Situation ethics offers no moral guidance when making moral decisions
Situation ethics was created in the 1960s by joseph fletcher during the post
war period. Fletcher’s main goal focuses on love since previously there had
already been too much hate. This creation of situation ethics was a reaction
against conservative views especially since it was teleological and went against
all the teachings of the catholic church since it meant that the ends justify the
means. However it is not antinominalist. Some key areas that consist of
situation ethics are agape (unconditional love), ‘personalism’ one of the 4
working principles and ‘the norm of Christian ethics is love’ one of the six
propositions. Having fully evaluated Fletcher’s theory, it can be concluded that
situation ethics offers moral guidance when making moral decisions.
Agape is a term that fletcher uses for all encompassing unconditional love that
must be followed through no matter what. Agape is seen as a love that goes
much deeper for example the love that God has for us which allowed him to
sacrifice his son for the world. This type of extreme love proves to be
considerably useful in making moral decisions for example fletcher has given
the case study of a man only having two choices of taking an expensive
medication which will cost his family far too much money or refuse the
medicine and only live for 3 months. This type of moral dilemma can be aided
using agape by focusing on that the most loving outcome is, which can be
universally accepted since love focuses on the respect of everyone. This idea is
further emphasised upon from St Paul’s passage ‘love is patient; love is kind…it
does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth’ Therefore, following
agape the right and most importantly ‘truthful’ thing specifically, most loving
would be to not take the medicine and sacrifice himself for the good of his
family’s financial stability. However, on the contrary agape can be interpreted
in many different ways and it cannot be guaranteed that we all possess an
equal comprehension on the meaning of love. Furthermore, it is never assured
that love is always the outcome even if it was the original intention as stated
by Bernard Hoose ‘an action born of love can be wrong, whilst an action not
resulting from love can be right’
Mini conclusion linking to line of arguments and terms of question
Another focus of situation ethics is one of the 4 working principles i.e.
‘personalism’. Personalism concerns itself first and foremost with the needs
and concerns of the people and how we can love and help them. This relates to
