1
Situation Ethics
Part One
FIT for viewing by persons aged 15 YEARS OR MORE
Contains images of a sexual nature
BEFORE SCREENING
As your class watches Situation Ethics for the first time, ask them to
prepare to answer the following questions:
{1} what happened in the nineteen sixties? {Time code: 0:31 – 2:06}
{2} what year was Situation Ethics published? {Time code: 2:14 – 2:30}
{3} why did Joseph Fletcher reject the Natural Law approach to ethics?
{Time code: 2:42 – 3:10}
{4} why did Joseph Fletcher reject antinomianism? {Time code: 3:21 – 3:50}
{5} according to Fletcher, how do the principles of Situation Ethics accord
with the spirit of Jesus’ own teaching? {Time code: 4:30 – 4:59}
{6} explain the meaning of “agape” {Time code: 5:02– 5:19}
{7} name the four principles of Situation Ethics? {Time code: 6:19 – 7:41}
{8} describe a criticism of Situation Ethics as an ethical theory? {Time code:
7:46 – 10:02}
{9} what benefits, if any, are there to Situation Ethics? {Time code: 10:05 –
10:35}
{10} how has a situational approach to sexual ethics impacted on attitudes
within the Anglican Church to homosexual relationships? {Time code: 10:35 –
11:22}
AFTER SCREENING
2
When Situation Ethics finishes ask your students to:
1. Write or sketch down the most memorable image that sticks in their
mind.
Show a friend their image and explain the reason why they chose it
Discuss what they consider to be the most important point in the film
REPORT their findings back to the rest of the class.
2. Think back over what they have just watched.
What would be the main
question they would want to ask Joseph Fletcher?
3. IN PAIRS discuss the seven statements below.
Make a list of {1} the statements they agree with, and, {2} the statements
they disagree with. After they have finished compare, contrast and share
the choices they have made with another couple in the class. Be prepared
to support their choices, with reasons.
Now exchange with other members of the class.
{1} Love is all you need
{2} People can do what they want as long as they don’t do it in the street and
frighten the horses
{3} Only love and reason really count when the chips are down
{4} It is only when I am faced with a decision there and then, that I can find out
what is the right thing for me to do
{5} Love is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs
{6} Love always protects, always trusts always perseveres
{7} If love is fully served, any sexual activity – oral, anal or auto – is morally
acceptable
4. Split up into small groups. Each group is allocated one of the quotes
{below}
3
You have THIRTY MINUTES to read, discuss and then prepare a
presentation on your quote to the rest of the class {including reading out
your quote}.
Ensure that as well as explaining the meaning and significance of your
allocated quote, your presentation includes your group’s views on the
subject too.
“Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some
pretty good questions.”
{WOODY ALLEN}
“Jesus said nothing about birth control, childlessness, homosexuality,
masturbation, fornication, pre-marital intercourse, sterilization, artificial
insemination, abortion, sex play, petting or courtship. Whether any form of sex –
hetero - homo - or auto - is good or evil, depends on whether love is fully served.”
{JOSEPH FLETCHER}
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a
resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can
fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and
surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
{ST PAUL}
“Situation Ethics, calls upon us to keep law in a subservient place, so that only
love and reason really count when the chips are down”
{JOSEPH FLETCHER}
“We claim that sexuality is a divine gift, which used properly helps us to become
more fully human and akin to God, because it is this part of our humanity that
makes us more gentle and caring, more self-giving and concerned for others than
we would be without that gift. Why should we want all homosexual people not to
give expression to their sexuality in loving acts? Why do we not use the same
criteria to judge same-sex relationships that we use to judge whether
heterosexual relationships are wholesome or not? I am deeply disturbed by these
inconsistencies and know that the Lord of the Church would not be where his
church is in this matter.”
{ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU}
4
SCRIPT
{To support extension work}
For over a thousand years attitudes to human sexuality were dominated by
the Natural Law approach to ethics, and, sexual pleasure was deemed
morally acceptable only when it was experienced within heterosexual
marriage for the purpose of procreation.
But, in the 1960’s, these attitudes began to be challenged.
The flower power generation of the 1960’s questioned traditional morality
and brought with it a simple philosophy: all you need is love. This huge
shift in thinking in the 1960’s came about as marginalized groups like afroAmericans, women, lesbians and gays demanded the same rights as those
accorded to their white heterosexual neighbours.
This mood of independent thinking and acting was reflected too, in
Christian ethics, when in 1966, an American Theologian called Joseph
Fletcher proposed a new way of looking at ethics; a proposal that many
people found shocking.
“All situationists would agree, people can do what they want as long as
they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses”.
{JOSEPH FLETCHER}
In Situation Ethics Fletcher argued that the Natural Law approach to
decision making created a moral climate were people were always looking
back to absolute, authoritarian rules to base their decisions on, rather than
making independent and autonomous choices based on their own
reasoning and their own personal conscience.
“Situation Ethics, calls upon us to keep law in a subservient place, so that
only love and reason really count when the chips are down”
{JOSEPH FLETCHER}
Although Fletcher was arguing for less emphasis on absolute rules, he was
no moral anarchist. As well as rejecting absolutism he also rejected what is
known as antinomianism where there are no rules and where people make
decisions in the moment; a climate, Fletcher believed that would lead to
offence, misunderstandings and ultimately ethical chaos.
5
Fletcher acknowledged that while it is not always easy to know with
certainty what the right thing to do is and certain ethical prescriptions like
Biblical ones can help guide us through this uncertainty, he also
maintained that situations sometimes arise when we have to abandon and
even break these prescriptions in order to do the most the most loving
thing and achieve the most loving result.
“Love’s decisions are made situationally not prescriptively. It is only when I
am faced with a decision there and then that I can find out what is the right
thing to for me to do”.
{JOSEPH FLETCHER}
Fletcher believed that this approach to ethical decision making was more in
the spirit of Jesus own teaching and ministry than an absolutist approach:
“Jesus said nothing about birth control, childlessness, homosexuality,
masturbation, fornication, pre-marital intercourse, sterilization, artificial
insemination, abortion, sex play, petting or courtship. Whether any form of
sex, hetero, homo, or auto is good or evil, depends on whether love is fully
served”.
{JOSEPH FLETCHER}
The love that Jesus spoke of is a love that is untainted by self interest and
self seeking. It is an elevated expression of love: called by the Greeks
agape – an unconditional giving of oneself free of egoism.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only
a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and
can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can
move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. Love is patient, love is
kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is
not self-seeking, it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs. Love
does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always
trusts, always hopes, always perseveres”.
{1 CORINTHIANS 13}
6
But in order for the principle of agape to work in the modern world there
are, according to Fletcher, four principles that need to be in place:
“Firstly, to be correct, or right, a thing, a thought, or an action, must work. It
has to be practical - pragmatic. It must be successful in bringing about the
intended result and this end result is the most loving.
Secondly, situationism is relativist; and the situationist avoids words like
“never” and “perfect” and “always” as he avoids the plague, he avoids”
absolutely because the ultimate criterion is “agapeic love”, which
relativizes the absolute but does not absolutise the relative.
Thirdly, faith working through love is the essence and pith of Christian
ethics. Reason isn’t the basis for faith, but it works within faith. This is
positivism.
Fourthly, ethics deals with human relations and Situation Ethics puts
people at the centre of concern, not things. The legalist is a what asker!
What does the Law say? Whereas the situationist is a who asker! Who is to
be helped? It is about personalism - putting people first”.
{JOSEPH FLETCHER}
There are however criticisms of situation ethics particularly the problem of
defining love. We can all define love according to our own understanding
but one person’s idea of what love is may be very different from someone
else’s.
Situationists insist however, that the love that Fletcher is talking about is an
objective love and one that transcends even romantic love or love of
friends – it is agapeic love – an unconditional love with no hope of reward.
However, even if selfless agapeic love is present in a relationship,
situationists have to accept that it is impossible to always predict with
certainty what will happen in a sexual relationship - and what can appear to
be a loving relationship can sometimes, tragically, result in unexpected and
unwelcome consequences.
Other critics of situation ethics worry that as well as not being able to
predict the consequences of our actions, any system that abandons a rule –
based approach to decision making opens the way for an increase in sexual
exploitation and sexual abuse and the innocent will only be fully protected
if potential exploiters or abusers are governed by objective moral
7
prescriptions not by subjective, and often misinformed, interpretations of
love.
Despite its flaws, there are benefits to situation ethics. It focuses on the
individual so a person’s circumstances always take priority over any
preconceived ideas about what is right or wrong.
For many Christians today, Situation Ethics reflects, ideally, the loving
message of Jesus as expressed in the New Testament and if love is fully
served then heterosexual sex within marriage is not the only moral ideal –
a position reflected in the modern Anglican church were there are openly
gay and lesbian priests and even a gay bishop.
For literalists and fundamentalists however, this is a step too far - and the
acceptance of same sex relationships in the church is a sinful betrayal of
the rule based values found in the Old Testament, rules which are absolute
and must always be obeyed.
Some modern Christian theologians are slightly more forgiving and
promise to love the so-called sinner but never love the sin; whereas, on the
other hand, more liberal theologians believe that the only principle to be
followed is the one to love and a committed homosexual relationship can
be as loving as any committed heterosexual relationship.
Situation Ethics
Part Two
FIT for viewing by persons aged 15 YEARS OR MORE
Contains images of a sexual nature
IT IS SUGGESTED THAT TEACHERS CAN EITHER SHOW EACH OF THE
THREE SHORT FILMS WITH THE STUDENT DISCUSSION, OR, PAUSE
AFTER EACH SHORT FILM FOR THEIR OWN CLASSES TO RESPOND.
The three short films are:
1. “Sacrificial Adultery”: Adapted from Joseph Fletcher’s Situation Ethics
{pages 164 – 165} {Time-code: 0:06 – 1:13}
8
2. “Bangkok Blue” {Time-code: 2:56 – 3:47}
3. “Miami Vice”: Adapted from Joseph Fletcher’s Situation Ethics {pages
163-164} {Time-code: 7:16 – 8:48}
Each short is followed with filmed discussion by A Level Theology
students at Hereford Sixth Form College.
SCRIPT
OF THE THREE
SHORTS
1. Sacrificial Adultery {0:06 – 1:13}
As a happily married mother of three small children, Mrs Bergmeir believed in
two absolute principles: `You shall never commit adultery’ and `You shall
never abandon your family” but in 1945 her life suddenly changed when
during the chaotic last few weeks of the Second World War Mrs Bergmeir
became separated from her family and was taken by Russian soldiers to a
prison labour camp in the Ukraine.
She discovered in the camp that the only way to return home was to become
pregnant. Mrs Bergmeir decided to abandon one of her principles for the sake
of another and committed an adulterous act by having sexual intercourse with
a Russian soldier. When she became pregnant she was released from prison
and was able to return home to her family.
Her husband was delighted with her return and welcomed her home with open
arms. Although Mrs Bergmeir was happy to be home, sometimes she
privately wondered whether she had done the right thing.
2.
Bangkok Blue {2:56 – 3:47}
During a business trip to Thailand a 49 year old married man and father of two
grown up children visits the bars of Bangkok where he meets a twenty five
year old sex worker.
Although at first he pays to have sex with the woman a relationship quickly
develops and they begin meeting every night.
The man finds himself falling in love, and, infatuated with his new lover,
emails his wife back in Britain to tell her he has fallen in love and wants a
divorce so that he can marry his Thai girl friend and start a new life with her.
9
3.
Miami vice
{7:16 – 8:48}
In 1962 while was on holiday in Miami a 22 year old American girl was
watched by American Government Secret Services Agents. They watch her
because they thought she would make a great counter-espionage agent.
The girl whom they code named “X” would be ideal they thought to blackmail
an important enemy spy by having sex with him and in so doing further the
interests of the country she loves, America.
The Secret services know that “X” is a patriot who comes from a family that
loves America. Her own brother has recently returned, badly injured, from a
war her country is fighting in Vietnam; a war that she supports wholeheartedly
as a just war. They also know that as a Christian “X” believes in the teaching
of Saint Paul that those in authority must be obeyed.
However, what the intelligence services don’t know is that as well as having
strong views on politics, “X” also has strong personal beliefs about sex. She
believes sex is a gift: a gift that should never be used for anything other than
love. She didn’t know what was the best thing to do
Watchwords
The following words and phrases have been used in these films, sometimes
more than once. They are useful words and phrases to get to know. Knowing
what they mean will improve your general level of understanding and self
expression. You might know some of them but the ones you don’t, be sure to
check up on:
Natural Law; procreation; absolute; authoritarian; autonomous;
conscience; antinomianism; prescriptions; situation ethics; agape;
integral; unconditional; egoism; pragmatic; relativism; positivism;
personalism; subjective; preconceived; eros; agapeic; intrinsically;
egoist; objectively; sacrificial.
© Joe Jenkins 2009
www.ethicsonline.co.uk
10