Topic Test- Questions + Answers

1. Explain Fletcher’s “Christian Cloak & Dagger” scenario.

A woman must decide whether to sleep with an enemy spy in order to blackmail him as part of a plot end a war.

2. Explain Fletcher’s “Sacrificial Adultery” scenario.

A woman in a WWII prison camp becomes pregnant by an enemy guard in order to gain permission to return to her husband and three children.

3. Define antinomianism.

Lawlessness, or a state of no morality.

4. Define situation ethics.

The view that morality consists in doing the most loving thing in each situation.

5. Define agape.

Unconditional love

6. Explain how Fletcher positions situationism between legalism and antinominanism.

Situation ethics abandons a law-based view of morality, but still makes room for moral demands (i.e. to love others).

7. Name three social, political, or cultural influences on situation ethics.

Decline of traditional family; feminism; May 68 protests; rejection of authority; hippy movement; rock n' roll.

8. How does J A T Robinson describe situationism?

As the "only ethic for man come of age"

9. Give a biblical example of situationist reasoning.

Judgement of Solomon; the woman caught in adultery; Jesus cleanses the temple; Jesus heals on the Sabbath

10. What does Fletcher mean by “working principle”?

An assumption about what makes a good moral theory (as opposed to the moral theory itself)

11. List Fletcher’s four working principles.

Pragmatism; positivism; relativism; personalism

12. What does Fletcher mean by “pragmatism”?

Ethical approaches should be practical and liveable for human beings

13. What does Fletcher mean by “positivism”?

Ethical approaches are not neutral descriptions of the world as we find it. Instead, they are positive decisions that we must make about one other.

14. What does Fletcher mean by “relativism”?

Ethical approaches should seek judgements relative to specific situations.

15. What does Fletcher mean by “personalism”?

Ethical approaches should be judged according to how they treat human beings (i.e. persons).

16. What does Fletcher mean by “fundamental proposition”?

One of the six basic principles that together describe his approach to ethics.

17. List Fletcher’s fundamental propositions.

(1) Love is the only good (2) Love is the only norm (3) Love is justice (4) Loving is not liking (5) only the end justifies the means (6) love decides there and then.

18. Explain a strength of situation ethics.

Intuitive; flexible; humanistic; realistic; pragmatic; faithful to Christian teaching; contemporary; non-reductive; "the only ethic for man come of age".

19. Explain a weakness of situation ethics.

Counterintuitive; collapses into utilitarianism; individualistic; uninformative; tells us to "will the other's good" without explaining what that is.

20. What conclusion does William Barclay draw about situationism in Ethics in a Permissive Society?

it is wrong.

21. Explain Barclay’s “burning house” objection to situation ethics.

Situationism gives no moral information about which mother did the most loving thing.

22. Explain Barclay’s “wilderness trail” objection to situation ethics.

Situationism gives no moral guidance whether to save your father or the doctor with a miracle cure.

23. Explain Barclay’s “extraordinary situations” objection to situation ethics.

Situationism might look plausible when we consider extraordinary situations, but a rules-based ethics is more suitable for everyday life.

24. Explain Barclay’s “immaturity” objection to situation ethics.

Human beings lack the maturity to make moral decisions in the absence of rules.

25. Explain Barclay’s “moral absolutes” objection to situation ethics.

Some actions are intrinsically wrong, e.g. deliberately getting a child addicted to drugs.

26. Explain Barclay’s “psychological aids” objection to situation ethics.

Even where it seems we must break the moral law, there is often a way out (e.g. John Wesley).

27. Explain Barclay’s “grace of God” objection to situation ethics.

Rather than break the moral law, we should rely on the grace of God for a way out.

28. Explain Barclay’s “illusory freedom” objection to situation ethics.

Situation ethics assumes moral decisions are made spontaneously, but they are often determined by circumstances.

29. Explain Barclay’s “condoning immorality” objection to situation ethics.

We should make laws against "private immorality”, or else we tacitly condone it.

30. Explain Barclay’s “selfishness” objection to situation ethics.

Even if you yourself are justified in breaking a moral law, it is selfish to set a bad example to others.

Challenge Questions - Take it Further!

FOR THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS, SCROLL DOWN TO THE END.

1.Joseph Fletcher’s book Situation Ethics: The New Morality was first published in…

a. 1966

b. 1965

c. 1967

d. 1968

2. TRUE or FALSE? Although Fletcher upholds love as an ‘objectively valid’ moral principle, Fletcher is critical of the view that there are other absolute ethical principles or rules that must always be followed, regardless of the circumstances.

3. Which of the following is NOT an example of legalism?

a. Kantian Ethics

b. Natural Moral Law Theory

c. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990

d. John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle

e. Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical Humanae Vitae

4. Which of the following is NOT one of Fletcher’s criticisms of legalism?

a. Legalism has got things back to front. It prefers to ‘fit reality to rules rather than to fit rules to reality’.

b. Kantian ethics is unhelpful because it cannot be of help in situations where two Kantian maxims conflict.

c. It may sometimes be right to break the law of the land e.g. if the laws are racist (like the laws about racial segregation that used to exist in the American south).

d. The Bible should not be made into a rule book in which the laws are always meant to apply regardless of the situation.

e. Legalism places too much emphasis on the consequences of moral decision making.

5. Which of the following stories about Jesus does Fletcher use to show that Jesus was both a situationist and anti-legalistic?

a. Jesus disregards the Jewish laws about the Sabbath arguing that the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.

b. Jesus prevents an adulterous woman from being stoned even though Jewish law at the time permitted this.

c. Jesus attacks the moneylenders and dealers in pigeons at the temple in Jerusalem.

d. Jesus curses a fig tree symbolising Israel and its laws.

6. TRUE or FALSE? In summary, Fletcher argues that a legalist approach to moral decision making is always wrong.

7. TRUE or FALSE? The example given at the end of Fletcher’s book about a female prisoner of war who deliberately becomes pregnant so that she can be released and re-united with her family could be used as an example of anti-legalistic, situationist thinking.

8. TRUE or FALSE? Antinomianism involves the complete acceptance of guidance from established ethical principles.

9. Which of the following is NOT one of the examples of antinomianism given by Fletcher?

a. The Christian community in Rome who believed that their faith in Christ meant that they were already saved, and that ethical rules no longer applied to them. St Paul states that‘Whoring, incest, drunkenness, and the like are what they did, therefore.’

b. An early Christian sect called the Gnostics who believed themselves to be in possession of a special, intuitive knowledge of the meaning of Jesus’ teachings which meant that they would automatically know what the right thing to do would be.

c. Modern atheistic existentialism as represented by Sartre, who argued that because God does not exist the universe has no obvious meaning or purpose. However, this means that each of us is free to decide for ourselves what our purpose is and what our morality should be.

10. TRUE or FALSE? Fletcher criticised the Christian examples of antinomianism he describes because in each case the role of reason in moral decision making had been abandoned.

11. TRUE or FALSE? Both existentialists like Sartre and situationists like Fletcher believe that we cannot avoid the responsibility we all have to think our way through moral dilemmas in order to make the right choice, rather than to blindly follow some kind of legalistic rule that fits with the situation.

12. Which of the following is the kind of love favoured by Fletcher?

a. Storge

b. Philia

c. Agape

d. Eros

13. TRUE or FALSE? For Fletcher, love is a feeling not an attitude.

14. Which of the following is NOT one of the teachings about love that is mentioned by Fletcher in support of his own ideas about love?

a. Jesus’s teaching about love of ‘neighbours’ and ‘enemies’ in Mark and Matthew’s gospels.

b. Cardinal Newman’s view that “… it were better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extreme agony, than . . . one soul . . . should commit one single venial sin.”

c. St Augustine’s famous formula ‘Love with care, and then do what you will.’

d. Bertrand Russell’s comment that ‘what the world needs is Christian love, or compassion’

e. William Temple’s famous statement : “There is only one ultimate and invariable duty, and its formula is ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ … this is the whole of moral duty.”

15. TRUE or FALSE? Fletcher disagreed with the utilitarian idea that ‘if the choice is between [saving] your father and a medical genius who has discovered a cure for a common fatal disease [from a fire], you carry out the genius.’

16. TRUE or FALSE? Like Kant, Fletcher felt that moral decision making should not be guided by feelings but should be directed by the will. In other words, love is a willed attitude more than anything else that can be compared to Kant’s notion that actions should be performed out of a sense of duty or ‘Good Will.’

17. TRUE or FALSE? For this reason, Fletcher did not agree with critics of Kant who thought that Kant’s system of ethics was too inflexible. Fletcher thought that the decision to tell the truth to a would-be murderer can be seen as an expression of love for all humanity (including the potential murderer) rather than just the person we are trying to protect.

18. TRUE or FALSE? Fletcher believed that our main duty in the Kantian sense is to love.

19. TRUE or FALSE? For Fletcher love can be calculating.

20. TRUE or FALSE? Situation ethics is not a relativistic moral theory because its starting point is the principle of love rather than the situation itself.

21. ‘Even though it cannot be proved logically that God exists or that doing the most loving thing is the best ethical theory, I am going to choose to adopt this theory anyway in my moral decision making.’ This is an example of situationist thinking that is….

a. Relativisic

b. Pragmatic

c. Positivistic

d. Personalistic

22. ‘If you have to allow the Large Hadron Collider to be destroyed in a fire in order to save the life of someone who works there you should do so.’ This is an example of situationist thinking which is….

a. Relativistic

b. Pragmatic

c. Positivistic

d. Personalistic

23. Even though Eskimos usually care for their children, quite a few of the men die hunting animals for food. To keep the gender balance even in the general population, they therefore practise female infanticide. This style of ethical thinking emphasises…

a. Personalism and Pragmatism

b. Pragmatism and Positivism

c. Relativism and Positivism

d. Positivism and Personalism

e. Pragmatism and Relativism

24. TRUE or FALSE? For a moral decision to be correct according to the theory of situation ethics, all the four presumptions or working principles must have been applied in that situation.

25. TRUE or FALSE? The fundamental principle ‘Love and Justice are the same’ means that we should not be calculating in striving for Justice, as President Truman was in his decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

26. TRUE or FALSE? The fundamental principle ‘Love is not liking’ is similar to the Kantian notion of good will and means that we should strive to love everyone unconditionally whether we like them or not.

27. TRUE or FALSE? The fundamental principle ‘Love justifies its means’ supports the general Christian ethical notion that the end justifies the means.

28. TRUE or FALSE? The fundamental principle ‘Love decides there and then’ means that moral decisions must be made on the basis of the specific situation at hand and requires that the person making that decision takes on an existential level of responsibility to make the best choice that they can.

29. TRUE or FALSE? The fundamental principle ‘Love is the only norm’ transforms morality from a legalistic system of rules into an overriding but flexible law of love. It is this law of love that motivated Jesus to disregard the rules about not working on the Sabbath.

30. TRUE or FALSE? The fundamental principle ‘Love only is always good’ means that only love is subjectively valid, universal and intrinsically good in itself, so that an action which is right in one situation may be wrong in another, depending on whether that action is motivated by love.

31. Which of the following best describes Fletcher’s view of the conscience?

a. Conscience is given to us by God. It is the Holy Spirit working within us.

b. The conscience is something that we develop as we grow up, as a result of being told what is right and wrong by the authority figures around us.

c. Our conscience is useful because if we listen to it, it can tell us what we ought and ought not to have done.

d. There is no such thing as a conscience. The word simply describes the process we go through when we try to make moral decisions.

e. Because we have been made in the image of God, we have been given a special ability or faculty by Him which enables us to understand, through the use of reason, what the right thing to do is. This is what the conscience is

32. TRUE or FALSE? Fletcher agreed with St Paul that the conscience is a ‘reviewer’ of moral decisions not a ‘director’ of them.

33. TRUE or FALSE? Also during the 1960’s, Bishop John Robinson was developing similar views to Fletcher. He was supportive of Situation Ethics and himself wrote: “Assertions about God are in the last analysis assertions about love” and that Situation Ethics was for ‘man come of age.’

34. Which THREE of the following criticisms of Situation Ethics were made by William Barclay?

a. Although he was not discussing the use of atomic weapons, he comments that ‘Fletcher has shown that there can be situations in which a thing generally regarded as wrong could be the right thing to do. But that does not prove that it is good’. This criticism could be used against Fletcher’s suggestion that the use of atomic weapons against Japan in World War Two was good/loving.

b. Barclay thought that many of the examples discussed by Fletcher were extreme and unusual (e.g. see the one above) and thought that for more everyday moral decision making that ordinary moral laws might prove useful.

c. Fletcher’s views about the conscience imply that one could never have a bad conscience about a moral decision.

d. The level of freedom situation ethics allows is dangerous and could lead to decisions being made that that might be selfish or even cruel. This is because an ideal like unconditional love can easily be polluted by selfish human tendencies and bad habits.

e. The term ‘love’ runs through Fletcher’s book like a ‘greased pig’. In other words, it is far too slippery a term and ends up simply meaning what Fletcher wants it to mean.

f. There are hidden moral absolutes in Fletcher’s writing, such as, in relation to abortion, ‘No unwanted or unintended baby should ever be born.’ This is an example of the kind of inflexible, legalistic thinking that Fletcher attacks throughout the book.

35. The challenge of situation ethics has proved so great that some Catholic theologians believe there needs to be a compromise between Natural Law and Situation Ethics. ‘Proportionalism’ is one such attempt at a compromise. It accepts, as Natural Law does, that certain acts are wrong or evil acts in themselves. However, it says that it might be the right thing to do, if there is a proportionate reason, to perform such acts. Proportionalism is a theory put forward by….

a. Barclay

b. Hoose

c. Gustafson

d. Ramsay

36. TRUE or FALSE? Proportionalism has itself been criticised for ending up looking far too much like Situation Ethics itself, the theory it is meant to be an improvement on.

ANSWERS

1. a (and it’s easy to remember because it was the year that the England soccer team last won the World Cup).

2. True

3. d – Mill’s Harm Principle. Mill is generally thought of as having been what later became known as a ‘Weak Rule Utilitarian’. Weak Rule Utilitarians believe that exceptions can be made to rules that would normally promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Mill himself thought that the best way to deal with problems caused by a bad rule of law was to have it repealed rather than to break it.

4. e – in legalistic thinking as described by Fletcher, the consequences are never usually considered.

5. a

6. False – Fletcher argues that legalistic rules and moral laws can be followed in situations where a loving outcome is produced by them. One example he cites is of a woman travelling outside the USA to procure an abortion (an act which remained illegal until 1973):  “A woman in Arizona, having taken thalidomide, feared that her baby would be born with severe disabilities. So her husband took her to Sweden, where, as ‘love has more control of law”. Had the woman been living in Sweden to begin with, there would have been no issue with the law there.

7. True – True – she might have been breaking the commandment not to commit adultery from the book of Exodus if she was a committed Christian.

8. False – antinomianism is about the rejection of established ethical norms and rules.

9. a – – it was the Christian community in CORINTH that Paul was criticising.

10. True

11. True

12. c – agape

13. False – it’s an attitude not a feeling (because in some situations you have to will yourself to love someone you may not like).

14. b

15. False – he agreed with Utilitarian thinking in some ways and gave this example to illustrate and emphasise how love in his theory should be understood.

16. True – for this reason, it might be possible to argue that Situation Ethics deprives the concept of agape of its emotional content, the feelings of loving-kindness, empathy, sympathy and compassion that make it appealing.

17. False – Fletcher did think that Kantian ethics was too inflexible.

18. True

19. True – and he thought that one should perform an agapeic calculus when making moral decisions, a phrase adapted and derived from Bentham’s famous ‘hedonic calculus.’

20. False – Situation Ethics is thought of as relativist ethical theory because it takes the particular situation itself as the starting point for moral reflection.

21. c – Fletcher is suggesting that one has to positively affirm the existence of God and the rightness of Situation Ethics as an ethical theory in the absence of clear, conclusive evidence that these beliefs are true. He also says that supporters of alternatively ethical theories like utilitarianism are in the same position because the basic truth of such theories cannot be logically or empirically demonstrated.

22. d

23. e

24. False – the Four Presumptions or Working Principles are meant to guide but not determine agapeic moral decision-making.

25. False – Fletcher thinks that moral decision making does have to be calculating and suggests that a situationist might have reached the same decision as President Truman to drop atomic weapons on Japan.

26. True

27. False – for Fletcher, a loving outcome or ‘end’ always justifies the means, whereas in more mainstream Christian ethical thinking, the end never justifies the means. Again, the decision to use atomic weapons against Japan could be seen from both these points of view, either as a calculatingly loving thing (to spare the even greater loss of life that might have resulted from a land invasion of Japan), or as something that was so morally abhorrent as to be intrinsically wrong, regardless of the outcome (mainstream Christian ethical thinking).

28. True

29. True

30. False – Fletcher states that love is ‘OBJECTIVELY valid’ on page 64 of his book.

31. d

32. False – St Paul actually wrote that conscience is the director not the reviewer of moral decision making and Fletcher agrees with him, presumably because he thought that having an excessively guilty conscience about things that you have done that were bad could be counter-productive.

33. True

34. A, B and D. The other criticisms were made by Paul Ramsey (F) and James Gustafson (C and E). Note that although he was not discussing the use of atomic weapons, Barclay comments that ‘Fletcher has shown that there can be situations in which a thing generally regarded as wrong could be the right thing to do. But that does not prove that it is good’. This criticism could be used against Fletcher’s suggestion that the use of atomic weapons against Japan in World War Two was good/loving., Barclay thought that many of the examples discussed by Fletcher were extreme and unusual (e.g. see the one above) and thought that for more everyday moral decision making that ordinary moral laws might prove useful., The level of freedom situation ethics allows is dangerous and could lead to decisions being made that that might be selfish or even cruel. This is because an ideal like unconditional love can easily be polluted by selfish human tendencies and bad habits.

35. b- Hoose

36. True