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Situation Ethics (homosexuality - Fletcher - "homosexuality is…
Situation Ethics
homosexuality - Fletcher - "homosexuality is historically and conventionally related to criminal law" - Civil Partnership Act 2004 - Amended Sex Discrimintaion Act 2008 meant that people could be charged if they discriminated against homosexuals
Causes - personal disorder from failing to control repressed issues of sexuality from infancy - sexuality traced back to relationship between parent and child - Freud
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Biblical perspectives - you cannot "be fruitful and increase" - "do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman"
Fletcher argued that human views towards homosexuality were out dated and and unjust - Fletcher - "the range and complexity of sex laws at present is a monument to the tongue-in-cheek legislation"
Roman Catholicism - homosexual feelings are not wrong, but putting them into practice is - homosexuality is contrary to the will of God
Criticisms - Saunders and Stanford suggest that Catholic views are intolerant and discriminatory - Arcigay (Italian gay rights organisation) estimates that more than 150 gay men are killed in Italy each year
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The Methodist Church - sexuality should be accepted, enjoyed and honoured
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Islam approaches - "when a man mounts another man, the throne shakes" - passage cited from the Hadiths
Fletcher
highlighted a new and different approach to moral decision making in his article 'The New Look Christian Ethics'
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example - patient in mental hospital was raped by another patient - abortion was not allowed - is the most loving thing to have an abortion?
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Strengths
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Mel Thompson - "It allows individuals to make up their own minds about what is right or wrong in a particular situation"
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Tillich - "the law of love is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law" - supporter of Fletcher - follow law of the land unless reason not to
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Robinson
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questioned the conservative view that marriage was a spiritual bond that was impossible to break - this idea was seen by him as out of date and potentially damaging
Four key principles
1) Pragmatism - demands that the proposed cause of action must be right - the final end is sought before any moral system is decided on - Bowie - "the proposed course of action must work towards the end, which is love"
2) Relativism - no fixed laws to be obeyed - actions should be relative to love - circumstances can always throw up exceptions - Fletcher - "Situationalists avoid words like 'never' as he avoids the plague"
3) Positivism - love is the most important criterion of all expressed - you need to want to do good - John 4:7-12 - "everyone who loves is born of born of God and knows God"
4) Personalism - put others before yourself - people are more important than rules - Fletcher - "value is what happens to something when it is useful to love working for the sake of a persons' "
Criticisms
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Pope Pius XII called SE "an individualistic and subjective appeal to concrete circumstances to justify decisions"
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