Situation Ethics

Question 1

Intellectual Background of Situation Ethics

Answer 1

Religious believers believed hat God reveals moral laws to them and that these are always to be applied. It is impossible to be good without following them.
-Kant’s deontological approach: Moral rules are good in themselves and should be obeyed regardless of consequences. They comprise a moral duty that is binding to all.

Question 2

Social Background of Situation Ethics

Answer 2

• sexual revolution, freedom and contraception
• freedom for women after they worked in the war
• Counter/Youth culture
• Civil rights movement
• distrust of government with Vietnam war

Question 3

The Church’s reaction to changes in moral perspectives

Answer 3

BCC 1964: appointed a working party to “Prepare a statement for the Christian case for abstinence from sexual intercourse before marriage and faithfulness within marriage… and to suggest means whereby the Christian position may be effectively presented to the various sections of a community”

Made use of the Schofield report (The Sexual Behaviour of Young People 1965)

Reflected opinion that there had been a general lowering of moral standards.

Aimed to promote “a sane and responsible attitude towards love and marriage”

Question 4

Michael Schofield’s ‘The Sexual Behaviour of Young People’

Answer 4

Identified the new influences on young people:
“greater independence; more money in their pockets and purses; the weakening of family bonds and religious influences; the development of earlier maturity, physically, emotionally and mentally; the impact of modern books, television [and] periodicals”

Question 5

J.A.T. Robinsons ‘Honest to God’

Answer 5

1963

God is not a literal being “up there” above the universe
-agrees with Tillich that God is the “ground of our being” who, although significant, is not a supernatural being who intervenes with the universe

-Fletcher: had written that Christian ethics was “not a scheme of codified conduct…………..