Key words

• Justice

  refers to notions of fair distribution of benefits for all. Fletcher specially sees justice as a kind of tough love; love applied to the world
• Pragmatism

  Acting, in moral situations, in a way that is practical, rather than purely ideologically
• Relativism

  rejection of absolute moral standards, such as laws or rights. Good and bad are relative to an individual or community or, in Fletcher's case, to love
• Positivism

  proposes something good or true without demonstrating it
• Personalism

  ethics centred on people rather than laws or objects
• Conscience

  may be used to describe a faculty within us, a process of moral reasoning. Fletcher described it as function rather than a faculty
• Teleological thoughts

  moral goodness is determined by the end result
• Legalistic ethics

  Law-based moral decision-making
• Antinomian ethics

  antinomian ethics do not recognise the role of law in morality
• Situaltional ethics

  ethics focused on the situation rather than fixed rules
• agape love

  Unconditional love
• Extrinsically good

  good defined with reference to the end rather than good in itself. Fletcher argues only love is intrinsically good