Situation Ethics: Fletcher's theory, agape as the only intrinsic good, the four working principles and the six fundamental principles, with strengths and weaknesses.

What this dot point is asking

This WJEC theme asks you to explain and evaluate Situation Ethics, the teleological, relativist Christian theory developed by Joseph Fletcher. You need the central role of agape, the four working principles, the six fundamental principles, and the theory's strengths and weaknesses. It is the natural opposite to the absolutist Natural Law. AO1 wants accurate exposition; AO2 wants a reasoned judgement on whether love alone gives workable guidance.

The answer

Agape and the teleological, relativist core

Situation Ethics positions itself between legalism (rigid rule-following) and antinomianism (no principles at all): it has one principle, love, applied freshly in each situation.

The four working principles

• Pragmatism. The chosen course must actually work and produce a loving result; it must be practical.
• Relativism. Moral rules are relative to the demand of love; there are no absolute laws to be obeyed regardless.
• Positivism. The commitment to love is a free choice (an act of faith), posited as the starting point rather than deduced or proved.
• Personalism. People are put at the centre, before rules; ethics serves persons, not laws.

The six fundamental principles

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.

Examples in context

Model paragraph (does "do the most loving thing" give enough guidance?). 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. Worse, because love is undefined and self-certifying, almost any action can be rationalised as "the loving choice", which is why critics charge that the theory licenses whatever the agent already wanted to do. A strong evaluation therefore grants that agape is a defensible supreme value while arguing that, without some secondary rules to give it content, it offers too little practical guidance to function on its own.

Try this

Q1. What is the only intrinsic good in Situation Ethics? [2 marks]

• Cue. Agape: selfless, unconditional Christian love; the right act produces the most loving outcome.

Q2. Name the four working principles. [4 marks]

• Cue. Pragmatism, relativism, positivism and personalism.

Q3. Evaluate the view that love alone is enough to guide moral decisions. [20 marks]

• What the marker wants. A balanced argument weighing the compassion and flexibility of agape against vagueness, unpredictable outcomes, and the risk of justifying anything, with a reasoned judgement.