Situation Ethics 💞 Flashcards
What is Agape love 💕💘
Unconditional love for everyone and God
- Charity
- The greatness of all loves
- Other loves include: Eros, Philia & Storage
Who is the 🔑 thinker?
Fletcher - LOVEEE!!
- religious ethics is too legalistic
- modern ethics are antinomian (no laws)
- created an ethics in the middle
What is the key message of Situation Ethics
Do the most loving thing to do in each situation
Is Situation Ethics teleological or deontological AND what does it mean?
Teleological - making moral decisions based on the outcome of the action
Is Situation Ethics relative or absolute AND what does it mean?
Relative - moral truths vary depending on the situation
What it Eros, Philia and Storage love??
Eros - sexual love
Philia - a close friendship
Storage - a fondness based on family connection
Think…
- ER ec t - sexual love
- PHIL is my friend
- I STORE things in my family’s home
What are the 4 Working Principals of Situationism
Relativism, Pragmatism, Positivism and Personalism
Think… 🤔
- RPPP (RiPPP)
What is relativism (4 Working Principles) 🍌
There should be no fixed rules - they depend on the situation.
What is Pragmatism?
Moral actions must work in real life or achieve some realistic good 🍫
What is Positivism?? 😁😁😁
Faith must be put before reasoning - Christian love is above all ✝️
What is personalism 👩❤️👨
People come before rules - we must consider and show love to the people involved in the situation
Strengths of Situation Ethics
- It enables us to make difficult moral dilemmas when we have conflicting moral truths. For example when choosing between telling the truth and saving a life an easy decision can be made to save the life - absolutist approaches to this dilemma would be badddd.
- It is person centred and bases the decisions on the most loving outcome for the people involved - other legalistic and absolutist ethics focus more on rules.
- Agape love is a good principal as unconditional love for society would make it a nicer place to live.
- it gives humans the moral responsibility of their decisions and actions and so the outcome can not be blamed on an outdated rule.
Weaknesses of Situation Ethics
- It is difficult to know where one situation ends and another starts meaning that we may set off an unexpected chain of events that are not the most loving.
- It has no clear and absolute boundaries as it could permit child torture if the outcome would be to find out where the dad has planted a bomb.
- It requires a prediction of the future meaning that no one can guarantee that their decision will maximise love.
- People will have different opinions on what might lead to the most loving situation and so applying agape love may be difficult.
- As there are no rules people may accidentally cause something unloving without intending to - the outcome still happens.
