SITUATIONAL ETHICS

Game
Would you rather…
Student – your classmate is asking for help in Latin, but you have to study for an exam
tom.
Judge - Stealing corrupted money and giving it to the people
You are a sniper - Shooting a terrorist who threatens to bomb an area full of people – shoot
or no shoot
Divorce – parents can no longer stand each other, to the pint that it severely affects the
children. (Should the parents divorce or not?)
You are a relative - Euthanasia – killing oneself after being diagnosed of a severe incurable
illness – good or bad
You are a doctor - Abortion – in the case that the fetus can cause death for the mother.
You are a confessor – your confesee confessed that he will blow up a specific area on a
specific date – should you tell it to the police?

Thank you for participating in our small game, Now I would like to ask you… no need to
respond now… WHAT WAS YOUR BASIS FOR YOUR DECISIONS DURING THOSE
SITUATIONS.

What is situational Ethics?

- Situational Ethics is an ethical theory wherein the goodness or badness of an act is
dependent on the situation.
- Developed by Joseph Fletcher, an American Anglican theologian in his writing: Situation
Ethics: The New Morality (1966)
o Situation Ethics is a response that balances absolutism and moral relativism.
o (LEGALISM) ABSOLUTISM
 There are fixed universal moral principles that have binding authority in
all circumstances.
 “Right and Wrong for the legalist are derived from or given by some
“supranatural” source (tradition, society, God).
 It is always wrong to break a moral law.
o PROBLEM OF COMPLEXITY
 Example: Ten Commandments, breaking the government rules…)
 
Exceptions are only allowed when there is conflict between two or
more laws.
o (ANTINOMIANISM) MORAL RELATIVISM
 the view that there are no fixed moral principles at all.
 All values reside in each individual.
 Each individual is responsible for his own development.
 Evil is failing to realize one’s potential.
o PROBLEM OF VARIETY
 Example… LGBTQ Activism (subjectivity based morality)

o SITUATIONISM
o Why is situationism a middle ethic?
 There is a moral Law – therefore not antinomianism.
 There is only one moral Law – therefore not Legalism.
 IT IS SENSITIVE TO variety and complexity.
 WHAT IS THIS ONE LAW? --- Love, Agape
o Fletcher posits his situational absolutism with its one law for everything by saying
we must enter every situation with only one moral weapon - the law of agape
love. Agape is defined as a selfless type of love, tolerant and respectful towards
all people.
 Agape love is unconditional love and Fletcher described it as "giving love
– non-reciprocal, neighbour regarding"
o We ought to always act so as to bring about the most love for the most people.

o Situation ethics states that decision making should be based upon the
circumstances of the particular situation, not upon fixed law. The only absolute is
Love. Love should be the motive behind every decision. As long as love is your
intention, the end justifies the means. Fletcher uses Jesus as the model of agape as
portrayed in John 15:13 'Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his
life for his friends'.
 This makes this theory a consequentialist theory (teleological) END is
important over the MEAN
o – AGAPE – the action that will be more loving is the right action.
o EXAMPLE:

FLETCHER’S Situation ethics rests on 10 Principles divided into 2 (four main

principles assumed before and 6 fundamental propositions that underlie)

PRINCIPLES OF SITUATIONISM
There are four principles assumed before arriving at an ethical/moral Principle. Situation
ethics. These are pre-conditions that needs to be resolved.
1. Pragmatism – that the action is practical and achievable.
 o What makes his view pragmatic is very simple. It is just his attraction to moral
views which do not try to work out what to do in the abstract (e.g. Kant’s
Categorical Imperative (see Chapter 1.2)), but rather explores how moral views
might play out in each real life situations.
2. Relativism – Tries to be inclusive.
o It is just an appeal for people to stop trying to “lay down the law” for all people in
all contexts. If situations vary then consequences vary and what we ought to do
will change accordingly. This is a very simple, unsophisticated idea, like his ideas
on pragmatism, and Fletcher just means that what is right or wrong is related to
the situation we are in.
3. Positivism – Focused on decisions rather than proof.
o It odes not present an argument for why one needs to be a Christian, but rather,
that if one is a Christian this is how one should Act.
o It does not need to be demonstrated for truth and goodness, but
o Any moral or value judgment in ethics, like a theologian’s faith propositions, is a
decision — not a conclusion. It is a choice, not a result reached by force of logic.
 So when challenged as to how he can justify that the only law is to
maximize love, Fletcher will say that he cannot. It is not a result of logic
or reasoning, rather it is a decision we take, it is like the “theologian’s
faith”.
4. Personalism –
o Love is something that is experienced by people. So Personalism is the view that
if we are to maximize love we need to consider the person in a situation — the
“who” of a situation. Summing up this Fletcher says:
 Love is of people, by people, and for people. Things are to be used; people
are to be loved… Loving actions are the only conduct permissible.
PROPOSITIONS OF SITUATION ETHICS
1. Only one thing is intrinsically good; namely, love, nothing else at all.
- This means that there is no action or moral rule that is good in itself; an action is good
so far as it brings about agape.
2. The Ruling norm of Christian decision is Love
- Fletcher understood a norm to be a rule and appealed to Jesus' teaching in Mark 12:33
that the most important commandment is to love God and love your neighbour. He did
allow that some rules may be useful e.g. the Decalogue however in cases of dispute,
love should be the decider
3. Love and Justice are the same, for justice is love distributed, nothing else.
- there can be no love with justice.
- Example of injustice as lack of love, lack of distribution of love.
4. Love will’s neighbors Good.
 - Fletcher's theory is a teleological theory that identifies the ends or the outcome of action
as the means of assessing its moral worth. In this case, it suggests that anything might be
done if it brings about the most loving outcome.
o Christian love does not ask us to lose or abandon our sense of good and evil, or even of
superior and inferior; it simply insists that however we rate them, and whether we like
them nor not, they are our neighbors and are to be loved. 10
5. Only the ends justify the means, nothing else.
- as agape was not an emotion, it did not need to encompass liking. Because agape
involves sacrifice people should give love without expecting a return and irrespective of
how they feel about others.
6. Love’s decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively.
- there are no rules about what should or should not be done - in each situation, you
decide there and then what the most loving thing to do is.

- Fletcher (1966, p. 134) - nothing is inherently right or wrong, everything should be

done according to the most loving thing specific to the situation.

IMPLICATIONS:
1. Relativistic
a. What is the definition of love? How do we quantify love?
b. Subjective – man cannot see the whole picture
i. Not free for all, but according to men’s coherence…
- There wil be no
2. There is no goodness or evil in the act itself…

3. End (AGAPE) justifies the means.

a. Since it is a consequential or teleological theory, the end is more important than
the means so much so that it can justify the means.

Response:
1. There is an objective Moral Law that must applied and considered in all circumstances.
a. Ex. Killing is Bad
2. Veritatis Splendor – JP II – when they believe they can justify, as morally good,
deliberate choices of kinds of behavior contrary to the commandments of the divine
and natural law. These theories cannot claim to be grounded in the Catholic moral
tradition
3. CCC #1755 - 1755 A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end,
and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is
good in itself (such as praying and fasting "in order to be seen by men").
 o The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety. There are some
concrete acts - such as fornication - that it is always wrong to choose because
choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.
CHALLENGE:
1. Return to an objective moral principle..
2. Critical in these theories that may lead us away from the Church’s
tradition and teachings.

(https://www.britannica.com/topic/situation-ethics)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3510192?seq=2
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Situational_Ethics
https://www.tutorhunt.com/resource/9486/