Situation ethics

• Fletcher

  • In the New Testament, Jesus makes love central ie. Love your neighbour as yourself.
  • Fletcher focussed his moral system on the actions of Jesus, who broke rules for the good of the people.
  • Situation ethics is a Christian ethic that should focus on the flexible message of forgiving grace founded on love rather than rigid laws and commandments.
  • Regardless of the context, love is always good and right in every situation.
  • Someone making a moral decision should be prepared to set aside rules if it seemed that love would be better served by doing so
• Fletcher - middle way

  • Situation ethics is a middle way between the extremes of legalism and antinomianism.
  • It avoids the problems of each extreme while retaining the benefit of each.
  • It gives clear guidance to people and takes the situation into account.
  • Argued love is what morality should serve.
  • When making a moral decision, you should be prepared to set aside rules if it seemed that love would be better served by doing so.
  • Love should always come first, even if it means being disobedience int he eyes of the law.
• 4 working principles

  1. Pragmatism - being practical rather than always following belief in systems. Seeking practical solutions rather than sticking to rigid rules.
  2. Relativism - every situation is relative to christian love
  3. Positivism - bringing about love by the decisions we make.
  4. Personalism - people are the first concern, not laws.
• 6 fundamental principles

  1. Only love is intrinsically good. Actions of good/evil depend on how far they promote the most loving action.
  2. The ruling norm of Christian decision is love, it replaces all laws.
  3. Love and justice are the same. Justice is love that is distributed.
  4. Love wills the neighbours good regardless of whether the neighbour is liked or not.
  5. Love justifies the means, nothing else. It is the end goal.
  6. Love decides there and then. There is no universal laws governing it.
• Conscience

  • Sees conscience as something that you do, rather than a thing that exists ie. a verb rather than a noun.
  • Fletcher believed that conscience was what enabled you to figure out the requirements of agape in your situation.
  • As long as your consciousness is lined up with love, you will make the right choice.
  • Consciousness does not guide human action; it is the weighing up of possible actions.
• Bultmann

  • Argued that Jesus had no ethics apart from 'love thy neighbour'.
  • 'Love thy neighbour' is the ultimate duty.
  • Fletcher focused on Jesus' teachings of love rather than proving whether Jesus was divine.
• St Paul

  • Outlined in his letter that love was the most important virtue.
  • Love should be your first and last thought.
  • If you are not doing something good out of love there is no point doing it.
• Strengths

  • Designed for modern society
  • In ancient times people were less educated and less self controlling which meant they needed clear fixed rules to follow. People are now more civilised and know how to apply love correctly
  • Founded on a liberal approach to the bible, as people often take the bible too seriously
  • The most prevalent theme of the bible is love
  • The ethic fits with the approach to ethics taken by Jesus. Jesus overturned rules, allowed for the breaking of rules and said the greatest commandment was to love your neighbour
  • Always relevant due to its flexibility
• William Barclay

  • Situation ethics gives moral agents a dangerous amount of freedom.
  • Mankind hasn't come to an age where love cannot be selfish and cruel and so we still need to protection of law.
  • Situation ethics gives a terrifying degree of freedom.
  • For freedom to be good, love had to be perfect humans can't be trusted to do the right thing and situation ethics would only work if 'all men were angles' (Jesus).
• Hitchens

  • Loving your neighbour as yourself is only good if the way you love yourself is good.
  • Others may not want to be loved in the same way you love yourself.
  • The was a person love themselves is subjective.
• Augustine

  • Humans are inclined to sin and are selfish.
  • Humans should not be trusted to make their one ethical choices.
• Weaknesses of situation ethics

  • Although love is central to the bible, it is not the only element of biblical Christian ethics.
  • The theory can be criticised for ignoring all other teachings in the bible.
  • Fletcher has failed to provide a convincing approach to Christian ethics and ends up sliding into antinomianism due to being subjective.
  • It makes no sense to reduce Christian ethics to only one of Jesus' commands when Jesus made other commands too.
  • Agape is too subjective. People may think they are doing the most loving thing, but they aren’t. 
• Barth

  • Situation ethics is very vague and questions how you work out what the most loving thing to do is if it changes with every situation especially because human nature is corrupt.
  • It would be better to follow divine revelation ie. the bible.
• Agape - unconditional, selfless love. The highest form of Christian love. This is best demonstrated by Jesus. Jesus gave his life for humanity.
• William Temple

  • Fletcher was inspired by William Temple.
  • Temple says that love should be the predominate Christian impulse that a Christian live there life by. Love is above all else.
  • Love should be a Christians priority in the things they do and the ethical decisions they make and the way they live their lives.
• ‘Love each other as I have loved you’ This is the idea that agape has come from Jesus. Jesus has modelled agape and given it to us.
• 1/6 fundamental principles

  • Love is the only absolute – love is intrinsically good. Love is the only principle that is good and right in every situation. Whatever is loving is right. 
• 2/6 fundamental principles

  • Christian decision making is based on love – love employs law when it seems worthwhile. Love can break any or all of the commandments. Love is more superior and important to any commandment or law.
• 3/6 fundamental principles

  • Love and justice are the same – if we are loving we will do the most just and right thing. 
• 4/6 fundamental principles

  • Love is not liking – love is not sentimental. It is bought about by the human will. It requires some use of reason. It’s not based on feelings on empathy or sympathy.
• 5/6 fundamental principles

  • Love justified its mean – we cannot refuse to do a deed which has a mainly good end just because it entails some evil. The end justifies the means.
• 6/6 fundamental principles

  • Love decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively – Jesus was a situationist. He was prepared to break the laws of the day in order to show agape. There were many things didn’t give direct information on ie. sex ethics. We must therefore look to Jesus’ actions – to do the most loving thing. Jesus was prepared to break conventional laws of society in order to show agape.
• Strengths

  • Grounded in teachings and examples set by Jesus. 
  • Provides individual autonomy – situation ethics empowers the individual to make their own decisions in the situations that they encounter. This is in contrast to legalistic approaches which encourage people to follow rules they don’t agree with. This reflects that we are made in the image of god and are given reason to think for ourselves.
  • Provides flexibility. Ie. Natural law is now outdated on sex ethics. However, situation ethics accommodates to modern developments. Situation ethics doesn’t loose its relevance.