background
• Most associated with Joseph Fletcher (1905-91)
• Raised much controversy in his publishing of ‘Situation Ethics’ in 1966.
• Felt he was following the logic of previous writers such as Aristotle, who argued that judgement requires that we pay attention to circumstance.
• Influence from William Temple
o ‘There is only one ultimate and invariable duty, and its formula is ‘thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’
o ‘The rightness of an act (…) is related to circumstances’
o Fletcher shared Temple’s view that ‘justice is love in action’
• Influence from Bonhoeffer
3 key approaches to ethics
- Legalistic
a. Fixed moral rules with are universal (too formulaic)
b. Dominated Xian thinking, rule becomes more important than person
c. ‘To this day Christians think an adulterer more wicked than a politician who takes bribes’ – Bertrand Russell - Antinomianism
a. Completely without rules, every situation has to be dealt with (chaotic) - Situational
a. Look at each situation separately in light of the absolute of love
i. Accepts reason and scriptural emphasis on love
ii. ‘Principled relativism’
agape
• Seen in NT
o 1 Corinthians 13, ‘now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love’
o John 13, ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another’
• Common features between Temple and Fletcher
o Love is always good
o Justice is love in action
o Insistence on Personalism
o
• “… goodwill at work in partnership with reason” in seeking the “neighbour’s best interest with a careful eye to all the factors in the situation”. Agape is concern for others.
4 working principles
- Pragmatism
a. Ethical tool box to apply to situations, must be able to lead to right decision, practical - Relativism
a. Avoid ‘always’ or ‘never’. Can’t go without rules altogether, would be antinomianism, but rules must be relative to situation. - Positivism
a. Supported rather than founded by faith e.g. NL should never contradict Eternal/Divine Law. - Personalism
a. People at centre of concern, need to look at individuals involved
b. ‘Things are to be used; people are to be loved’
1st proposition
- Only love is intrinsically good, nothing else
a. Something gains value because it helps others
b. Acts are not good in themselves; only love is intrinsically good as it helps people. Teleological perspective
c. SE is nominalistic i.e. something is good because God regards it as good. Also personalist, nothing is worth anything in and of itself. Love is the only universal.
2nd proposition
- The norm of Christian ethics is love
a. Fletcher rejects NL, does not think there can be any universal laws
b. Love means we should follow the law, but only if they serve love
c. Used the term ‘sacrificial adultery’ – Mrs Bergmeier case: her committing adultery to get pregnant in order to be released from concentration camp. Fletcher argued the best thing was for the woman to break the commandment of do not commit adultery in order to get home to her children. (We do not need to feel obliged to follow religious laws if they do not serve love)
d. Augustine traditionally reduced the whole Christian ethic to ‘love with care and then what you will, do’
3rd proposition
- Justice is love in action
a. The injustices we see in the world are due to a lack of love shown by others
b. Our real neighbours are the whole of humanity
c. Paul Tillich, ‘love without justice is a body without a backbone’
4th proposition
- Love wills the neighbour good
a. Love and liking are not the same
b. ‘Love wills the neighbour good, whether we like him or not’
c. Cites Martin LK’s campaign of non-violence. He didn’t like the oppressor but taught we should love them with a ‘creative, redemptive good will to all men’
5th proposition
- The end of love justifies the means
a. Opposite to Kant
b. E.g. Bonhoeffer justifying lying/assassination by arguing the good outcome justified the evil means
6th proposition
- Love decisions are situational
a. No laws can be made, always depends on situation and circumstance
case studies
• Patriotic Prostitution
o Young mother who worked as US spy asked to use her sexuality to ensnare a rival spy
o When she protested it was against her personal integrity, she was told, ‘it’s like your brother risking his life and limb in the war to serve his country. There is no other way’
• Merciful Murder
o Mother smothers her own crying baby to stop her group being discovered and being killed
criticisms of case studies
o All very extreme examples, not representative
o Anything can be justified, some things seem intrinsically wrong
conscience
- Conscience is function (activity/purpose) rather than a faculty (capability)
- Mistake lies in using conscience as noun rather than verb
- Best interpretation is Aquinas’ idea of ‘reason making moral judgements’
- It is a word that describes our attempts to make proper decisions, director of human decisions
- Works according to the demands of love in the situation
advantages of SE
- Not open-ended relativism yet must reject antinomian approach. Not legalistic, yet still have guiding feature of agape.
- Absolutist in the form of the end goal always being love, benefits of absolutist system as well as being relativist.
- Provides single goal of love.
- More flexible, recognises that an apparent moral being can be justified in a particular situation.
- Based upon love, which is universally understood, respects people.
general criticism
- Subjective interpretation of love.
- Is one-norm ethic sufficient?
- Agape is a Christian idea; is it as accessible as secular ethics such as Util?
- Can justify anything with teleological approach, something’s are inherently wrong e.g. rape.
- There is an underlying assumption that right = good. I.e. it is right for me to donate to charity, but is it really good if it is for selfish reasons?
- Risks slippery slope of justifying some things in simply any case.
- Cannot be sure about outcomes.
hoose criticism
• Bernard Hoose, ‘an action born of love can be wrong, whilst an action not resulting from love can be right’
pope pius criticism
• Pope Pius XII condemns SE as ‘individualistic and subjective’ which he claims is against NL and God’s revealed will.
vardy criticism
• Peter Vardy, ‘there is a danger of selfishness creeping in under the banner of love’
barclay criticism
• William Barclay argues the e.gs Fletcher uses are too extreme, ‘it is much easier to agree that extraordinary situations need extraordinary measures than to think that there are no laws for ordinary life’. Also highlights how situations we make are often swayed by emotion, cannot rely on our own moral decision-making, need laws.
phillips criticism
• D.Z. Phillips raises the question of whether we can ever truly be confident that we have ‘done the right thing’. E.g. lying to your friend about them looking good may make them feel better, but you have still broken trust – is this really the most loving thing?
macquarrie criticism
• John Macquarrie argues situationalism is fundamentally and incurably individualistic, cannot use it in the community sense, only the individual
kung positive
accords emphasis on agape, Xian theologian
♣ Don’t need an ethic of prohibitions and sanctions, should act as JC did in encouraging disciples to make their own decisions
♣ Talks about euthanasia as ‘dignified dying’, Xians must apply love, may mean euth becomes act of compassion rather than killing (Rejected by RCC)
Tillich on agape
♣ Tillich argues agape includes all dimensions of love; it is a continuous desire to break through isolation in each person.
♣ Critical of rule-like structure of some Xian ethics, calls this ‘moral Puritanism’
♣ Agape is person-centred, binding us to the other person and situation, must act in situation, not in hypothetical. Each situation has own voice.
Robinson criticism
• J.A.T. Robinson changed his positive view of SE as the only ethic for ‘man come of age’ to the view that following it will ‘descend into moral chaos’
