Situation Ethics - Joseph Fletcher

In his book Situation Ethics 1963 Fletcher began with a quote from Bishop Robinson "There is no ethical system that can claim to be Christian" and also Rudolph Bultmann who argued that Jesus' sole ethics was to "Love thy neighbour". Fletcher therefore sought to combine Christianity and Ethics with his theory of SITUATION ETHICS, using Jesus' main teaching of Agape Love as a backbone.

Fletcher saw that there were 3 main ways of making moral decisions:
1. Legalistic - Based on prefabricated moral rules and regulations such as in Christianity, which uses religious teaching from the bible and the 10 commandments as strict rules in which to live by. Fletcher saw this method as inflexible as there is seemingly no margin for exceptionally circumstances. E.g. Killing in self-defence. He felt that living life by a rule-book was wrong as the laws surpassed the beliefs.

2. Antinomian - The reverse of legalistic ethics, literally meaning "against law". All moral decisions are spontaneous and unique to that immediate situation. Fletcher, although favouring the relativistic nature portrayed in such ethics, felt that those who made decisions without principles as a guidance live an "anarchic" existence.

2. Situational - A situationist enters into a situation with all of their beliefs and principles as the foundation of their ultimate decision. Best course of action depends on how it best suits their beliefs, however such principles direct and do not DICTATE. Combines both LEGALISTIC + ANTINOMIAN as whilst rejecting absolute nature of laws, uses the laws of our own principles as guidance. Fletcher therefore uses this approach in his theory Situation Ethics with 6 prefabricated principles (NOT LAWS).

6 principles:
1. "Only love is intrinsically good" - actions are EXTRINSICALLY good depending on their consequence but they can never be INTRINSICALLY good.

2. "Ruling norm of Christian decision is love" - Jesus replaced the Jewish Holy Book (Torah) with his principle of agape love and displayed how the commandments are not absolute but mere PRINCIPLES. Love over Law.

3. "Love and justice are the same for justice is love distributed" -the two cannot be seperated as justice is love at work.

4. "Love wills the good neighbour" - Idea of agape love, the primary teaching of Jesus and in keeping with the commandment "love they neighbour".

5. "Only the end justifies the mean" - TELEOLOGICAL THEORY

6. "Love's decisions are made situationally" - Jesus reacted against rule-base morality and therefore fletcher maintained the view that something can not be absolutely wrong or right.

Clearly Fletcher differs from traditional Christian ethics as although he uses Jesus as the crux of his theory the relativism is out of context with the strong rule base od traditional teachings. Particularly that of Roman Catholics and Natural Law. SITUATION ETHICS rejects NATURAL LAW as it stated whether something is intrinsically good or bad and dictates this while situationist believe only love is intrinsic and also rebel againt rules.

Furthermore whilst S.E is TELEOLOGICAL N.L is DEONTOLOGICAL.