Situation Ethics (AQA A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes

Situation Ethics

Overview

Situation Ethics is a normative ethical theory developed by Joseph Fletcher (1905-1991), an American professor who became a notable contributor to bioethics. Fletcher proposed that Christian morality should be based on love (agape) rather than rigid moral laws. His approach represents a middle way between legalism and antinomianism.

Fletcher's rejection of legalism and antinomianism

Fletcher opposed two extreme approaches to ethics:

Legalism is the view that it is always right to obey moral laws. Fletcher completely rejected the legalist position exemplified by Kant, who argued that one must always tell the truth, even to a murderer seeking his victim. Fletcher considered this position absurd, arguing that anyone who believes there is a necessity to tell the truth to homicidal maniacs needs to reconsider their understanding of morality.

Antinomianism (meaning 'against law') is the belief that there should be no laws or principles governing human behaviour. Fletcher also rejected this approach, which was held by groups like the Gnostics who claimed special knowledge meant they needed no rules. Fletcher described this thinking as intellectually irresponsible and anarchic.

Why Fletcher believed a reassessment was necessary

Fletcher recognised that Church membership was declining due to changing social conditions:

• The perceived absence of God during two World Wars created widespread insecurity
• Scientific advances, particularly Big Bang theory and evolution, challenged literal interpretations of Genesis
• Contraception and media influence weakened traditional family and religious bonds
• Traditional deontological systems like natural moral law failed to provide realistic answers to new ethical problems in medicine, biology, genetics and neuroscience

Three approaches to ethics

Legalism

Legalism creates a web of rules for every situation, including rules for bending rules (such as the doctrine of double effect). However, Fletcher argued that such systems eventually choke their creators. He noted that even legalists sometimes use casuistry (clever application of rules in difficult situations) to inject love into their rigid systems, which demonstrates that rules alone lack compassion.

Antinomianism

This approach involves those who claim special knowledge or intuition that makes laws unnecessary. Fletcher particularly criticised Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism, which rejects all ethical norms that are valid for everybody. Fletcher insisted that his situation ethics differs from existentialism because it does have a principle: agape love.

Situationism

Fletcher's own approach agrees with natural moral law that reason is the instrument of moral judgement. However, he rejects the idea that God revealed moral laws, with one exception: the command to love God by loving one's neighbour (Matthew 22:26-40).

Situationism is empirical, fact-minded, data conscious and inquiring. It works with two key guidelines from St Paul:

• 'The written code kills, but the Spirit gives life' (2 Corinthians 3:6)
• 'The whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself' (Galatians 5:14)

Fletcher's four presuppositions

Pragmatism

Something is good if it works and maximises love in the situation. If an action does not work and has no value, it has no point. Fletcher quoted William James approvingly: 'A pragmatist turns his back upon fixed principles, and pretended absolutes. He turns toward concreteness and adequacy, toward facts, toward actions, and toward power.'

The good is simply what produces loving results. Morality must be practical and focused on actual outcomes rather than abstract principles.

Relativism

Situationists avoid words like 'never', 'perfect' and 'always'. Everything is relative to the situation, although agape love itself remains constant as the ultimate criterion. Fletcher famously stated that love 'relativises the absolute, it does not absolutise the relative.'

Laws are abstract, whilst situations are concrete reality. However, we are always commanded to act lovingly. How to do this depends on our own responsible estimate of each situation.

Positivism

Ethical norms are not rational; they are held as acts of judgement and faith. Just as we choose art, music and literature based on personal preference without empirical justification, when we say 'God is love', this is a faith choice that cannot be verified by external tests.

Fletcher means that faith must come first. He wrote: 'The Christian does not understand God in terms of love; he understands love in terms of God as seen in Christ. We love, because he first loved us.' This is a faith foundation for love. Paul's phrase 'faith working through love' (Galatians 5:6) is the essence of Christian ethics.

Personalism

Situation ethics puts people at the centre of concern, not things or rules. It is immoral to love things instead of people. Where a legalist asks 'What does the law say?', the situationist asks 'Who is to be helped?'

People are to be loved, not rules. Real existence lies in personal relationships. The personal element is emphasised by Christian beliefs that God became incarnate as a person (Jesus) and that humans are created imago Dei (in God's image).

Conscience

Fletcher rejected four traditional theories about conscience: that it is innate, that it is guidance by the Holy Spirit or other entity, that it is internalised social values, and Aquinas' view that it is reason making moral judgements.

Fletcher's six fundamental principles

1. Only love is intrinsically good

Only one thing is intrinsically good: love. Nothing else has value in itself. In Christian situation ethics, nothing is worth anything in and of itself. Things gain value only because they help persons (being good) or hurt persons (being bad). Whether something is good depends entirely on the situation.

The only intrinsically good thing is love, which is the sole regulative principle of Christian ethics.

Fletcher emphasised that whatever is the most loving thing in a situation is positively good, not merely 'excusably evil'. For instance, a soldier committing suicide rather than betraying comrades to the enemy is performing a positively good act.

2. Love is the only norm

The ruling norm of Christian decision-making is love alone. Love replaces law. Love employs law when worthwhile, but can break any Commandments when necessary (those dealing with ethics, such as prohibitions against murder, theft and false witness).

3. Love and justice are the same

Love and justice are identical because justice is love distributed. When love operates in society, it must be calculating, careful, prudent and distributive in caring for all people. This is justice.

Justice is Christian love working out its problems, using reason to calculate duties, obligations, opportunities and resources. Love is not merely one-to-one; it operates in union-management relations, international affairs, trade treaties and UN policy. We must think about love of neighbours (plural), not just neighbour (singular).

4. Love is not liking

Love wills the neighbour's good whether we like them or not. Love is not sentimental or based on emotions like sympathy and affection (which amount to self-love). Love is conative, meaning it involves the will. We must will ourselves to promote other people's well-being.

Willed love can be commanded, whereas emotions cannot. Love is goodwill and benevolence. It does not seek out the deserving or make judgements about people it serves. As Fletcher wrote, Christian love is 'the business of loving the unlovable, i.e., the unlikable.'

Love requires calculation. It is right to deal lovingly with an enemy, but if the enemy hurts too many friends and only some can be saved, you would not choose to save the enemy. When asked whether to save a baby or da Vinci's Mona Lisa from a burning building, a personalist takes the baby. When choosing between your father and a medical genius with a cure for a lethal disease, you carry out the genius if you understand agape.

5. Only the end justifies the means

Only the end justifies the means; nothing else does. Fletcher argued that Christian ethics has absurdly clung to the doctrine that 'the end does not justify the means', but if the end does not justify means, what does? The answer is nothing. Without an end or purpose, any action is literally meaningless and random.

An evil means does not always nullify a good end. Surgeons mutilate bodies to remove cancers, some priests give up marriage for their vocation, nurses lie to patients to keep them calm. In such cases, the means are justified by urgent social necessity, though one should feel regret that no better way exists.

6. Love's decisions are made situationally

Love's decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively. People often want the security of rules, but we must accept that morality has grey areas requiring difficult wrestling with choices.

When judging a situation, we need to consider four factors:

1. What end do we seek?
2. What means do we use to obtain it?
3. What motive is behind our act?
4. What are the foreseeable consequences?

Key case studies

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Mother Maria

Dr Gisella Perl

Sexual ethics

Fletcher made controversial observations about sexual ethics:

Fletcher further argued that:

• We can have love without sex and sex without love
• Baby-making can (and often ought to be) separated from love-making
• Sex is for recreation as well as procreation
• Sex outside marriage is not wrong if people do not hurt themselves, partners or others (though Fletcher admits this is a big 'if')

Strengths of situation ethics

1. Biblically grounded in agape

Basing Christian ethics on agape seems right because this principle is clearly grounded in Jesus' life. Jesus acted situationally, not legalistically. He taught that we should love God and neighbour, with everything else (including the Law) hanging on this love.

2. Based on moral common sense

Fletcher's presuppositions seem sensible. An ethic that is personalist (putting people before rules), situational (looking at reality as it is) and pragmatic (selecting solutions that work) is based on moral common sense.

3. Promotes individual autonomy

Situation ethics promotes individual autonomy - people are empowered to make their own decisions in encountered situations. Religious legalism often does the opposite, requiring people to act counter-intuitively against both reason and emotion by following rules that may not fit situations.

4. Adapts to new technologies

Whilst legalism struggles to accommodate new technologies, situation ethics adapts readily to developments in medical science and understanding of human sexuality. Situation ethics can be flexible about new technologies, whereas legalistic ethics tend to ban them merely because they contradict pre-scientific beliefs about the body.

5. Focuses on helping people

Situation ethics focuses on helping people, whilst legalistic ethics often amounts to worship of laws with no real moral force. Many Old Testament 'crimes' punishable by death concern sex: bestiality, incest, adultery, homosexual acts, prostitution by a priest's daughter, false virginity claims, and sex between a betrothed virgin and another man.

6. Promotes social justice

Situation ethics promotes social justice by forcing people to analyse situations in terms of desired ends. It motivates people to change things for the better and eliminate various types of discrimination plaguing society.

Weaknesses of situation ethics

1. Too much individual responsibility

One main problem is the enormous responsibility placed upon individuals. Effectively, individuals gain more moral responsibility and authority than the Bible or Church. It asks much of average individuals to put neighbours' welfare before their own.

2. Sidelines tradition and authority

Situation ethics sidelines 2,000 years of Church tradition and authority plus approximately 3,000 years of biblical authority. Effectively, accumulated wisdom of great moral teachers can be discarded at individual whim. This is one reason John Robinson eventually rejected situation ethics - it risks descending into moral chaos.

3. No consensus on loving action

There may be no consensus on what the most loving action is in specific situations, making decisions arbitrary.

4. Extreme examples

Fletcher's case studies reflect extreme situations rather than 'real life'. The 'Sacrificial Adultery' case, where a female prisoner of war committed adultery with a guard to be sent back to her family, is hardly a common situation for assessing adultery.

5. Problematic emphasis on motivation

Situation ethics emphasises motivation, appearing to argue that acting with sincere love motive justifies actions. This is doubtful. Parents motivated by love for children can give obsessive love that stifles development. Obsessive love can be possessive, treating the loved person as a possession. People can love their country to the extent they attack or ridicule other cultures as less lovable.

6. Lacks objectivity and consistency