Situation Ethics

Useful Quotes

'Christian ethics is not a scheme of codified conduct. It is a purposive effort to relate love to a world of relativities through a casuistry obedient to love' (Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics (I 966)).

'Dr Fletcher's approach is the only ethic for 'man come of age'. To resist his approach in the name of religion will not stop it. It will only ensure the form it takes will be anti·Christian'

(J.A.T. Robinson, Honest to God (1963)).

Context

The 1960s were host to an enormous social, political and cultural change which led to the complete re-evaluation of the moral laws which had shapedsociety before the Second World War.

The origins of situation ethics

The Church was not unaware of these changes and in 1963 J .A.T. Robinson published his controversial book Honest to God. It reassessed the Christian idea of the nature of God and, most challengingly, the view that ethical values were 'supranaturalist' - established by God, unchanging, and applicable to every s ituation, time and place. Joseph Retcher had introduced the ideas of situation ethics in The HarvardDivinity Bulletin and in 1966 published Situation Ethics, responding to what he felt were the failures of legalism inherent in ethical systems that propose rules to govern human behaviour, while at the same time rejecting antinomianism - a total abandonment of rules and prinCiples. Situation ethics essentially means that there is no ethical standard that can be uniformly or consistently applied, for each situation demands its own standard of ethics, Instead, the key to making moral decisions should be the principle of agape - the peculiar quality of Christian love which enables the individual to love their enemies.

Fletcher carefully defined agape:

-+ It was always good, and the only norm.

-+ Love and justice are the same, for love is justice distributed.

-+ It is not necessarily liking, and only the end of love justifies the means.

-+ It makes a decision there and then in each individual situation.

Fletcher and Robinson used New Testament dialogues between Jesus and the Pharisees as an illustration of old versus new morality, Jesus, they claimed, was an advocate, albeit 2000 years previously, of new morality; the Pharisees, of the old, Robinson argued that the ideals of situation ethics could be applied far more effectively to the then ~lOtly debated issue of divorce law than the application of a pre-package? moral judgement that divorce was 'always wrong'. Robinson questioned the conservative view that marriage created a supernatural bond that was impossible to break, based on the belief that behind earthly, human relationships lay quite independent, invisible structures which could not be questioned. Hence, although it may appear that marriage is about two human beings signing a legal contract, in reality 'something' happens in the metaphysical realm which binds those two people together in a relationship which is beyond the legal contract between them. The legal contract cannot be dissolved like a contract of employment, because it represents a far more binding union which has been made, witnessed and ratified in the heavenly realms. 'It is not a question of "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder": no man could if he tried. For marriage is not merely indissoluble: it is indelible' (Honest to God (1963)),

Action point

look for examples in the Gospels which mmay show Jesus acting with agape love.

Terminology

Don't forget that agape is a very different quality to romantic. or even fami ly, love, both of which are unreliable, while agape is an attitude which can be cultivated.

Check Point

What social, politi cal and cultural factors had led to drastic changes in society by the 1 960s1

Background

William Barclay described agape as:

'unconquerable good will; it is the determination to seek the other mans highest good, no matter what he does to you. Insult, injury, indifference - it does not matter; nothing but good will. It has been defined as purpose, not passion. It is an attitude to the other person'

Ethics in a Permissive Society (1972).

Useful Quotes

'If the emotional and spiritual welfare of both parents and children in a particular lamily can be served best bya divorce, wrong and cheapjack as divorce commonly is. then Jove requires it'

(Robinson, Honest to God (1963)).

Fletcher used examples from re~llife and from literature to illustrate his thesis: the burning house and tjme to save only one person - your father or a doctor with the lormulae for a c~re for a killer disease only in his head; the woman who kills her crying baby to save a party from massacre by Indians on the Wilderness Trail; the military nurse who deliberately treated her patients harshly so they would be determined to get fit and able ~o leave the hospital; the famous case of Mrs Bergmeier who deliberately asks a Russian prison camp guard to make her pregnant so she can be released to return to her family in Germany (an act which Fletcher coined 'sacrificial adultery').

Fletcher developed the notion of agape by describing love and justice as the same thing, 'forjustice is love dish'ibuted, nothing else'. He claimed that justice is the giving to every person what is their due, and that since the one thing due to everyone is love, then love and justice were the same.

Checkpoint

What are Fletcher's four principles of situation ethics?

Useful Quotes

'Whatever the pointers of the law to the demands of love, there can for the Christian be no "packaged" moral judgments - for persons are mare important even than "standards'"

(Fletcher. Situation Ethics (1966)).

Problems with situation ethics

Although the theory seems to be well supported with evidence, it was rejected by representatives of the Protestant and Catholic churches. William Barclay believed that the rejection of conservative Christian ethics marked a dangerous change: 'Thirty years ago no one ever really questioned the Christian ethic . .. No one ever doubted that divorce was disgraceful; that illegitimate babies were a disastel;' that chastity was a goad thing' (Ethics in a Permissive Society (1972)). He suggested that:

Situation ethics is based on extreme and unusual examples.
In practice, humans are not as free as Barclay implied - we are not just limited by moral laws but by the need for laws to ensure human survival.

Furthermore, past choices determine future choices in a significant and unavoidable way and affect other people: 'A man can live his own life, but when he begins deliberately to alter the lives of others, then a real problem arises, on which we cannot simply turn our backs, and in which there is a place for law as th e encourager of morality'.

(Ethics in a Permissive Society (1972)).

Useful Quotes

'It is possible. though not easy, to forgive Professor Fletcher for writing this book. for he is a generous and loveable man. It is harder to forgive the SCM Press for publishing it'

(Graham Dunstan in Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch, The Puzzle DI Ethics (1994)).

Action Point

Make a list of the functions which law serves in society.

Useful Quotes

'It is possible. though not easy, to forgive Professor Fletcher for writing this book. for he is a generous and loveable man. It is harder to forgive the SCM Press for publishing it'

(Graham Dunstan in Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch, The Puzzle DI Ethics (1994)).

Developments

In October 1966 a working party of the Church of England issued a report entitled Sex and Morality (SCM) to the British Council of Churches which addressed the issues raised by the 'new morality'. While acknowledging the social and relational changes which had occurred, it was persistently drawn back to the notion of love as being characterised best by loyalty which transcends sexual desire or desirability and which places trust at the heart of the family. They draw a daringly harsh conclusion on the dangers of family break-up: Children in their early years ore so vulnerable that they need loving marriages and secure homes for their development, and a person who is responsible for a child's lack of this environment sin against it as seriously as a stranger wilD assaults it in a park. The principles of situation ethics had clearly not convinced them.

2019 The Anglican church met to reaffirm the traditional views of the church on Marraige and sex however in 2023 the church of England against the wishes of the Global south Anglicans agreed to bless same sex marriages.

Useful Quotes

'It is much easier to agree that extraordinary situations need extraordinary measures, than to think these are the laws for ordinary everyday life" (William BarClay).

Action Point

Make a list of the functions which law serves in society.

Developments

In October 1966 a working party of the Church of England issued a report entitled Sex and Morality (SCM) to the British Council of Churches which addressed the issues raised by the 'new morality'. While acknowledging the social and relational changes which had occurred, it was persistently drawn back to the notion of love as being characterised best by loyalty which transcends sexual desire or desirability and which places trust at the heart of the family. They draw a daringly harsh conclusion on the dangers of family break-up: Children in their early years ore so vulnerable that they need loving marriages and secure homes for their development, and a person who is responsible for a child's lack of this environment sin against it as seriously as a stranger wilD assaults it in a park. The principles of situation ethics had clearly not convinced them.

2019 The Anglican church met to reaffirm the traditional views of the church on Marraige and sex however in 2023 the church of England against the wishes of the Global south Anglicans agreed to bless same sex marriages.

RS-Situation-Ethics.pdf

Edexcel-Situation-Ethics-Notes

2.3 Situation Ethics