Situation Ethics
Background to ‘Situation Ethics’
- Christianity has been traditionally dominated by ‘natural law thinking’.
- In response to this thinking, Bultmann claimed that Jesus had no ethic – this meant that Jesus did not put forward any set of moral rules or theories.
- Paul Tillich summed up Situation Ethics with the 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 solutions” – meaning that love is the only absolute law that we should consider when making moral decisions as it has the power to apply to every concrete situation.
Joseph Fletcher’s ‘Situation Ethics’
- Joseph Fletcher told a particularly interesting anecdote which involved a friend of his and a cab driver in the setting of St Louis during the end of a presidential campaign. The cab driver – who was clearly involved in the debate had said that his whole family, generations before him have always been ‘straight-ticket’ republicans. Fletcher’s friend automatically assumed that he would vote Republican as well, however, when questioned; the cab driver said ‘No, there are times when a man has to push his principles aside and do the right thing’. Fletcher claims that the cab driver is the hero of his book; this is because he acted upon what he thought was morally correct in the presented situation instead of following years of absolute principles and traditions. This is important because it meant that his decision was well-grounded and that he thought carefully about the situation instead of blindly trailing in his father’s principles.
