moral relativism and situation ethics

AS and A Level Religious Studies & Philosophy

Elle Graham Situation Ethics

12MWd

What is meant by moral relativism? [33]

Moral relativism holds that morals are subjective, in that they depend on the culture, religion, place and time in which they occur.

Situation ethics is an example of this and it is a theory of acting and decision making, which is centred around love. The importance of this is that love is a response to a real, unique individual existing at a particular point in history. Since each person is an individual, no moral law can specify what the person should do in his or her situation exactly.

A situationist, like the founder, Joseph Fletcher, believes that an action should be tailored to fit the situation and should not be done to fit preconceived moral rules. In this view, moral laws are seen to inform but not to command a judgement. As Fletcher said in his sixth proposition of his fundamental principles: ‘Love's decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively’. And therefore do not tell people what they must do.

Fletcher formed ten principles, six of which were the six fundamental principles (as mentioned above) and the remaining four are known as the working principles, but are merely charactheristics. The first, ‘personalism’ shows that situation ethics is people based, so where the legalist thinks people should work to laws, the situational ethicist believes that laws are for the benefit of the people. The second, ‘Pragmatism’ shows that the ethic focuses on doing (pragma) not teachings (dogma). A situationist here wold ask ‘does it work in practise?’. The third, ‘positivism’ is the fact that love has its foundations in God and a life of self-emptying love corresponds to a life outlined by God and shown through the life of Jesus. Lastly, ‘relativism’ shows that Situation Ethics has only one moral absolute and this is self-emptying love and this should be applied to any situation. The ethic argues from general love to the particular situation, or relative. As Paul Tillich said, “Love relativises the absolute, it does not absolutise the relative”

In English, there is only one word for love and thus there can be difference in meaning between people. On the other hand, in Greek there are four, each meaning love, but in different ways. Firstly, Eros is the love of passion and erotic love; philia is the love of friendship, storge is the love in a family and finally agape is self-emptying love, or unconquerable goodwill. It is the determination to always seek a man’s good, no matter what he does to you, so it is a purposeful attitude, not a passion.

Agape is an altruistic ethic, it ...

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Agape is an altruistic ethic, it cares for the sake of caring and receives no reward. It is non-reciprocal and non-preferential.

Christian love as agape means that we can love a person we do not like. This form of love is not a reaction of the heart, but an attitude of the mind, will and whole personality. And so, for Christians the words of Jesus: “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” should be the main guidelines in any situation, therefore in Christianity love is always morally prior to every other principle and must be the determining factor in all moral decisions. Situationism looks to the example of Jesus, where he breaks traditional laws to do ‘good’ in a particular situation.

An example of acting accordingly on a situation with the aid of love, is the legitimacy of contraception. A situationist would look upon the situation in which the couple finds themselves, ask what love demands in the situation and act accordingly. They would not necessarily favour unlimited use of contraceptives, but they would see circumstances, in which their use was what love demanded in a particular situation.

In conclusion, moral relativism is morals that are subjective and can be applied only to that moment in time, to that specific situation. In Situationism, it is the love, which determines what is morally right in any given time, not fixed rules.

‘The problem with Situation Ethics is that it does not provide any definite answers.’

Discuss. [17]

As I have written above, Situation Ethics does not provide definite answers, as it does not believe that a moral problem should be solved using set rules. A situationist would say that each situation differs considerably between time, culture and even person. And so it tells people to respond and deal with a situation out of love, that of agape - or self-emptying love.

There have been several criticisms made concerning Situation Ethics.

Firstly, some people have said that someone could easily think over a situation and not find an answer of what to do, as what is most loving?

Some have pointed out that it may be hard to apply ‘love’ to a situation when different people have different views of its meaning and that there are different levels of each meaning. Only when you can understand something, can you act on it.

In addition, Situation Ethics only applies to that moment in time and thus any issues that may come up in the future are not included in the moral decision. For example, if a couple could not conceive, because the woman is infertile, they could go down the route of test-tube fertilisation. However, they do not want an egg from an anonymous donor. A friend offers to bear a child for them, and so the husband has sex with the friend. Situationists would say that this is the most loving act, for the couple, at that time, however in the future; problems could arise with the biological mother of the child etc. But, this is not considered in the decision-making.

Some critics have also pointed out that the ‘loving thing to do’ may involve lying, cheating and other immoral actions, since again people have different views on what is ‘loving’ and instead of being self-emptying, be selfish.

Finally, Paul Tillich says that to get rid of moral rules in preference of a moral principle, would make life hard to lead, as each person would have to decide what to do in any given scenario. Nowadays, people are indecisive and want to follow guidelines, as they don’t want to worry themselves about making choices.

In conclusion, some may say that Situation Ethics is too vague, in that it does offer no absolute guidelines and also that since it only takes into account the current situation it can give bad consequences in the future. However, others will appreciate the freedom of being able to make their own decisions on a situation.