By Rod Benson
In 1966, American episcopal moral theologian Joseph Fletcher published a popular book titled, Situation Ethics: The New Morality. In the book he advocated a ‘new’ approach to Christian ethics and moral decision-making which occupied a middle way between the two extremes of legalism and antinomianism.
For Fletcher, this approach, labelled ‘situationism,’ was theologically valid and pragmatically essential to life (at least in the West) in the twentieth century. For the Episcopal Bishop John A. T. Robinson, author of the equally popular Honest to God, it was the only ethic for ‘man come of age.’ Fletcher’s book, although not theoretically sophisticated and despite being peppered with explanatory anecdotes and illustrations, presents a clear and well structured account of situationism from a liberal Christian perspective.
Although he subtitled the work “the new morality,” Fletcher was not advocating an entirely new ethic or morality; Situation Ethics was simply one concise and well publicised statement of a trend in Christian ethics that had been growing for decades.
In 1928 Durant Drake had published The New Morality against authoritarian and supernaturalist ethics in the name of pragmatic naturalism; in 1932 Emil Brunner published his Divine Imperative and Reinhold Niebuhr published Moral Man and Immoral Society; in 1959 Fletcher himself published a seminal paper on situation ethics in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin; in 1963 H. Richard Niebuhr published The Responsible Self; in the same year Paul Lehmann’s Ethics in a Christian Context and John Robinson’s Honest to God were published.
Each of these made significant contributions to the development of an anti-supernaturalist Christian ethic or an ethic based on existential situations rather than prescriptive principles. Fletcher called his position situation ethics or situationism. Others have called this orientation toward the situational neocasuistry, existential ethics, consequentialism, ethical relativism and moral nihilism. The Roman Catholic Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office described it in 1952 as ‘the new morality.’
The Christian church has approached social and personal ethics from various perspectives through its history. Richard Longenecker provides a useful list of four ways in which special revelation has been used by Christian theologians and ethicists in determining ethical positions and in making decisions on practical moral issues. Reference to these four positions will place Fletcher’s Situation Ethics in a theological and casuistic context and enable us to consider his propositions in a more enlightened sense than is possible through his writing alone.
The first of Longenecker’s positions is legalistic: it takes scripture (specifically, for him, the New Testament) “as a book of laws or a summation of codes for human conduct. It argues that God has given prescriptive laws in the form of commandments and ordinances . . . (which) do not come to us as tactical suggestions.” Two problems associated with this position are that such an approach cannot create moral beings, and that, since society and culture are in permanent transition, laws require accompanying interpretations to explicate and apply them in new situations.
The second position seeks to disclose universal principles underlying scriptural accounts of prescriptive ethical laws. Adolf Harnack exemplified this approach at the turn of the century with his religious humanism advocating the higher righteousness and the commandment of love. As Longenecker says, such an approach “provides a means for appreciating how biblical norms can be applied to changing situations.”
The preeminence of love strikes a chord with the foundation of Christian situationism, but one must still deal with norms (unlike Fletcher’s one law of love), the search for universal principles may turn biblical theology into philosophy, and Christian ethics may become a subcategory of natural law “with the moral imperative of life rooted in man himself (sic) and human reason viewed as the main guide for moral judgements.”
The third position outlined by Longenecker stresses “God’s free and sovereign encounter through his Spirit with a person as he or she reads scripture, and the ethical direction given for the particular moment in such an encounter.”
Flowing from a neo-orthodox understanding of revelation, this position is epitomised by Emil Brunner: “The Christian moralist and the extreme individualist are at one in their rejection of legalistic conduct . . . they are convinced that conduct which is regulated by abstract principles can never be good . . . There is no Good save obedient behaviour, save the obedient will. But his obedience is rendered not to a law or a principle which can be known beforehand, but only to the free, sovereign will of God. The Good consists in always doing what God wills at any particular moment.”
This position accords rather well with Fletcher’s entire ethical scheme, and in particular with his final proposition that love’s decisions are made situationally (at the ‘particular moment’) and not prescriptively. Yet Fletcher’s ethical theory privileges the individual agent in determining what the good is, whereas Brunner favours an existential moment in which God somehow reveals his will to the agent.
The final position outlined by Longenecker is that of Fletcher and his compatriots: that “Christians can determine what should be done in any particular case simply by getting the facts of the situation clearly in view, and then asking themselves, ‘What is the loving thing to do in this case?’ Such an approach, of course, does not rule out the prescriptive, for it accepts love as the one great principle for life.” Biblical exhortations are not ignored in this ethic, but they are treated as tactical suggestions rather than prescriptive norms.
In a ‘nut-shell,’ this last position is situationism, or consequentialism. Writing critically of it shortly after Fletcher’s first publication on the subject, Wolfgang Schrage noted that “[m]any believe that the totality and fulness of New Testament moral demands may be reduced to the commandment to love, or may be concentrated therein so that all single commandments of a concrete nature are superfluous.” Secular ethicists and moral philosophers – who incidentally portray a total ignorance of Fletcher’s work as well as that of most Christian ethicists – have taken much larger leaps from the old supernaturalism to naturalism (and, in some cases, into nihilism).
For example, William Provine holds that “no inherent moral or ethical laws exist, nor are there absolute guiding principles for human society. The universe cares nothing for us and we have no ultimate meaning in life.” Similarly, prominent American moral philosopher Joseph Margolis, “there are no moral principles . . . just as there are no laws of nature or rules of thought . . . whatever we offer in the way of principles or laws or rules are artifactual posits formed within a changing praxis . . . ‘Principles’ . . . are the instruments of effective ideology.”
Fletcher was unwilling to embrace pragmatism and relativism wholeheartedly and without reservation; he rejected both legalism and antinomianism, embracing ethical relativism with one condition: that one universal, prescriptive law remained – the law of love.
Fletcher’s Situation Ethics possesses a simple structure: its polemic is based on four working principles and six propositions. The principles were pragmatism (after C. S. Pierce, William James and John Dewey’s philosophical pragmatism), relativism (following Brunner and Niebuhr), positivism (theological positivism, as opposed to theological naturaliam, in which propositions are posited voluntaristically rather than rationalistically), and personalism (a concern for people rather than things, the subject rather than the object).
Fletcher’s relativism was fundamental to his assurance that there was one moral absolute, since he held that genuine relativity necessarily rested on an absolute norm of some kind. The six propositions forming the framework of his ethical theory were as follows:
- only one ‘thing’ is intrinsically good; namely, love: nothing else at all
- the ruling norm of Christian decisions is love: nothing else
- love and justice are the same, for justice is love distributed, nothing else
- love wills the neighbour’s good whether we like him (sic) or not
- only the end justifies the means, nothing else
- love’s decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively
Fletcher’s first proposition, then, concerns the unitary and intrinsic good of love, and the parallel question of whether value is inherent or contingent. He holds that, for Christian situation ethics, nothing is worth anything in and of itself. It gains or acquires its value only because it happens to help persons (thus being good) or to hurt persons (thus being bad) . . . Apart from the helping or hurting of people, ethical judgements or evaluations are meaningless.” On the surface this proposition seems reasonable. However, in postulating this proposition, Fletcher reveals the humanist and positivist framework on which he hangs his moral theology, for he eliminates the word and will of God from his considerations.
For Fletcher, “Good and evil are extrinsic. Right and wrong depend on the situation.” There literally is no intrinsic good apart from love. Here we revive the classical debate over the nature or source of the good: given the existence of a supreme being, does God love the good because it is good, or is it good because God loves it? Once God is removed from the ethical equation, anything is permissible, and the result is ethical nihilism.
Fletcher, of course, does not deny the existence of God, but in proposing that the abstract concept of love (albeit agape love) is the only intrinsic good, he negates the value of other prescribed commands in the New Testament and opens the door to relativism and subjectivism in Christian ethics. Regarding the choice of love as the sole moral criterion, Longenecker suggests that it is “an easily adjustable norm,” capable of easy transfer from a theological context to a humanist or naturalistic context.
Further, Christian situationists have been accused of refusing to allow any predefinitions of the nature and content of love, and blithely assume that “individuals, given only encouragement, will usually act lovingly when they understand the various facets, ramifications and implications of the particular situation.” Thus the situationist can say with Fletcher that an act contravening a moral principle other than love, if done with the motive of love, is not merely excusably evil but positively good.
As John Robinson puts it, “[l]ove alone, because, as it were, it has a built-in moral compass,
enabling it to ‘home’ intuitively upon the deepest need of the other, can allow itself to be directed completely by the situation. It alone can afford to be utterly open to the situation, or rather to the person in the situation, uniquely and for his (sic) own sake, without losing its direction or unconditionality.”
For Fletcher, even human life is relative; as well as ‘white lies’, he justifies ‘white’ theft, fornication, killings, breakings of promises. Fletcher summarises his ethical position thus: “we ought to love people and use things … the essence of immorality is to love things and to use people.”
One of his opponents, Montgomery, questions the ‘newness’ and the morality of Fletcher’s ethics, draws critical attention to Fletcher’s use of terms (such as ‘love’) and slogans. Montgomery argues that the only ethic that could stand above human limitations and prejudices and establish “absolute human rights” is the one that derived from the realm of the transcendent and not from individual finite situations. He further lists four areas in which a revelatory ethic is superior to situationalism:
- where love is defined in terms of God’s nature and is justified in terms of his being;
- where absolute moral principles are explicitly stated which inform love and guide its exercise;
- where a final judgement of evil is assured ; and
- where an effect remedy is provided for the root problem in the human ethical dilemma – man’ssinfulness.
Fletcher’s sixth proposition is the heart of his ethical theory: he states that, for the Christian situationist, “love’s decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively.” He eschews a “prefabricated, pretailored morality,” urging those who subscribe to his ethic to “sin bravely” – to quote Luther somewhat out of context. In other words, as long as a moral agent respects the one law of love, she or he is free to determine their own morality in response to existential situations.
But as Max Hocutt suggests, “[t]he fundamental question of ethics is, who makes the rules? God or men? The theistic answer is that God makes them. The humanist answer is that man (sic) makes them. This distinction between theism and humanism is the fundamental division in moral theory.” In my opinion, Fletcher appears more closely aligned with secular humanism than with orthodox Christian theology.
In addition, Fletcher seems to entertain a preoccupation with methodology at the expense of principle. Fletcher is apparently unconcerned at the loose way in which the term ‘love’ may be interpreted, and there is a fascination with the manner in which decisions are approached and ethical judgements rendered which leaves little room for moral reflection and reference to principle and precedent. Fletcher explains that in situational moral decision-making the objective is always love, the purpose is for the honour of God, and the subject is other people (one’s neighbour).
But other questions, such as ‘When’, ‘Where’, ‘Which’, and ‘How,’ can only be answered as each situation presents itself. Situation ethics is thus fundamentally neocausuistic; its operation and outcome depends wholly on individual cases, not on precedent or on principles.
To quote Fletcher again: “The metaphysical moralist of the classic tradition, with his intrinsic values and moral universals and code apparatus, says in effect, ‘Do what is right and let the chips fall where they may.’ The situational decision maker says right back at his metaphysical rival: ‘Ha! Whether what you are doing is right or not depends precisely upon where the chips fall’.”
In this respect Fletcher is so engrossed with casuistry and consequences of moral actions that he fails to acknowledge that motives, as well as consequences, have value.
As far as other fields of theology are concerned, situation ethics is of little import except for its distaste of the prescriptive and propositional. However, Götz points out that Fletcher’s ethical position impacts on the Christian doctrine of atonement. If any action may be good or bad, depending on the situation, then sin must be situationally defined. Götz argues that Fletcher cannot reasonably speak of people as sinners, since for him good and evil are attributes and not properties. By implication, people merely sin; they are not sinful or sinners (one gets the impression that this conclusion would not distress Fletcher).
Further, the atonement effected by Christ ultimately has no meaning for Fletcher. This seems to be a significant blind spot of Christian situationalism as presented by Fletcher, and flows directly from the logic of his sixth proposition.
In his quest for an evangelical hermeneutic to discern universal moral absolutes, Terrance Tiessen identifies five principles for their identification. For Tiessen, universal moral absolutes are identifiable by their basis in the moral nature of God, by their basis in the creation order (or human nature), by transcendental factors in the situation of their promulgation and by the lack of situational limitation in their formulation, by their consistency throughout the progressive revelation of God’s will, and by their consistency with the progress of God’s redemptive program.
Love is an obvious first choice as such a moral absolute, but it cannot be the sole intrinsic good; nor can we say from scripture that all moral decisions based on love must be made situationally without reference to biblical prescription. In the final analysis, these two propositions are both inadequate and lacking in truth as foundations for a Christian ethic. Fletcher has allowed his theology to become clouded by pragmatic and relativistic philosophy; perhaps this is why, although sometimes quoted today, his ethical system has not generally been accepted by the Christian church.
Fletcher’s theory was not new; it represented a view of ethics common to theological liberalism and acceptable to secular humanism. Fletcher’s genius was to gather together the various threads of the theory and state them in a popular way.
As far as evangelical theology and ethics are concerned, Fletcher’s situationism is an inadequate recasting of biblical commands and ordinances which appear prescriptive and not bound by time or culture. The notion that there is only one intrinsic good, namely love, is simply not attested by the biblical evidence. It is neither true nor adequate.
His suggestion that ethical decisions – all ethical decisions – should be made situationally rather than prescriptively is similarly inadequate. While many decisions may be made situationally, especially as social and technological changes compel human society to recast its casuistry, some decisions should be made by reference to biblical prescription.
In addition, Fletcher fails to define carefully what he means (and does not mean) by ‘love,’ and he fails to accept that motives as well as consequences must be considered when one attributes value to an ethical decision or a consequence of an action.
Dr Rod Benson is Research Support Officer at Moore Theological College, Sydney. He previously pastored four Baptist churches in Queensland and NSW, and served for 12 years as an ethicist with the Tinsley Institute at Morling College. This article is an unrevised essay he wrote in 2002.
Bibliography
Brunner, Emil, The Divine Imperative (trans. O. Wyon; London: Lutterworth, 1937).
Fletcher, Joseph, Situation Ethics (London: SCM Press, 1966).
Fletcher, Joseph & John Warwick Montgomery, Situation Ethics – True or False (Minneapolis: Dimension Books, 1972).
Fletcher, Joseph, Moral Responsibility: Situation Ethics at Work (London: SCM Press, 1967).
Götz, Ignacio L., ‘Is Fletcher’s situationism Christian?’ Scottish Journal of Theology 23 (3), August 1970, 273-278.
Hocutt, Max, ‘Toward an Ethic of Mutual Accomodation.’ In Morris B. Storer (ed.), Humanist Ethics (Buffalo: Promethus Books, 1980).
Long, Edward LeRoy, ‘The history and literature of “The New Morality”.’ In Harvey Cox (ed.), The Situation Ethics Debate (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967) 101-116.
Longenecker, Richard N., ‘New Testament social ethics for today.’ In Brian S. Rosner (ed.), Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 337-344.
Margolis, Joseph, Life Without Principles: Reconciling Theory and Practice (Cambridge, Massechusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1996).
Plato, ‘Euthyphro.’ In Benjamin Jowett (ed.), ”The dialogues of Plato.’ In Philip Goetz (ed.), Great Books of the Western World (60 vols; Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1990) vol. 6.
Provine, William, ‘Scientists, face it! Science and religion are incompatible.’ The Scientist, 5 September 1988.
Robinson, John A.T., Honest to God (London: SCM Press, 1963).
Schrage, Wolfgang, ‘The formal ethical interpretation of Pauline paraenesis.’ In Brian S. Rosner (ed.), Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 301-335.
Tiessen, Terrance, ‘Toward a hermeneutic for discerning universal moral absolutes.’ Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 36 (2), June 1993, 189-207.
Image source: SCM Press
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