Quick questions on Situation Ethics: Fletcher, agape and the working principles - WJEC A-Level Religious Studies

Fletcher also stated six "fundamental principles": (1) only love is intrinsically good; (2) love is the ruling norm and replaces law; (3) love and justice are the same (justice is love distributed); (4) love wills the neighbour's good whether we like them or not; (5) the end justifies the means (only love does, nothing else); and (6) love decides situationally, not prescriptively. Together these make agape the sole, flexible guide to action.

The decisive test for Situation Ethics is whether its single principle is informative enough to direct action, and there is a real tension here. On one hand, the theory's flexibility is its great strength: by refusing to bind every case to a fixed rule, it can respond compassionately to situations that legalism handles badly, and it captures Jesus' own willingness to set the spirit of love above the letter of the law. On the other hand, "do the most loving thing" is strikingly indeterminate: it does not tell us whose good to weigh, how to compare competing goods, or how to act when we cannot foresee the outcome, and it relies on a prediction of consequences that is often guesswork.

What is the only intrinsic good in Situation Ethics? [2 marks]

Name the four working principles. [4 marks]

Evaluate the view that love alone is enough to guide moral decisions. [20 marks]