In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

THE INADEQUACY OF SITUATION ETHICS FOR SOME TIME one was tempted to think that the expression, "the new morality," was merely a catch phrase invented by writers of popular articles for use as a respectable cover in recounting various tales actually designed for the mild erotic stimulation of their readers. One did not, of course, intend to deny that there is a growing tendency to withhold from Victorian and fundamentalistic sexual prudery even the adherence in profession which many had continued to accord it long after having abandoned it in practice. The new morality did not, however, seem to be anything of significance for the professional philosopher concerned with ethical theory. This initial attitude had to be changed when " the new morality " was adopted as a slogan by various theologians and religious personages who claimed to hold something new and who attempted to give a reasoned defense of their position. One of the foremost of these theologians is Professor Joseph Fletcher of the Episcopal Theological School who calls his view situation ethics and gladly takes for it the rubric, " the new morality." 1 Given the currency of Fletcher's views (and others like them), it is important that his ethical theory be subjected to rigorous critical evaluation. Fletcher holds that there are at bottom only three possible approaches to ethical decision making. (p. 17 ff.) Legalism he describes as approaching the moral decision with a codified set of directive rules. Apparently he is thinking of one's consulting a list like the Decalogue, finding that bearing false witness is forbidden and, therefore, holding that any act of bearing false 1 Fletcher's most complete statement of his views is contained in his book, Situation .Ethics: The New 2'domlity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966). I shall depend on this book in referring to his work. For convenience, I shall insert page numbers in parentheses in the text to cite references to this book. 4~3 424 J. CHARLES KING witness is wrong no matter what the circumstances. Antinomianism , he says, approaches moral decisions with no principles whatever, and it remains unclear how its decisions are to be made. Situation ethics does approach the moral decision with rules and principles, but these are not to be taken as directivesrather , they are merely guidelines and illuminators for making a decision in the present case. (p. 26 ff.) A particular situation may be such that the situationist sets aside a principle, such as extra-marital sexual relations are wrong, in the belief that such relations are in this situation right. Fletcher urges situation ethics on us by arguing the implausibility of the other two approaches. I shall have more to say about his supposed trichotomy later, but for now I wish to continue the account of his position. As Fletcher realizes, more than one particular theory of right might be developed within the bounds of what he calls situationism. His own position might better be called Christian Situation Ethics (or as we shall see, Agapic Situation Ethics). His theory of right is expressed in one principle: "The situationist holds that whatever is the most loving thing in the situation is the right and good thing." (pp. 61, 65) He makes it clear that this principle follows from his first principle of value which is, "Only one thing is intrinsically good; namely, love: nothing else at all." (p. 57) Further, he makes it clear that " love " is to be understood as agape (Christian love of fellow man or general good will), not as philos or eros. (p. 79) It will occur to anyone familiar with the British tradition in moral philosophy that Fletcher's position is very closely related to act-utilitarian views, such as those of Bentham and G. E. Moore (in Principia Ethica). Indeed, he quotes on the motto page _Moore's well-known and much criticized assertion that "right" does and can mean nothing but "cause of a good result." Since so much critical thought has been devoted to various forms of utilitarianism, it will be instructive to draw clearly the comparison between Fletcher's view and utilitariamsm . THE INADEQUACY OF SITUATION ETHICS 425 The characteristic feature of utilitarian theories of right is...

pdf

Share