means
6:Loves decisions are made situationally not prescriptively

Question 10

Why did Fletcher develop also the Four working principles?

Answer 10

to help in determining the most loving thing. They are not rules, but rather a framework for determining the use of agape in each situation and to know what the most loving thing to do it

Question 11

What are the 4 working principles?

Answer 11

1) pragmatism: being practical rather than always following belief in ideologies or systems
2) relativism: the morally right thing to do is not solely dependent upon following a set of rules, in fact, in some cases, breaking them can be the morally right thing to do. By relativism, he means the ability to break rules and laws, should it be the most loving thing to do
3) Positivism: love is posited as true or good without demonstrating this is the case. So positivism for Fletcher is ultimately faith in love
4) Personalism: the legalist puts the law first, but the situationist puts people first. It is person centred.

Question 12

for the situationist, what does conscience describe?

Answer 12

for the situationist, consience is used as a verb, not a noun. It describes the weighing up of the possible actions before its taken, a kind of moral deliberation, rather than a faculty within a human being. The process of moral reasoning, that is conscience, is informed by the situation and love

Question 13

What is meant when ethics is teleological?

Answer 13

it means that rightness or wrongness is determined by the ends, or consequences instead.

Question 14

What does situation ethics identify its roots in?

Answer 14

in the New Testament references to Jesus breaking established rules and setting aside the law

Question 15

What are the 3 kinds of moral thinking that Fletcher divised?

Answer 15

1) Legalistic ethics
2) Antinomian ethics
3) Situational ethics

Question 16

What is meant by legalistic ethics?

Answer 16

legalistic ethics has a set of predefined rules and regulations which direct how you should behave.

Question 17

Give examples of religions that are quite legalistic

Answer 17

-Judaism at the time of Jesus had a legalistic character.
-Christianity also shows legalistic features, based on biblical commandments and/or precepts expounded by Aquinas

Question 18

Why did Fletcher reject the legalistic approach?

Answer 18

due to all the complications that life throws us, laws accumulate to cover all eventualities. Once murder has been prohibited, one has to clarify killing in self-defence, killing in war and so on. The legalist must continually add to the law book to cover these eventualities, resulting in a web of laws.

Question 19

What is meant by antinomian ethics?

Answer 19

It is the idea that there should be no rules, no restrictions and humans should do whatever they want. A person using antinomianism doesnt use any kind of law, rule or principle. Each attempt at moral decision-making is unique

Question 20

Was Fletcher critical of antinomianism and why?

Answer 20

Fletcher was critical of antinomianism. This is because he believed it was ‘unprincipled, purely ad hoc and causal.’

Question 21

What is meant by the third approach to ethics, situational?

Answer 21

It means that how moral an action is depends on the situation. The situationist enters into the moral dilemma with the ethics, rules and principles of his or her community or tradition. However, the situationist is prepared to set aside those rules in the situation, if love seems better served by doing so.
-The situationist is more interested in loving people, than loving the laws

Question 22

Which theologians is situation ethics heavily influenced by?

Answer 22

by Christian theologians who took a different approach to deducing moral guidance from the bible rather than simply looking for rules or principles

Question 23

What are the names of the 3 theologians that Fletcher was influenced by?

Answer 23

Bultmann, Barth, and Bonhoeffer

Question 24

What did Rudolf Bultmann argue about what Jesus sought to do?

Answer 24

He argued against the idea that Jesus sought to establish some new ethical ideology. Jesus had no other ethics can ‘love thy neighbour’

Question 25

What did Karl Barth argue?

Answer 25

He argued that Gods commanding is not a rule, but applied individually to each specific situation

Question 26

What did Dietrich Bonhoeffer think?

Answer 26

He thought that determining the will of god in any concrete situation is based on two things: the need of ones neighbour, and the model of Jesus. All we can do, according to him, is act accordingly to these two things and offer our conduct to gods judgement, mercy and grace

Question 27

What is agape love?

Answer 27

Unconditional love

Question 28

Where does agape love have its origins from or is mentioned a lot?

Answer 28

in the New Testament. Agape love is the love that is reffered to in the commandment to love your neighbour

Question 29

Coming from the Greek line of thought, what are the different categories of love?

Answer 29

Philia: brotherly love, friendship
Storge: Familial love, mother
Eros: Romantic live
Agape: Highest form of love, love for mankind

Question 30

What are some characteristics of agape love?

Answer 30

agape love is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love, and the love of God and of man for god

Question 31

How is agape love demonstarted?

Answer 31

it is demonstrated through actions

Question 32

Give an example of how God showed agape love? (try and say the quote too)

Answer 32

God showed the world love that is agape love when he sent his son to die “For god so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” - John 3:16

Question 33

What is the first proposition out of the 6? Explain what is meant by it

Answer 33

Only love is intrinsically good:
-by this Fletcher means that only love is in and of itself good.
-he is saying that actions aren’t intrinsically good or evil. They always form part of a chain of cause and effect.
-actions are good or evil depending upon whether they promote the most loving result.
-actions are extrinsically good or evil, depending on their circumstances and consequences

Question 34

What was the second proposition? explain what is meant by it

Answer 34

the ruling norm of Christian decision is love:
-this is referring to how Jesus replaced the Torah with the principle of love. e.g. his decision to work on the Sabbath day, rejecting the obligations of Sabbath observance.
-Fletcher argues that the commandments are not absolute. Jesus broke them when love demanded it. Love replaces law

Question 35

What was the third proposition? explain what is meant by it?

Answer 35

love and justice are the same, for justice is love distributed:
-Fletcher writes “Justice is Christian love using its head, calculating its duties, obligations, opportunities, resources … Justice is love coping with situations where distribution is called for”
-Basically, Justice is love at work in the whole community, for the whole community.
-love takes everything into account, it is not partial

Question 36

What was the fourth proposition? explain what is meant by it

Answer 36

love wills the neighbour’s good, whether we like him or not:
-the love that Fletcher is concerned about is not a matter of feeling, but of attitude.
-it isn’t sentimental or erotic but, rather, a desire for the good of the other person. This is the New Testament agape love.
-You neighbour is anybody and agape love goes out to everyone; not just those we like, but also those we do not like.

Question 37

What was the fifth proposition? explain what is meant by it

Answer 37

only the end justifies the means:
-actions acquire moral status as a means to an end.
-for Fletcher, the end must be the most loving end.
-when weighing up a situation, one must consider the desired end, the means available, the motive for acting and the foreseeable consequences.
-whether something is lawful or not is irrelevant. Love is the goal or end of the act and that justifies any means to achieve that goal

Question 38

What was the sixth proposition? explain what is meant by it

Answer 38

Loves decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively:
-this means that love decides on each situation as it arises, without a set of laws to guide it.
-Fletcher suggested Jesus reacted against the rule-based approach to life that he saw around him. There were Jewish groups that lived on rule-based moral systems, but Jesus distanced himself from them.
-whether something is right or wrong depends on the situation
-morality based on following set codes becomes repressive.

Question 39

What does conscience mean in situation ethics?

Answer 39

it is a word that describes our attempts to make proper decisions