Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Fletcher's Situation Ethics - Coggle Diagram
Fletcher's Situation Ethics
Summary
The structure of Fletcher's situation ethics is straightforward and it will help to have an overview on what he is going to say
There are 3 approaches to to ethics: legalistic, antinomian (no rules) and situational. Fletcher's approach is situational
4 Presuppositions
Pragmatism
- morality is about facts and actions / what maximises love in the situtation
Relativism
- morality is relative to the situation so we should avoid words like 'always', 'never'
Positivism
- affirming the belief in 1 John 4:7-12, that 'we should love one another because love is from God'
Personalism
- people come before laws. The question in any situation is: who is to be helped?
To these presuppositions, Fletcher adds conscience and claims that conscience is a verb, not a noun: it is not a thing. Fletcher sees conscience as a word that can be used for our attempts to make decisions constructively, based on both situational and moral values
6 Fundamental Principles
1) Only one thing is intrinsically good: love. Love replaces law. Love is agape, unconditional, universal, absolute for all people. Agape was used by the early Christians to refer to God's self-sacrificial love
2) Love is the only norm, so the ruling norm of Christian decision making is love, and the most important commandment is to love God and ones neighbour
3) Love and justice are the same, because justice is love distributed. Justice is love calculating its duties, obligations, opportunities and resources
4) Love wills the neighbours good, whether we like her or not. Love is not just an emotion, love is willed
5) Only the end justifies the means and nothing else. The end is the most loving result, so anything can be done if it brings about the most loving outcome
6) Loves decisions are made situationally, not prescriptivley
Judging a Situation
In the context of the 5th fundamental principle, Fletcher outlines an important part of his methodology - we need to consider 4 factors when judging a situation
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 forseeable consequences?