Situation ethics

Question 1

what is situation ethics?

Answer 1

a radical Christian-based Utilitarian moral theory, developed by Joseph Fletcher. The only absolute moral principle is to do the most loving thing in any situation

Question 2

who devised situation ethics?

Answer 2

In 1966, a priest (Joseph Fletcher) wrote a controversial book titled ‘The New Morality’

Question 3

what did Fletcher believe?

Answer 3

Fletcher believed in act agapism which is similar to act utilitarianism in which love directly applies to situational judgements and not rules.

Situation Ethics offers a third way between rigid legalism (absolute rules that often do more harm than good) and antinomianism ( the rejection of any moral law)

Question 4

what is legalism?

Answer 4

absolute rules that often do more harm than good

Question 5

what is antinomianism?

Answer 5

the rejection of any moral law

Question 6

What law did Fletcher speak on?

Answer 6

Fletcher spoke of one law of agape (selfless love).
He emphasises Jesus’ teaching about loving ‘neighbours’ and ‘enemies’ (e.g. Mark 12:33, Matthew 5:43-44), which in turn was adopted by St Paul in Galatians 5:14 (‘For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”’) which is also echoed in Romans 13:8 (‘Owe no one anything, except to love one another’).

Question 7

what is agape?

Answer 7

the law of love; selfless love

Question 8

legalism described?

Answer 8

A legalistic approach to morals argues that absolute ethical principles or rules must always be followed, regardless of the circumstances. Examples of legalism are:

Divine Command Theory (following God’s commands because he commands them - see the Euthyphro Dilemma in the philosophy course).

Arrived through a process of careful reasoning e.g. Kant’s Categorical Imperative.

Thought to be consistent with the way that nature has been created by God, according to the Natural Law theory of Thomas Aquinas and other Christian theologians.

Question 9

why did Fletcher disagree with legalism?

Answer 9

Legalism prefers to ‘fit reality to rules rather than to fit rules to reality’. This is the wrong way around.

For example, Kant tried to make the reality (someone faced with a would-be murderer) fit with his rule that telling a lie is always wrong. Fletcher comments that this is wrong because if you did tell the truth in that kind of situation, then you might end up being an accessory to murder. He also criticises Kant’s rule about lying in other ways, for example when it clashes with a promise you have made to someone to keep a secret, or when you might have to lie to keep a schizophrenic calm.

Fletcher also argues that a situationist (someone who believes in situation ethics) would be right to oppose unjust laws because they would be following a higher law or principle of love in doing so.

Fletcher also criticises Natural Law theory because it can lead to wrong moral decisions, citing the example of a decision made by the US Supreme Court in 1954 which upheld the right of a city to racially segregate its golf course on the natural law grounds that birds of different kinds do not alight on the same branches of a tree.

Fletcher cautions against turning the Bible into a rule book in which the laws are always meant to apply regardless of the circumstances.

He argues that Jesus himself was a situationist who was ready to set aside Jewish laws about doing work on the Sabbath, as shown in the passage from Mark Chapter 2: The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath”

Question 10

what are the four working principles?

Answer 10

pragmatism, personalism, positivism and relativism

Question 11

what is pragmatism?

Answer 11

means thinking of or dealing with problems practically, rather than by using theory or abstract principles considering summum bonum which is the highest good or serving of love. Whatever is ‘true’ ina situation is what works.

Question 12

what is relativism?

Answer 12

If situations vary then consequences vary and what we ought to do will change accordingly. This is a very simple, unsophisticated idea, like his ideas on pragmatism, and Fletcher just means that what is right or wrong is related to the situation we are in.Since the only ‘law’ binding a situationist is to act from agape and since every situation is unique, culturally accepted rules such as ‘do not steal’ or ‘do not murder’ should be set aside to achieve the most loving outcome. Each person must decide relative to the situation. Fletcher described situation ethics as a form of ‘principled relativism’. The one guiding principle that does matter is agapeic love, which although it is a guiding principle, is flexible enough to deliver very different decisions in similar circumstances, depending on what a responsible assessment of those circumstances might be

Question 13

what is positivism?

Answer 13

love is an axiomatic value, such faith commitments are the essence of all Christian ethics. Positivism is an attitude to take towards something you believe in but cannot prove.

Question 14

what is personalism?

Answer 14

never using people as a means to an end; things are to be used and people are to be loved. For Fletcher the holy spirit is present wherever love is at work.

Question 15

what is antinomianism?

Answer 15

Fletcher does not agree with an antinomian approach either. Antinomians either ignore or reject any guidance that established ethical principles or rules may have to offer about ethical decisions.

Question 16

what is existentialism?

Answer 16

Existentialism is a philosophical movement which broadly maintains that the starting point of all philosophical thinking must be the experiences of the individual. There are two types of existentialism, theistic existentialism (associated with the writings of Soren Kierkegaard), and atheistic existentialism, most famously proposed by a trio of French authors: Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as the thinking of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger.

Question 17

what did Sartre argue?

Answer 17

Sartre, argued that in a Godless universe life has no definite pattern and human beings have no obvious purpose. Therefore, there can be no fixed moral rules that can be imposed on us from the outside. Instead, everyone must recognise their freedom and responsibility to create their own purpose in life and to make their own moral decisions

Question 18

what are the six propositions?

Answer 18

1) Only love is intrinsically good.

‘Love is the only universal. But love is not something we have or are, it is something we do.’

‘Only love is objectively valid’.
Explanation: agape is the only principle that is intrinsically good; it does not require us to supply further reasons why it is good.

For a situationist, it is ‘objectively valid’ in a positivistic sense (see positivism above): although we cannot prove that the statement ‘love is always good’ is true in the same way that we might prove other things through logic, or by checking or doing experiments, the Christian faith of a situationist leads them to think of love in this way. But love is not something abstract. Agape only truly reveals itself through our actions.

2) Love is the only ruling norm of Christian decision-making.

If love is the most important, ‘objectively valid’ and ‘universal’ moral principle, then it takes priority over all of the other commandments in the Bible, including the 10 commandments. It is a ‘norm’ in the sense that it is the only moral principle in the Bible that ultimately matters. Christianity therefore changes morality from a legalistic system of rules into a law of love. The other commandments only need to be followed if, in any particular situation, it also maximises love to do so.

3) Love and justice are the same because justice is love distributed.

Explanation: Justice is about the fair treatment of others in society. For Fletcher, there need be no conflict between love and justice as justice is nothing more than ‘love distributed’. Human rights are upheld by making justice the same as love, because this then means that people have a right to anything that is loving, but no right to anything that is unloving. But love sometimes has to be calculating. Fletcher uses an agapeic calculus to achieve a loving way of deciding social policy.

Examples (all of which are controversial):
The Anointing at Bethany from Mark 14/Matthew 26. Fletcher supports the disciples when they criticised Jesus for allowing the woman in the story to use costly ointment to anoint him. A more calculating but loving outcome could have been achieved by selling the ointment and giving the money raised to the poor.
President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is also cited as an example of the agapeic calculus at work. You might wish to use this as a criticism, citing it as an example of bad decision-making coming from the ethic.
He argues that an agapeic calculus would justify saving a medical genius who has discovered a cure from a common fatal disease from a fire, rather than your own father, if a choice had to be made.

4) Love wills the neighbour’s good whether we like him or not; love thy
Enemies.
For Christians, ‘love is the business of loving the unlovable, i.e. the unlikeable.’ For this reason, agape does not involve feelings or emotions. This makes it a willed attitude of benevolence (which is similar to Kant’s notion of ‘good will’). This attitude must be extended to everyone.

5) Only the end justifies the means; if the end is love the means are justified.
It may be necessary to do things that could be considered immoral or perhaps even evil to achieve a loving outcome. So the end result justifies the method used to achieve it.

6) Love’s decisions are made situationally not prescriptively.
‘Love’s decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively’
Situation ethics does not try to fit rules to reality as legalists do. Instead it takes into account the particular circumstances surrounding the moral decision that has to be made in each and every case. In some circumstances, following an existing moral rule might still be the most loving thing to do. But not in others.

Question 19

Situation ethics and the individual conscience

Answer 19

The conscience is moral reasoning rather than a faculty in our heads or a mysterious inner voice. It drives moral action takes into account the consequences and acts creatively with love and justice.

Question 20

what are the strengths of situation ethics

Answer 20

Situation ethics pays attention to the exceptional nature of dilemmas rather than being legalistic and inflexible.
Agapeic love being at the centre of this ethic restores the spirit of law that Jesus taught.
It is practical and realistic.
More comfortable with individual and subjective intuitions identifying the most loving thing to do.
Articulates what Christians working with the marginalised and vulnerable find inadequate about legalism.

Question 21

what are the weaknesses of situation ethics?

Answer 21

It is too short or ‘thin’ to be considered a legitimate ethical theory.
Too individualistic and subjective.

It sets people or love against rules, therefore failing to see that rules are essential to protect rights and limit harm done to people. Rules are there to protect the vulnerable and often assist us in adjudicating between the contradictory courses of action grounded in love.

Situation ethics too readily slips into antinomianism (being anti-law) which it claims to avoid.

What may be needed is to revise the application or formulation of a rule rather than to abandon it; situation ethics is in danger of morphing into individualism.

Moral rules prohibit actions that are intrinsically and absolutely wrong.

We cannot be sure of the outcome of our actions. Situation ethics presupposes human capacities of intuition and discernment in a matter that fails to reckon with human reason.