Understandings

• value of society-linked approaches

  • a collective conscience could unite society
  • but this would have no value if the morality of that society was corrupt
• value of reason-based approaches

  • this encourages an objective approach to right and wrong
  • but conscience is not infallible
  • emotions and social conditioning can also influence and distort it
  • many people do not have the capacity for the reasoned thinking demanded by, for example, aquinas and kohlberg
• value of 'voice of god' approaches

  • this runs the risk of being subjective and unreliable
  • can we be sure that it is god speaking to us and not our unconscious desires or prejudices?
• value of psychological approaches

  • feeling guilty can act as a warning or a corrective
  • but it may be both subjective and unreliable; many people experience feeling guilty without good reason
• value of situationist approaches

  • fletcher's view of it simply as a process of decision-making means it has no real significance, it is just another word for application of the agapeic calculus