Explain Situation Ethics

AS and A Level Religious Studies & Philosophy

Explain the theory of Situation Ethics using examples to illustrate you answer.

Situation ethics is an ethical theory put forward by Joseph Fletcher. Situation Ethics is a Teleological ethical theory which is based on consequences. It's a Consequentialist and a Relative theory which looks at all circumstances. Fletcher in his book ‘Situation Ethic’ said that this theory is based on love, in particular Agape love. Agape love is a more profound sort of love that is associated with religious belief and often with the idea of sacrifice and it's also unconditional.

Situation Ethics can be applied to situations and whether it is right or wrong depends on the situation & the most loving thing to do. For example, A Mother stealing food from a shop to feed her four children. She has no money and she doesn't want them to starve. She wants to take the risk for her children. In Situation Ethics this would be considered as the most loving thing to do and in these circumstances it would be ok for her to steal.

A man has separated from his wife but hasn't had a divorce yet. He has met another woman and decided that he loves her. For Natural Law this would be considered as adultery and wrong but by Situation Ethics it would be fine for them to be together because the love between them would overrule.

Situation ethics can be summed up by the following quotation:

“The law of love is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law; it is absolute because it concerns everything concrete...The absolutism of love is its power to go into concrete situations...” (Paul Tillich)

Fletcher tried to make a compromise between having too many rules and not having any at all. He doesn’t agree with the idea of everyone having to follow a whole set of rules, because he felt, this puts the law first and makes the rule the most important thing. He also doesn’t agree with having no rules at all in the World. Instead of being torn between whether to having too many rules or none at all, Fletcher suggested that there is only one rule which everyone should follow. This rule is about love. Fletcher called it the ‘Law of ...

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Legalistic ethics

Fletcher maintains that there are three different ways of moral decision making. Legalistic ethics has a set of prefabricated moral rules and regulations. Fletcher said that these had too many rules and this ethical theory makes the law come first. For example, Judaism would have legalistic ethical tradition because they have 613 laws, which Fletcher thought was a lot of rules. It is the same for Christianity, Fletcher thought that this religion had too many rules also. For Fletcher the legalistic ethical theory had problems when life’s complexities required additional laws. As an example of this, once murder has been committed, one has to clarify killing in self-defence or at war etc. The legalist must either include all of the complex alternatives in the law or create new laws to cover the result.

Antinomian Ethics

Antinomian ethics is the reverse to legalistic ethics. This type of ethics mean that there are no rules to it. The term 'Antinomian' means 'Against law'. An individual using Antinomian ethics doesn't really use an ethical system at all. The individual person enters decision-making as if each occasion was completely unique. They follow no forecastable course from one situation to another. Fletcher rejects this type of ethics because it's unprincipled and there are no rules applied to it.

4 Working Principles

Pragmatism -

Based on a practical and workable principle.
To be right, it is necessary that a proposed course of action should work.
Fletcher claims that the norms or end by which the success of failure of any thought is action is to be judged is LOVE.

Relativism -

Relative to the actual situation / Circumstances
An action should be judged right or wrong depending on the social, cultural and individual circumstances in each situation.
Supporters of Situation Ethics, reject the use of words like never, always and absolute, as they believe that circumstances can always throw up exceptions.

Positivism -

Positive about love / Putting love first
Situation Ethics depend on a free decision by individuals to give first place to Christian love.

Personalism -

Putting people first / Neighbour
Situation Ethics puts people first. Natural law approach asks what the law says, Situationists ask what is the best decision to help human beings.
The Christian is committed to loving people.

6 Fundamental Principles

Only one thing is intrinsically good; namely love: nothing else at all.

Only love is good in and of itself.
Actions aren’t intrinsically good or evil.
They are good or evil depending upon whether they promote the most loving result.
Actions are good if they help human and are bad if they hurt humans.
For Fletcher, to love is to try to belike Jesus.

2. The ruling norm of Christian decision-making is love: nothing else.

Love is the only rule.
Jesus places the principle of love.

E.g. Healing on the Sabbath day. (Day of rest)

The commandments are not absolute.
Jesus broke them when love commanded it.

3. Love and justice are the same; for justice is love distributed nothing else.

Justice is love at work in the community, in which human beings live.
Fletcher writes,

‘Justice is Christian love using its head, calculating it’s duties, obligations, opportunities, resources... Justice is love coping with situations where distribution is called for..’

Giving people what is due to them = Love.

4. Love wills the neighbour’s good, whether we like him or not.

The love that Fletcher is on about is a desire of good of the other person.
This is Agape love.
Your neighbour is anybody and agape love goes out to everyone; not just those we like but those we don’t like as well.
Agape is unconditional: nothing is required in return.
We cannot have favourites.

5. Only the end justifies the means, nothing else.

To consider moral actions without references to their ends is a haphazard approach.
Actions acquire moral status as a means to an end.
For Fletcher, the end must be the most loving result.
When weighing up a situation, one must consider the desired end, the means available, the motive for acting and the foreseeable consequences.

6. Love’s decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively.

Jesus reacted against the kind of rule-based morality that he saw around him.
There were Jewish groups that lived on rule-based moral systems, but Jesus distanced himself from them.
Whether something is right or wrong depends on the situation.
If an action will bring about an end that serves love most, then it’s right.
Fletcher believes that if people don’t feel that it’s wrong to have sexual relations outside marriage, then it isn’t, unless they hurt themselves, their partners or others.

Actions are right or wrong depending on their result. For Fletcher, the good result is that which serves agape love best , Any action that leads to that end is right: ‘Whether any form of sex is good or evil depends on whether love is fully served’ (Fletcher, 1963, p.46)

Biblical Teachings & Quotes