Situation Ethics
Mayank Mittal
Group-213

Background
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• Joseph Fletcher wrote his book in 1966
• He claims a moment of revelation when listening to a St Louis
cabbie determine to ‘lay principle aside and do the right thing’
• Argues for one absolute principle – love (Greek agape meaning
sacrificial love)
• Sees his theory as lying between antinomianism (no law) and
legalism (adherence to law)
• Can be seen as a form of liberal Christian ethics, taken up by
Bishop John Robinson in Honest to God

Fletcher, Robinson, Tillich
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• Fletcher and Robinson sought an ethical theory which would bring people back
towards making Christian moral decisions, but which didn’t have the legalism
associated with religion.
• Robinson said that Situation Ethics was for “Man come of age”: it was for people
who were moving away from having to be told what to do by God, and yet it still
had the Christian flavour. It was between legalism and antinomianism.
• Robinson and Tillich suggested that God could be understood as ‘the ground of
our being’, of ultimate significance, but not a deus ex machina, a supernatural
being who intervenes in the world from outside it. In other words God is part of
people (immanent) not this almighty transcendent being who barks instructions
at us to follow (as in Divine Command Theory).

THREE ETHICAL POSITIONS
LEGALISTIC
•ABSOLUTE
•NO EXCEPTIONS
•Divine Command Theory
SITUATIONAL
• ONE ABSOLUTE
(AGAPE)
• RELATIVISTIC
• Consequentialism
ANTINOMIAN
• TOTAL AUTONOMY
• NO RULES
•NO ABSOLUTES
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Relativism
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• Fletcher calls his theory ‘principled relativism’, because ‘it
relativises the absolute, it doesn’t absolutise the relative”
• By this he means that the absolute principle of agape must be
made relative to every contingent situation in order to discover
what is right.
• It is a form of relativism in application, not in the principle itself
(agape) which never changes is meaning.

Positivism
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• Fletcher uses a new meaning of positivism, not the same as for
example, AJ Ayer uses in ‘logical positivism’ meaning
‘empirically provable’.
• Theological positivism means you have to start with a positive
choice or commitment -faith comes before reason.

Personalism
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• People come first.
• Fletcher argues that ‘the legalist is a what asker (what does the
law say?) whereas the situationist is a who asker (who is to be
helped?) pg50
• He sees his theory in this sense having echoes of Kant’s second
maxim “treat person as ends, never as means’ pg 51
• We need to respect individual autonomy, choice and dignity and
we always see their welfare and needs as paramount

Love is the only norm
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• Fletcher argues that ‘the ruling norm of Christian decision is
love, nothing else’.
• Love replaces the law in Christian ethics.
• Fletcher rejects Roman Catholic natural law as ‘there are no
(natural) universal laws held by all men everywhere at all times’
• Fletcher therefore attracts the opposition of the Catholic Church
– in Veritatis Splendor, for example.

Love and Justice are the same
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• ‘Justice is love distributed, nothing else’.
• The injustices we see in the world, of starving children in Africa
for example are due, says Fetcher to lack of love shown by the
food-rich west.
• We see our neighbours as those we know, whereas our
real neighbours encompass the whole of humanity.

Love and liking are no the same
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• ‘Love wills the neighbour’s good, whether we like him or not’.
• Fletcher cites Martin Luther King’s campaign of non-violence in
the segregated south of America. He didn’t like the oppressor,
but taught we should love them with a ‘creative, redemptive
good will to all men’.
• When King marched, he often faced violence but did not hit
back.

Summary – situation ethics
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• It is an attempt to link Christianity with new morality for
‘man come of age’ (Robinson)
• It focuses on Jesus’parable of the Good Samaritan and
opposition to Pharisaic legalism
• It rejects absolute rules as it solves moral dilemmas
situationally and circumstantially
• It focuses on positivism and personalism
• It is a form of Christian ethic – ‘principled relativism’ is
how Fletcher describes it