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Situation Ethics
Principled Relativism

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Background
• 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

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Fletcher, Robinson, Tillich
• 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).

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THREE
ETHICAL
POSITIONS
LEGALISTIC
• ABSOLUTE
• NO
EXCEPTIONS
• Divine
Command
Theory
SITUATIONAL
•
ONE
ABSOLUTE
(AGAPE)
•
RELATIVISTIC
•
Consequen@alism
ANTINOMIAN
•
TOTAL
AUTONOMY
•
NO
RULES
• NO
ABSOLUTES

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Agape
• Unconditional Love (1 JOHN 4:16, 21)
• Derived from hesed in the Old Testament (EXODUS 34:6)
• Embodied in Jesus Christ (JOHN 1:14)
• An act of will or disposition – “… goodwill at work in partnership
with reason” in seeking the “neighbour’s best interest with a
careful eye to all the factors in a situation”. Fletcher

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Four working principles
• Pragmatism
• Personalism
• Positivism
• Relativism

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Pragmatism
• For a course of action to be right it must be
practical
• “A thought or action must work” (P. 42)

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Relativism
• 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.

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Positivism
• 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.

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Personalism
• 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

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The six fundamental principles
• Confusingly Fletcher talks of six fundamental principles, as well
as the four working principles of pragmatism, positivism,
personalism and relativism.
• Here we consider four of the most important: beginning with
“love only is always good’.
• Fletcher argues that only love has intrinsic value because it
helps people – it is the purpose of any action which defines its
goodness not the nature of the act itself. A lie is only good or
bad with reference to the loving purpose of the lie or its lack of
love.

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Love is the only norm
• 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.

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Love and Justice are the same
• ‘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.

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Love and liking are no the same
• ‘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.

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The end of love justifies the means
• ‘Only the end justifies the means, nothing else’.
• When Dietrich Bonhoeffer joined the resistance in Nazi
Germany, he justified lying and assassination by arguing the
good end justifed the evil means.
• Fletcher similarly argues the end always justifies the means.
• The bomb plot that caused Bonhoeffer’s arrest and execution in
1945 is dramatised in the film Valkyrie

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One of Fletcher’s examples
• Try to use Fletcher’s examples if you can in your work, rather than your
own. Don’t forget to talk about them as well, they shouldn’t just be stuck in
randomly
• Never write out the whole story, just refer to it. For example
• Fletcher used the example “Sacrificial Adultery” where a POW woman
debates on whether to have commit adultery in order to get pregnant and
so be released and sent back to her family.
• The point Fletcher was making was that surely it was the best thing (the
most loving thing) for the mother to break the Commandment “Do not
commit adultery” in order to get home to her children. This has to be the
most loving thing for her and all even though it breaks one of God’s
commandments. Surely God would not think this immoral as this is not
why he gave that particular law in the first place?

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Were the bombs at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki jutifiable?
• On Aug 6th 1945 the Enola Gay dropped the atom bomb on
Hiroshima.
• When he saw the mushroom cloud Capt Lewis exclaimed ‘my
God, what have we done?’.
• But 126,000 American POWs were due to be executed when the
first American set foot on Japanese soil.
• The Japanese honour code included fight to the death and
kamakaze pilots who crashed specially designed human flying
bombs.

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Even Eisenhower had second thoughts
• "During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious
of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave
misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was
already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely
unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country
should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon
whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a
measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan
was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a
minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by
my attitude..."
• - Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

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Apply Fletcher’s ethic
• To the idea of rendition for torture
• To the argument for euthanasia
• Or another morally difficult case in the newspapers

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Summary – situation ethics
• 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

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1. Barclay said the examples Fletcher used to illustrate situation ethics are extreme cases. He
asked how often people had to make life and death decisions on which situation ethics
seemed to be based? He said: “It is much easier to agree that extraordinary situations need
extraordinary measures than to think that there are no laws for ordinary life.” (Ethics in a
Permissive Society, 1971)
2. He said that the suggestion that laws could be abandoned if needed was too optimistic.
Humans needs laws for protection etc and how would people know exactly when it was “the
most loving thing” to abandon them? A circumstance to one, may not be to another.
3. He argued that it is hard for individuals to make their own moral decisions in every
situation. We can be swayed by emotion or fear and persuade ourselves that we are doing
the most loving thing when really we are doing the thing that suits ourselves the most.
William Barclay’s Criticisms

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Situa@on
ethics
is
subjec<ve
because
decisions
are
made
from
within
the
situa@on
as
it
is
perceived
to
be.
Situa@on
ethics
could
prove
unworkable
because
it
isn’t
easy
to
determine
all
the
consequences
of
an
ac@on.
It
is
individualis<c
because
humans
see
things
from
their
own
perspec@ve.
There
is
a
danger
that
the
ideals
of
uncondi@onal
love
may
be
polluted
by
a
selfish
human
tendency
and
people
using
it
as
an
excuse
for
not
obeying
the
rules.
How
many
parents
can
show
equal
love
to
strangers
as
to
their
own
children?
This argument made Robinson withdraw his support for Situation Ethics
Situa@on
ethics
seems
to
be
prepared
to
accept
any
ac<on
at
all
if
it
fits
the
required
criteria.
What
is
believed
to
be
a
loving
end
by
some
could
jus@fy
ac@ons
that
many
people
would
regard
as
wrong.
Pius XII

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1. Give 3 reasons why Situation Ethics could be seen as a
Christian ethic
2. Give 1 of Fletcher’s examples of Situation Ethics and
explain the point of it
3. Give 3 strengths of Situation Ethics
4. Give 3 weaknesses of Situation Ethics
5. Why did Pope Pius XII oppose situation ethics in 1952?
Test time