Assess the significance of love in situation ethics. (40marks)

“Assess the significance of love in situation ethics.” (40marks)

Situation ethics was developed by Joseph Fletcher (an American professor) as a Christian theory of moral guidance. It was based on the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. It was established in a post war era in which society was acting against suppressive rules and beginning to develop an antinomian society. A good example of this would be the Hippie movement in the early 1960’s. It is a teleological theory meaning that the end result is used to determine whether the act was moral or not. Situation ethics is also a situationist and a relativist approach meaning that there are no specific acts that are considered morally right or wrong but instead looks at every situation independently with the purpose and intention of the act based on agape love as the core of morality. The issue the question raises is the importance of love in situation ethics. An absolutist would agree with the questions view because the whole of situation ethics is based on love, without love there is no situation ethics. This essay will endeavour to show that love is the most significant aspect of Fletcher’s situation ethics. It will also show that love is a very significant factor in situation ethics since it is the glue of the whole theory. Situation ethics is based on the parable of The Good Samaritan in which Jesus tells us to “love thy neighbour as thy self”.

Fletcher’s situation ethics is based on serving agape best. This means that we need to look at every situation with the highest form of love in mind. By serving agape best, our actions can be justified since agape requires us to do the most loving thing for the person involved. In the Bible, Jesus teaches us to “love one another as I have loved you” this shows that we need to have unconditional love for one another and by doing so, we would be led to the most moral of actions. Many would see this as a good way of making moral decision because we consider the other person and do what is best for them, this is in contrast with utilitarianism which tends to focus on personal gain and pleasure. It is also a good tool of moral decision making since it looks at every situation differently rather than having absolute, fixed rules which are impossible to bend. However, basing moral decisions on how they serve love best does have problems because the idea of serving love is too vague. In an ideal world where we are all good and loving, this theory might work. However, in our world it is highly unlikely for us to follow the 6 propositions. This is because factors such as self-love and prima facia duty get in the way of us making the most loving decision for the person involved. This criticism is valid because if people always committed the most loving act, then there would be no famine or war, but since there is, we can sum up that this theory is too idealistic and has a very rose-tinted perspective of the world. Based on this argument, situation ethics could be said to be heavily based on the idea of agape love and the application of love in every situation. However, this idea of love is not specific and tends to be blurry thus leading us to become confused when making moral decisions as to whether or not we consider brotherly love above self-love.

Similarly, Fletcher’s situation ethics is a teleological theory meaning that the ends justify the means. His fifth proposition claims, “only the end justifies the means, nothing else.” This means that if the end result is good then the action is morally right. Many would see this as a good way of making a moral decision because if the end is good then surely the action that we took to get there must be right. However, basing moral decisions on the end result does have problems. This is because we do not have the capability to determine all the possible effects and results that we might get from a certain action. If we cannot work out every possibility, then we cannot use a theory that claims that only the end justifies the means in order to work out the morality of our actions. Let’s take a burning house as an example, inside there is a baby and my old grandfather. If I can only save one of the two, who should I save? Let’s say that I decided to save the baby based on the fact that he has a whole life a head of him, if he turns out to be the next Hitler can my actions be justified based on the ends justifying the means? Lets also argue that I save my grandfather and let the baby die, for all I know the baby could have been the next pope or the doctor who discovers the cure to cancer. Would my choice of saving my grandfather be wrong based on the fact that the ends didn’t justify the means? This shows us that there is no possible way of calculating what is right or wrong based on the ends justifying the means. This criticism is valid because if people were capable of calculating the morality of an action based on the ends justifying the means, there would be no evil in the world since every result would justify the means.

Fletcher’s situation ethics is based on doing the most loving thing in every situation this can sometimes mean that we can break the law in order to fulfil this task. Many would see this as a good way of making moral decision because we are using love in order to determine what the best action is. St Paul tells us that, “love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude… and the greatest of these is love.” This shows us that love is a force of good which can only lead to good moral decisions thus we should use it as a method of moral decision making even if it means that we have to break the law. However, many would argue that the love described by St Paul is different to the love described by Fletcher. St Paul describes love as being intrinsically good, with no comparison. However, Fletcher describes love as a loophole to commit any act as long as it maximises love. God tells Moses the ten commandments by which we should live our lives. If the most loving thing to do is to break one of the commandments, how can we justify our action since it is clear that we are going against the will of God. This shows us that Fletcher either has a different view of love or he takes the one described by St Paul lightly. Either way, he uses a small portion of a big masterpiece to prove his point whilst ignoring scriptures and Biblical texts which tell us to obey the rules of God. By basing moral decisions on how they maximise love we encounter many problems. This is because if love is so good we cannot use it for the wrong reasons. How can we claim to have done a good deed if it resulted in the murder of another person? Many Christians argue that situation ethics is unchristian since it is capable of allowing acts such as murder and stealing depending on the situation. This criticism is valid because if the most loving act is against the law, clearly it is not the most loving act for the whole of society. Based on this argument, love is significant in situation ethics. However, the love described by Fletcher tends to vary from the one described in the Bible.

To conclude, love is very significant in situation ethics. It is the main concept that brings the theory of situation ethics to life. However, the love which can be used in situation ethics tends to contradict with the laws of love described in the Bible. The love described in the Bible would tell us that murder is wrong and that it should never be justified. However, the love described in situation ethics aims to distribute justice by telling us to do the most loving thing in every situation. Fletcher uses Jesus’ teachings to demonstrate that love is the only law.