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1.5.7: Summary

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    Fletcher’s Situational Ethics gained a popular following as it allowed the religious believer to fit their views into the rapidly changing and nuanced moral and political landscape of the 1960s. Fletcher's position has a central commitment to God’s love — agápē. It is this central focus on agápē as the moral guide for behaviour that allows Fletcher to claim that an action might be right in one context, but wrong in a different context — depending on the level of agápē brought about. In fact, Fletcher thinks that sometimes what might be morally required of us is to break the Ten Commandments.

    Despite how popular the theory was it is not philosophically sophisticated, and we soon run into problems in trying to understand it. His position is worth studying though (not just because it is on the curriculum!) because it opens up the conceptual possibility that a committed Christian/Jew/Muslim etc. may consider the answers to moral questions to depend on the diverse situations we find ourselves in.

    COMMON STUDENT MISTAKES

    • Mixing up Fletcher’s use of “Positivism” with Ayer’s use of “positivism”.
    • Thinking that Fletcher’s is a “pragmatist”.
    • Think that situation ethics allows you do to anything you want.
    • Think that love is about feelings.
    • Think that by “conscience” Fletcher means a “moral compass”.

    ISSUES TO CONSIDER

    1. Why do you think Fletcher’s book was so popular at the time of publication?
    2. If an alien visited earth and asked “What is love?” how would you answer them?
    3. How does Situationism differ from “Utilitarianism” if at all?
    4. If we act from love, does that mean we can do anything?
    5. What does it mean to say that conscience is a verb rather than a noun? Do you think we have a conscience? If you do, should we think of it as a verb or a noun?
    6. Why does Fletcher say that his theory is: “fact-based, empirical-based, data-conscious and inquiring”?
    7. What do you think a Christian would make of Fletcher’s theory?
    8. What do you think “situation” means?
    9. What does Fletcher mean by “positivism”?
    10. What is the “fallacy of appealing to authority”? Can you give your own example?
    11. Pick one challenge to Utilitarianism, and reform the challenge as one towards Situationism.

    KEY TERMINOLOGY

    Agápē

    Agápē calculus

    Eros

    Legalism

    Pragmatic

    Conscience

    Consequentialism

    References

    Fletcher, Joseph F., Situation Ethics: The New Morality (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 1966).

    Kirk, Kenneth E., Conscience and Its Problems: An Introduction to Casuistry (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999).

    ‘Saudi Police “Stopped” Fire Rescue’, BBC News (15 March 2002), freely available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm


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