“Sometimes you’ve gotta put your principles to one side and do the right thing”

“As we shall see, Christian situation ethics has only one norm or principle or law (call it what you will) that is binding and unexceptionable, always good and right regardless of the circumstances. That is `love’ – the agape of the summary commandment to love God and the neighbor” (Situation Ethics, p. 30).

“A third approach, in between legalism and antinomianism unprincipledness, is situation ethics. The situationist enters into every decision making situation fully armed with the ethical maxims of his community and its heritage, and he treats them with respect as illuminators of his problems. Just the same he is prepared in any situation to compromise them or set them aside in the situation if love seems better served by doing so. The situationist follows a moral law or violates it according to love’s need.” (p.30)

“Agape love is goodwill at work in partnership with reason” in seeking the “neighbour’s best interest with a careful eye to all the factors in the situation”.

“Love is not the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit working in us”. (p.51)

“For the situationist there are no rules – none at all” (p. 55)

“Means and ends are relative to each other”. (p.152)

“Love is the only one end that isn’t relative and contingent; the one thing good in itself’. (p 129)

“Circumstances alter rules and principles” (p. 29)

“The openness and nonlegalistic strategy of situationism allows for differences of judgement’. (p. 8)

“But situation ethics has good reason to hold it as a duty in some situations to break them, any or all of them. We would be better advised and better off to drop the legalist’s love of law, and accept only the law of love” (p. 74).

” All laws and rules and principles and ideals and norms, are only contingent, only valid if they happen to serve love in any situation. The Christian chooses what he believes to be the demands of love in the present situation” (pp. 30, 55).

“Personal interests come first before anything else”. (p.34)

“The new morality, situation ethics declares that anything and everything is right or wrong, according to the situation” (p. 124).

‘It relativizes the absolute, it does not absolutize the relative’. (p.45)

“The imperative (love) combines with the indicative (empirical data) to determine the normative (right thing to do).” (p260)

“Sex is not always wrong outside marriage, even for Christians.” (p.138)

 “The true opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Hate, bad as it is, at least treats the neighbour as a thou, whereas indifference turns the neighbour into an it, a thing. This is why we may say that there is actually one thing worse than evil itself and that is indifference to evil. In human relations the nadir of morality, the lowest point as far as Christian ethics is concerned, is manifest in the phrase, “ couldn’t care less.’ Joseph Fletcher

Critics

“One of the most telling objections against situationism is that is a fundamentally and incurably individualistic type of ethic. Paul Ramsey is correct in his warning that `no social morality ever was founded or ever will be founded, upon a situational ethic.’ John Macquarrie, “Three Issues in Ethics, pp. 33-35

‘ As well as suffering from individualism, radical situational ethics suffers from the allied vice of subjectivism. The situationist seems to be compelled by the theories to assume on extraordinary degree of moral sensitivity and perceptiveness in those who are expected to read the demands of the situation’. John Macquarrie, “Three Issues in Ethics, pp. 33-35

“The situationist is less than realistic in the extent to which he is willing to recognise the weakness of human nature and the fact that even our conscience can be distorted.” (William Barclay)

William Barclay stated, “If we insist that in every situation every man must make his own decision, then first of all we must make man morally and lovingly fit to take that decision; otherwise we need the compulsion of law to make him do it” (William Barclay, Ethics in a Permissive Society, p. 81).

“Situationism reduces to antinomianism, for one empty absolute moral law is no better than no moral law’. (Norman Geisler, Christian Ethics, Options and Issues, 1989 p. 61)

QUESTIONS

1. Define “ethics”.
2. Define “situation ethics”.
3. What is the one universal moral law admitted by situationists?
4. Is there any contradictions in this statement, “There are absolutely no universal rules in ethics.”
5. Explain these different ethical approaches: Legalistic, antinomian, situationism.
6. Discuss Jesus’ usage of David eating consecrated bread in Matt. 12:1-8.
7. How is “love” applied by a situation ethicist using the six fundamental principles?
8. List several consequences of accepting situation ethics.
9. Explain what Fletcher means by ‘principled relativism’.