Fletcher's Theory of Situation Ethics
Joseph Fletcher provoked a great debate amongst Christians. He is
quite clear in the approach he advocates and in no way wants to be
confused with antinomianism, (The belief that through 'grace' a
Christian has no need to obey any moral rules/ laws.
In Fletcher's Situation Ethics; no act is in itself either good or
evil. He likes to speak in terms of principles, (Guiding decision
making): and he stressed particularly the cardinal principle of love.
Augustine had spoken of love in his celebrated remark, "Love God and
do what you want". For Fletcher, love for people is to guide
decision-making.
Fletcher sets out four prepositions, which apply to all ethical
systems. Firstly, one has to ask the question whether a particular
strategy actually works (Pragmatism). Secondly, Fletcher says that the
method must be relativistic. This is to avoid any absolutes. Thirdly,
Fletcher stresses every ethical system requires a faith commitment.
This is instead of deriving principles from reason alone (Positivism).
Fourthly and finally, Situation Ethics puts people at the centre of
concern rather than things (Personalism).
The main parts of his book 'Situation Ethics' (1966), Fletcher
outlines six propositions that underlie his situation ethics, in his
view.
First of all, the only thing, which is intrinsically good; is love.
Secondly, the only norm is love. (For Christian's, this replaces all
other norms as well). This love seeks the best interest of your
neighbour. Fletcher would say that if love can only follow law if it
is serving love. Otherwise, love must always be followed. He argues on
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...es human
rationality.
Oliver O'Donovan attempted to refine the issue of freedom. He argues
that the situation ethicists are right to point to the freedom from
bondage to the Law of Moses, which the coming of Christ has brought.
There is danger of misinterpreting this freedom. Man cannot close his
eyes to the universe as it already is. The spirit "forms and brings to
expression the appropriate pattern of free response to objective
reality". O' Donovan classified Fletcher as a conservative in ethics.
His position is that knowledge of the past cannot be simply
transformed into knowledge of the present. Ethical decisions faced in
the future can't be resolved by resorting to guidelines from the past.
Fletcher seems inconsistent with his own declaration that no actions
should be predetermined by any moral rule.
After the Civil War, it became evident that changes in the South had to be made. The old way had certainly not worked, and it was time for variation. Therefore, there was much political, economic, and social reforms introduced in the South between 1864 and 1877. After 1877, many of the changes stayed with the exception of Civil Rights.
C.S. Lewis begins his book, “Mere Christianity”, by introducing the Law of Right and Wrong or the Laws of Nature. This, however, arises a question. What is the Law of Nature? The Law of Nature is the known difference between right and wrong. That is, mans distinction between what is right and what is wrong. “This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that everyone knew it and did not need to be taught it”(18). Lewis relates the law to how we treat others. We treat others the way we want to be treated and if they treat us poorly in return we become agitated and annoyed with them. He states that we become a society of excuses when something goes wrong. He goes on to say that we want to behave in a certain way when in reality we do the opposite of what is right or what is wrong. We are humans and humans have primal instincts. We are all capable of using our instincts to do right or wrong. Lewis uses an example of a drowning man to prove this point. When one sees a man in trouble two desires or instincts kick into play, to save the man or ignore him because the situation at hand could endanger you. However, there in another impulse that says help the man. With this comes a conflict of instincts. Do you run and forget about it or do you jump in and help. Most people will help even if the situation is going to endanger their life. This is just one way of seeing moral law. The right in a situation will mostly always prevail over the wrong. “Men ought to be unselfish, ought to be fair. Not that men are selfish, nor that they like being unselfish, but they ought to be”(30). We are creatures of habit and logic. Lewis believes that the moral law is not taught to us rather known by us instinctively. He also believes that the law is real. The law is our behaviors in life via good or bad. Lewis states, “there is something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men’s behavior”(30). This opens Lewis to believe that the natural law is both alive and active in mans life today. Lewis goes on to say that the law must be something above mans behavior. He begins to relate this to the creation of the world.
The vignette described a woman who comes in for a session in an agitated state. The psychologist has worked with her for a few weeks and she was not overtly suicidal or homicidal. On this visit, the psychologist decided to refer her to an inpatient due to her becoming unreliable and taking 17mg of Xanax in 30 hours instead of 2.5mg prior to her appointment.The decision making process for this vignette is very important because of the dilemma involved. The ethical decisions-making process I am going to engage in will be the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologist and the decision- making process that accompanies it.
Everyone has some kind of doubt about morality. When we make a moral judgement we believe this has to have some objective background to make it true and Mackie argues that this is false. Basically, when we are making a claim we are in error which is why his theory is called the “error theory”. (Class notes, pg.16)Mackie believes that there are two important arguments to prove to you that there is no such thing as ethical objectivism.
The Solution phase is a mix of similarities and differences for each model. The Rational model incorporates a decision matrix to assist with the selection of a solution. Each option is listed with three various outcomes based off the criteria and each option’s ability to solve the problem. By utilizing a matrix, the user can play each solution out in order theoretically see the likelihood of success, which provides the user with a better chance of success in solving the problem. In the pharmacy example, we took Kramm’s top three solutions into the matrix and developed possible outcomes based off the set criteria. This gave the team a visual of possible outcomes and results for each, enabling us, as well as Kramm, to make a smarter decision by
...lighted” Augustine’s body (Confessions VIII. 5, p. 148). In this example, regardless of Augustine’s want to will succumbing to God, he found that his habits had rendered him unable to. His will in favor of the lower things held Augustine tighter than his will for God, which caused Augustine to choose the lesser good, which left him “in the midst of that great tumult I had stirred up against my own soul in the chamber of my heart” (Confessions VIII. 7, p.152). His two wills tore at him until he fully abandoned his earthly lust for the spiritual Godly desires; supporting his conclusion that free will in favor of the lesser goods causes evil. Therefore, free will is the ultimate source of evil.
Everyday individuals are faced with difficult situations, and in some cases these situations bring into question a person’s moral code. These dilemmas make people think about what the right thing to do is and what the wrong thing to do is. Any person can follow the four basic frameworks of ethics to figure out what needs to be done. Those frameworks being ethical egoism, utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. But first I will put you in a tricky situation and shed some light on the different routes an individual could take according to those four ethical frameworks. Then I will give my opinion on what I would do in the situation and I will state some objections a critic might have on my opinion.
Many people may think that a being a paralegal is just like being a lawyer, but that is not the case. In fact, there are different types of paralegals just like there are different types of lawyers. These are some of the different types of paralegals that are out there: intellectual property (“IP”) paralegals, family law paralegals, and bankruptcy paralegals (“What Are The Different Types Of Paralegals?” n.d.). According to, “What Do Paralegals Do? (n.d.),” the duties of a paralegal are, “Conduct client interviews and maintain general contact with the client, locate and interview witnesses, conduct investigations, statistical and documentary research, conduct legal research, draft legal documents, correspondence and pleadings, summarize depositions, interrogatories and testimony, attend executions of wills, real
According to Morrison and Furlong, normative ethics discovers what is right and wrong and guides decision making for all situations in many areas including health care. A normative ethical theory that this research will discuss is virtue ethics in the American health care system. The purpose of this research is to develop potential for excellence and to find the highest good for humans by doing what is right short-term, long-term, and to compete globally (Morrison & Furlong, 2013). Giving certain situations each theory can provide tools to assist in decision-making but virtue ethics concentrates on excellence and perfection.
In psychology, ethics are important because they set boundaries and control the way psychology is used by a set of laws. Ethic codes mainly protect clients from misuse of psychology. Ethics are important because they refrain the psychologist from lying to a patient. They also give protection to the public, clients, and psychologist. Overall, ethics are used to protect the psychologist and client from harm, as well as give control to the behavior in order to ensure safe and effective treatment. http://www.efpa.be/ethics.htm
Catherine Rainbow. (2002). Descriptions of Ethical Theories and Principles. Available: http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/kabernd/indep/carainbow/theories.htm. Last accessed 22cnd Mar 2014.
In philosophy, there are many different views regarding what is thought to constitute ethical behavior. Among them are the cultural relativist, utilitarian, and Kantian. Given a situation where someone must choose to either kill one person out of thirty so that the others could live or let all thirty people die in order to maintain their moral duty, the distinctive philosophical views would lead to varying responses. They contribute opposing ideas on what the right decision is. Generally, these three ethical theories have the power to influence what happens next.
The word ethics is derived from the Greek word “ethos” which means an ethical person is one who has a character. Ethics is a norm that translates ideals and values into everyday practice. Ethics is not a manual with answers on how to act. It is only a search for the right kind of morality. It is also the standards that define what right conduct is and what is wrong conduct. Ethics is concerned with distinguishing between good and evil in the world, between right and wrong human actions and between virtuous and non-virtuous characteristics of people. Ethics is also a branch of philosophy that involves questions about morality. Thus, ethics is about making choices which signifies how people act in order to make the right choice and predict good
Although there are many types of traditional theories of ethics and ethical test questions, I would only be discussing what is required for this paper. That is, three traditional theories of ethics and the ethical test questions associated to those theories. However, before I begin, I would like to start off by giving the definition of the word ethics. Pride, Hughes and Kapoor (2015) defines ethics as "the study of right and wrong and the morality of the choices individuals make" (p.34). With this in mind, I would now go further into details within the context of this paper. Enjoy your reading.
Philosopher David Hume divided the term “ethics” into three distinctive areas; meta-ethics, which focuses on the language used when talking about ethical issues. The general approach to this area of ethics is, it explores the nature of moral judgement, and it looks at the meaning of ethical principles. Normative ethics tries to find practical moral code that we can live by. It is concerned with the content of moral judgements and the criteria for what is right and wrong. Finally applied-ethics is the application of ethical theories and using them in real life issues such as medical research or human rights (Hume D, 2011).