2.2.3

Discussion Points: Moral Decision-Making

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Debates About Situation Ethics

Is situation ethics useful for making moral decisions? Is making moral decisions subjective and individualistic because situation ethics rejects absolute rules?

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Situation ethics is useful

  • It is flexible because it allows people to use their free will to decide what the most loving action is. There is no objective right or wrong answer in any situation.
  • It is not rigid and devoid of any emotion (which distinguishes humans from other mammals) allowing people to show more empathy when appropriate.
  • It is based on one simple rule: namely love. For this reason, it is relative, which means that we are not restricted by moral absolutes such as ‘do not kill’.
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Situation ethics is not useful

  • William Barclay believed humans can’t be trusted to do the right thing and it would only work ‘if all men were angels’.
  • This is supported by Augustine’s interpretation of humanity - which is fallen.
    • Augustine believed that humans are inclined to sin and are selfish. For this reason, we cannot be trusted to make the correct ethical choices.
  • In 1952 Pope Pius XII called Situationism, ‘an individualistic and subjective’ theory which will ‘justify decisions in opposition to the natural law’.
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Subjective & individualistic

  • There are no boundaries in situation ethics because it does not abide by any form of legal system.
  • Christian love can become individualistic (and potentially selfish). The individual has too much control or influence and people tend to be selfish.
  • Augustine and Thomas Hobbes (pictured) both believed that it is in our human nature to be instinctively selfish.
  • Subjectivity can never be the standard for human conduct: “all the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes” (Proverbs 16:2).
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Not subjective & individualistic

  • Situation ethics is based on the rule of love. So in some sense, is not individualistic because one must always do the most loving thing, even if they would prefer not to or it would endanger them or their families.
  • Jesus applied situation ethics and risked death by healing someone on the Sabbath. He did this on the basis of love.
  • There are many things the vast majority of society would agree on when it comes to love.

Jump to other topics

1Philosophy of Religion

1.1Ancient Philosophical Influences: Plato

1.2Ancient Philosophical Influences: Aristotle

1.3Ancient Philosophical Influences: Soul, Mind, Body

1.4The Existence of God - Arguments from Observation

1.5The Existence of God - Arguments from Reason

1.6Religious Experience

1.7The Problem of Evil

1.8The Nature & Attributes of God

1.9Religious Language: Negative, Analogical, Symbolic

1.10Religious Language: 20th Century Perspective

2Religion & Ethics

3Developments in Christian Thought

3.1Saint Augustine's Teachings

3.2Death & the Afterlife

3.3Knowledge of God's Existence

3.4The Person of Jesus Christ

3.5Christian Moral Principles

3.6Christian Moral Action

3.7Development - Pluralism & Theology

3.8Development - Pluralism & Society

3.9Gender & Society

3.10Gender & Theology

3.11Challenges

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