OCR
Ethics

This page contains A*/A grade level summary revision notes for the Situation ethics topic.

Find the full revision page here.

Situation ethics AO1

Fletcher rejects the traditional Chrisian approach to ethics which he calls ‘legalism’ -basing ethics on strict rules that have to always be followed.
Fletcher rejects this because it fails to take the situation into account.
Fletcher also rejects antinomianism – the view that there are no rules at all – Fletcher rejects this as it leads to moral chaos.
Fletcher thinks ‘situationism’ is the correct middle ground between these extremes.
It focuses on not rules but a guiding principle that is applied to all situations – agape.
Agape means Christian love – selfless love of your neighbour.
So, Fletcher’s ethics says that an action is good or bad depending on whether it has a loving outcome.
Agape is the foundational moral principle.
Fletcher then introduced some further principles, to do with how we make moral decisions aimed at maximising agape.
Fletcher elaborated on the application of agape to moral decision making with his ‘four working principles’. Following them ensures that we are acting towards the moral principle of agape.
Pragmatism – must take the situation into account
Personalism – people are more important than rules
Positivism – putting agape at the centre of ethics must be taken on faith
Relativism – an action is only right or wrong depending on whether it has a loving outcome – relative to agape.
E.g. Fletcher gave an illustration, where a family is hiding from bandits and their baby starts crying. If they are all discovered, they will all be killed. Fletcher says it might be the loving thing to kill their own baby.
This is quite an extreme action. But, the working principles would focus us on doing what is loving, even if that’s killing the baby, because that would:
take the situation into account, since everyone else would die if we didn’t (pragmatism).
put people (those saved) above rules like don’t kill (personalism),
ensure our faith is in agape as the centre of ethics (positivism).
show that we are only thinking of right and wrong in terms of agape, we’re not considering anything else (relativism).
Fletcher thought that to properly follow Agape, we had to accept six fundamental principles. The four working principles are things we have to act on, whereas these are beliefs we have to accept. If we reject any of these principles, we won’t manage to act on agape.

love is:

the only intrinsic good,
the only thing that is good in itself – all other things are good insofar as they lead to love
e.g. helping others or giving to charity might be good – but not intrinsically – only insofar as it leads to love)
ruling norm of Christian moral decision-making, nothing else
moral decisions should only be based on what has a loving outcome)
is the same as justice – since justice is just love distributed
Some would say justice is important as well as love, but Fletcher argues that it’s fine for him to focus only on love, since justice technically is just the distribution of love.
wills the neighbour’s good whether we like them or not.
We must do the loving thing for our neighbour, regardless of how we feel about them.
what justifies the means,
The means is the action we use to bring about the end. Fletcher is saying as long as the outcome is loving, then the means – the action – is justified, no matter what it is.
what decides there and then
We often have to make quick decisions in time-sensitive conditions during moral action. We simply have to do our best to figure out what action will have a loving outcome there and then in the situation we are faced with. You can’t just do nothing – you must do what you think will have a loving outcome.
Conscience – Fletcher doesn’t think conscience is a ‘noun’, which indicates that he rejects Aquinas’ natural law view of the conscience. Fletcher says it is not a thing, not a set moral compass with pre-written rules or precepts that tells you what is good or bad.
Conscience is a verb – the process of figuring out what the loving thing to do is in a situation.
So conscience is more like a mental faculty which allows us to do/figure something out, rather than a preset moral compass like Aquinas thinks.

Whether situation ethics grants the right level of autonomy

William Barclay criticises situation ethics, arguing it gives people a dangerous amount of autonomy because people are not saints.
Mankind has not yet come of age and still needs the protection of strict laws.
If granted freedom to do what they want they wont choose the loving thing, they will choose the selfish or cruel thing to do.
Barclay is making the classic argument that power corrupts.

Counter

J. A. T. Robinson defends situation ethics, claiming that humanity has ‘come of age’ (influenced by Bonhoeffer concept of the ‘world come of age’). This means that humanity has become more mature since medieval times.
In the past, people were less educated and self-controlling. They needed fixed, clear rules to follow.
However, now people are more civilised and can be trusted to think for themselves more.
Giving them more autonomy (a person’s ability to act on his or her own values and interests) will increase love without risking stability of society.

Evaluation

Robinson’s defence is unsuccessful against Barclay, because there is much evidence in human culture about the corrupting influence of power.
People are more civilised, but only because of the careful system of law built around them to make being civilised their best interest.
When we take away laws, people behave terribly. This can be seen during failed states when governments collapse, or when police go on strike as seen in Canada in 1969.
Zimbardo’s stanford prison experiment also shows how power can corrupt people.
‘The lord of the flies’ is literature which powerfully represents the decline in civilised behaviour once laws are taken away.
So, without external supervision of legalistic morality, humans become corrupt.
Fletcher’s theory would lead to antinomianism if implemented because it is too individualistic and subjective.

Fletcher vs sola scriptura

Traditional Christians – like those who adhere to Martin Luther’s concept of sola scriptura – would argue that Fletcher’s theory is not genuine Christian ethics, because Fletcher has ignored most of the commands in the Bible, focusing only on Agape.
The Bible is full of other commands – e.g. God says ‘thou shalt not kill’, so Euthanasia would be wrong – God also said thou shalt not commit adultery.
Yet, Fletcher says killing or adultery are both fine in situations where they have a loving outcome.
So, Fletcher fails because he claims to be Christian yet does not follow the Bible.

Counter

Fletcher would defend himself with what he sees as a strength of his ethics, which is his liberal view of biblical inspiration.
Taking the bible literally is unscientific and Fletcher rightly points out that no one manages to live like a literalist.
However if we interpret the bible, we can’t tell whose interpretation is right.
So, Fletcher’s approach is to follow the bible’s foundational theme, which is love.

Evaluation

Fletcher’s defence is unsuccessful because the liberal approach to the bible is no better off than the approach of trying to interpret it. The themes and paradigms of the bible are also a matter of subjective interpretation.
Fletcher has not solved the problem of how to interpret the Bible, he has merely kicked the can down the road.
Situation ethics therefore fails to provide a convincing approach to Christian ethics and ends up sliding into antinomianism due to being subjective.

Whether situation ethics truly represents the ethics of Jesus

Richard Mouw points out that it makes no sense to reduce Christian ethics to only one of Jesus’ commands when Jesus made other commands too. It makes no logical sense to follow some of Jesus’ commands but not all of them. We either regard him as a source of moral authority or we don’t.
Pope Pius XII criticised situation ethics on similar grounds, pointing out that Christ himself frequently spoke of the importance of following all the commandments. (Matthew 19:17 & John 14:15). He argued that Fletcher is therefore unwittingly attacking Christ.
Fletcher claims the ends justifies the means, but Romans 3:8 condemns consequentialism – condemning doing evil for a ‘good result’.

Counter

Fletcher defends his theory arguing that it fits with the approach to ethics taken by Jesus. Jesus overturned rules (like that of Moses’ eye for an eye & life for a life), allowed the breaking of rules (like working on the sabbath) and said that the greatest commandment was to love your neighbours as yourself.
If one command is greater than another, then it seems like that means it takes priority and thus the lesser rule should be broken if it’s the loving thing to do. Fletcher’s situation ethics is a reasonable interpretation of what Jesus said. It’s hard to see what Jesus could have meant by agape being the greatest commandment except that it was greater than the others which seem to imply taking precedence over them.

Evaluation

However, Fletcher’s defence is unsuccessful because, why would Jesus have bothered to make any other commandments if agape is the only one that ultimately mattered? If a commandment is only to be followed when it accords with agape, and should be ignored if it conflicts with agape, then agape is the only commandment you actually need.
Mouw and Pius XII’s view of Jesus’ teachings is more coherent.
It seems more logical to think that by calling it the ‘greatest’ commandment Jesus meant something else, such as only that it was the one which would be relevant to the most number of situations.
So, Fletcher has not justified the view that Jesus would have supported situation ethics had he lived today.

The subjectivity issue

Love is subjective – everyone has their own view of what is loving.
It is therefore too unstable a basis for ethics.
Even some Nazis thought they were doing a loving thing.

Counter

Love might be subjective – but Fletcher is focused on Agape, which is more than just love.
Agape is Christian selfless love of your neighbour.
Jesus was very clear that everyone is your neighbour.
The Nazis were not treating everyone like their neighbour – they were not acting based on agape.
So, agape is clearly not subjective like love in general is.

Evaluation

However, C. Hitchens points out that agape is still subjective. loving your neighbour as yourself is only as good if the way you love yourself is good. Furthermore, others might not want to be loved in the way you love yourself.
The successful point we can take from Hitchens to critique situation ethics is: the way a person loves themselves is still subjective and therefore so is agape.
For example, a Nazi might genuinely want to die if they found out they were jewish. That’s the way they ‘love themselves’.

Question preparation

Key paragraphs:

AO1 for Situation ethics
Barclay’s critique
Fletcher vs Sola scriptura
Mouw & Pius XII: Jesus would reject situation ethics
The subjectivity issue

Question types:

Questions could focus on:

Agape (Christian love – selfless love of your neighbour)
Four working principles
Six fundamental propositions (Love is: the intrinsic good, the ruling norm, justice distributed, the end which justifies means, what decides there and then and indiscriminate).
Fletcher’s views on conscience

Question on four working principles OR 6 fundamental propositions:

The four working principles say that only love makes an action good or bad (relativism) and we must take the situation into account (pragmatism).
Same for 6 fundamental propositions: love is the ultimate and sole guiding principle in Christian moral decision-making.
Barclay: that gives people too much freedom which is dangerous
Subjectivity issue: love is too subjective to be the basis for ethics
Sola scriptura says there has to be more than just love at the basis of Christian ethics, because the Bible has many more commands than just to love.
Jesus did say to love your neighbour, and suggested that rules could be broken (sabbath quote – suggestive of personalism) – but he also made many other commands.

Is situation ethics overly subjective and individualistic? [40]

(Barclay: overly individualistic
subjectivity issue
Sola scriptura would argue ethics needs all the rules in the bible. Ethics without that is too individualistic and subjective.

Whether situation ethics is genuinely religious [40]

Fletcher thought his theory was religious – the genuine modernised Christian ethic relevant to today.
Mouw & Pius XII’s critique
Fletcher vs sola scriptura
Barclay – who would say Christian ethics should stick with legalism – Fletcher is abandoning too much of what Christian ethics really needs.

Can judging something as right or wrong be based on the extent to which, in any given situation, agape is best served? [40]

Situation ethics AO1
- Intro sentence: Fletcher argues right and wrong are indeed based on the extent to which agape is best served in a situation.
Barclay’s criticism.
- Intro sentence: Barclay argues right and wrong are not based on the extent to which agape is best served in a situation because that gives people a dangerous amount of autonomy.
The sola scriptura criticism.
- Intro sentence: Luther would reject situation ethics and the idea that right and wrong are based on agape in any given situation, because he argues we have to follow the whole Bible.

Weirdly worded questions:

Is conscience a verb? [40]

Fletcher argues conscience is not a set thing in our mind with pre-set rules or precepts (noun). That is the traditional view of conscience, which Fletcher rejects as legalistic. He proposes it is the process of figuring out what action will have the most loving effect/consequence.
Explain that for AO1, and briefly what role this plays in his situation ethics alongside agape, rejection of legalism, the four working principles.
Fletcher’s views on conscience are inseparable from his situation ethics.
If conscience is just the ability to determine which action would maximise agape, then that’s what Christian ethics is about.
But if that would result in an overly subjective or individualistic (barclay) ethic that ignores the bible and ethics of Jesus, then that can’t be correct Christian ethics, so it can’t be what conscience enables/involves.
Would be fine to do Aquinas’ views of conscience from the conscience topic as a representative of the ‘noun’ view of conscience and Natural law (that Pius XII would agree with). Could even then do the cross-cultural critique of natural law from Fletcher – as it undermines the conscience as a ‘noun’ view that there are precepts innately within us.