situation ethics Flashcards
where does situation ethics lie?
middle ground ethical approach between legalism (strict adherence to laws and principles from authority), and antinomianism (moral decisions made out of internal values, lawless society)
what moral law should we follow?
Fletcher argued for the following of the universal moral law of agape (universal godly love) the highest form of love for mankind.
goes beyond emotions or feelings and does not favour one person over another
‘love thy neighbour’
we should follow every situation with the agape principle
agape principle
what is the most loving thing to do? what will result in the most happiness? situation by situation basis WITHOUT strict rules. moral law is NOT absolute but there is one gudin principle of agape
how do we know what the most loving thing to do is without rules? ethical conscience
CONSCIENCE- not a noun but a verb. we need to be in a sitation where we use our reason and rationality to determine the most loving thing to do- the whole experience is conscince
FOUR WORKING PRINCIPLES
Pragmatism- it must be possible to achieve
relativism- the morally right thing to is not on following rules it does not mean CHOOSING what is right and wrg, but rather the ability to break laws
positivism- faith in love, believe that morality is soley down to maximising love
personalism- individuals > laws, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”.
The six fundamental principles
Only love is intrinsically good.
The ruling norm of Christian decision is love; nothing else.
Love and justice are the same, for justice is love distributed, nothing else.
Love wills the neighbour’s good whether we like him or not.
Only the end justifies the means; nothing else.
Love decides there and then.
strength- designed for modern society
Fletcher and Robinson argue (influenced by Bonhoeffer) that humanity has ‘come of age’, meaning become more mature. In medieval and ancient times, people in general were less educated and less self-controlling. This meant that they needed fixed ridged clear rules to follow, because they could not be trusted to understand and act on the nuances and complexities in how a rule could justifiably be bent or broken if the situation called for it.
we are now capable of the agapaeic love jesus calls on when we should “love thy neighbour”
weakness- isn’t designed for modern society, doctrine for saints (barclay)
William Barclay disagreed. He argues that situation ethics gives moral agents a dangerous amount of freedom. For freedom to be good, love has to be perfect. If there is no or not enough love then ‘freedom can become selfishness and even cruelty’. If everyone was a saint, then situation ethics would be perfect. Barclay argues mankind has not yet come of age and so ‘still needs the crutch and protection of law’.
why is situation ethics theologically problematic?
Theologically, we can argue that Jesus was without sin while we are not; Christian theology teaches grace because we are predisposed to be selfish and to act contrary to God’s will (this is the doctrine of original sin).
Fletcher is criticised for favouring certain aspects of Jesus’ teachings over others; elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus calls the people to obey the law in all things.
why is situation ethics psychologically problematic?
Psychologically, we can deceive ourselves into believing our actions are loving when in fact they are based on unconscious biases; Freud argued that our conscience is parental and societal.
Thus, as Barclay argued, the ethic is for saints alone; it is overly optimistic
about human nature. Philosophicallv we can wonder at the contusion over whether love is intentional or consequential. Fletcher seems to assume that a loving intention will result in a loving action, but this need not be the case, and a lack of clarity here is a serious weakness.
For example, a person may act with selfish intentions and yet produce good effects (giving money to the poor to win people’s approval, while having no care for the poor).
other problems? we will always interject our own values into our actions WE ARE NOT GOD.
until she gets pregnant so that she can return to her family. Although this flexibility is admirable, it depends on our subjective evaluation of a situation and our individual values, making it sublective and IndivIdualistic. This Is because there is no clear objective measurement of a
situation; we can never know enough and we will always bring our values to our understanding of the situation. In other words, we are not God.
overall?
situation ethics may not be entirely subjective and individualistic yet a lack of clarity over whether love is intention or consequential, coupled with the ditticulty of evaluating a situation objectively, tends to push it too far in that direction.
