Situation Ethics

Question 1

Situation Ethics

Answer 1

Focuses on the situation rather than fixed rules
“Sometimes you have to set your principles aside and do the right thing”
-Teleological, relativist, autonomous
-Focussed on Jesus’ teachings on the Sermon on the Mount

Question 2

Agape

Answer 2

Situation ethics claims a simple, easy to define norm, that of agape love. Agape love means sacrificial love for friend or stranger

Question 3

Disadvantages of Agape

Answer 3

-Difficult norm to define as it implies strict impartiality strict neutrality in the observe and what utilitarian Peter Singer calls the universal viewpoint

Question 4

Universal viewpoint argument against agape

Answer 4

If my interests spread out from me like ripples of a pond, I naturally place my immediate family first, my friends second, and my acquaintances, third. People who are strangers lie many circles beyond immediate circles of interest. By implying impartiality, the norm of agape love is therefore both unrealistic and almost impossible to apply in practice. Which stranger do I include, and how many?

Question 5

Law

Answer 5

Fletcher claims to be between legalism and antinomianism, between adherence to the law and anarchic disdain for the law. However, states that sometimes the rules need to be set aside and you need to do the right thing and takes a relativist approach to his ethics.
Unclear what role the law plays overall in Fletchers ethical theory if approach taken

Question 6

Importance of law - Mills rule Utilitarianism

Answer 6

Mill’s rule utilitarianism Mill argues we should generally follow rules until our own wisdom suggest that there is a moral conflict where something has to go For example, in euthanasia cases you cannot always preserve life and also alleviate pain: the opiod can kill you as a physician induced act of mercy. Therefore, the place of law is important in society at least in preserving a barrier between simple choice (to kill a patient) and a moral dilemma (when you can’t have both moral ‘goods’)

Question 7

Importance of Law - Barclay

Answer 7

-Barclay points out that society needs rules to provide a coherence to its public morality, and also to show the wisdom of previous generations. Rules pass on that wisdom and provide a basis for moral education. Rules of course don’t have to be absolute as the Bible itself shows: ‘do not kill’ cannot include killing in times of war as the Bible also permits the military campaigns of Joshua.

Question 8

What has happened as Fletcher fails to recognise the role of law

Answer 8

becomes unworkable because it places too much responsibility on individual judgement.

Question 9

Principles

Answer 9

1) Personalism
2) Pragmatism
3) Positivism
4) Relativism

Question 10

Personalism

Answer 10

Personalism (put the person first over the law) - But individuals do not exist in a vacuum. When a teenager chooses to take drugs, it affects everyone: family, school, friends and society which pays the bill for treatment. Situation ethics is in danger of becoming a narrow, almost selfish ethic

Question 11

Pragmatism

Answer 11

Pragmatism (proceed case by case and abandon rules) – Wouldn’t this just lead to an anarchic society

Question 12

Positivism

Answer 12

Positivism (posits love as good as God is love) – not helpful to an atheist, which is exclusivist and they may misinterpret what Gods love as they are not theistic

Question 13

Relativism

Answer 13

Relativism (there is no absolute, which is an unchangeable norm) – Unclear and offers little guidance

Question 14

Jesus teachings

Answer 14

Fletcher basis his theory on the New Testament and Jesus’ teachings on agape love (cf. Greatest Commandment ‘love god and love thy neighbour’)

Question 15

Mouw’s argument against Fletcher’s focus on Jesus’s teachings

Answer 15

Richard Mouw argued that just because one Bible passage focuses on love that doesn’t rule out the relevance of other laws. Jesus did indeed say to love your neighbour as yourself. However, he also said many other laws. They should all be followed.

Question 16

Counter to Mouw

Answer 16

Mouw doesn’t seem to address the point that loving your neighbour was proclaimed the ‘greatest’ commandment by Jesus, however. If one command is greater than another then it seems like that means it takes priority and thus the less great rule should be broken if that’s the loving thing to do

Question 17

How is the counter to Mouw disproved

Answer 17

But why would Jesus have bothered to make any other commandments if agape is the only one that is ultimately matters? Perhaps by calling it the ‘greatest’ commandment Jesus meant something else, such as only that it was the one which would be relevant to the greatest number of situations

Question 18

Are Situation Ethics distinctively Christian

Answer 18

Fletcher ‘set our principles aside and do the right thing’ – in which an individual must be pragmatic within each situation and that Christian ethics are only truly distinctive when we respond in the moment and perform the most loving action as this is what Jesus would have done
NT further reflects this in Mathew ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself’ – love is the only source for morality and the only principle that a Christian should follow to truly be Christian

Question 19

Counter to Situation ethics as distinctive

Answer 19

However although it is convincing as it uses Biblical evidence, it forgets Bible also teaches of OS and human corruption – humans are too selfish and the only way to be distinctively Christian is to use a moral guidebook, and follow the Word of God.
Clearly to be Christian a more absolute approach such as Natural Moral Law needs to be taken and reason used to the best of our abilites in order to decipher the eternal law of God
-autonomous ethics is to subjective, and does not follow Gods Divine law in the Bible directly