Fletcher's propositions and working principles

Overview

Recall questions on agape and where Fletcher took it from, legalism, antinomianism and situationism, all six of Fletcher's propositions, the four working principles of pragmatism, relativism, positivism and personalism, Fletcher's account of conscience against Aquinas', and situation ethics as a middle way.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What does agape mean, and why does situation ethics make it the single moral norm?

   Model answer

   Agape is self-giving love directed at another person's wellbeing, distinguished from affection, friendship or romantic love. It is a disposition of the will rather than a feeling, so it can be commanded and extended to people you do not like. Fletcher made it the one governing standard: nothing else is good in itself, and every other rule is at best a guide to what love would do.

2. 2

   Where does the idea of agape come from, and how did Fletcher develop it?

   Model answer

   The term is drawn from early Christian writing in Greek, where the command to love God and neighbour is presented as the summary of the whole moral law and love is described as the greatest of the virtues. Fletcher, an American Episcopal priest, took that emphasis and turned it into a complete method: if love genuinely is the only absolute, then all other Christian rules become dispensable guidelines that love may override.

3. 3

   What are the three approaches to moral decision-making that Fletcher distinguished?

   Model answer

   Legalism, which arrives with a full set of prefabricated rules and applies them regardless of circumstance; antinomianism, which arrives with no principles at all and improvises entirely; and situationism, his own middle way, which brings the tradition's rules along as illuminators of the problem but is prepared to set any of them aside when love requires it.

4. 4

   Why did Fletcher reject both legalism and antinomianism?

   Model answer

   He judged legalism to be inhumane, because rigid rule-following produces decisions that harm the very people morality exists to serve, and he thought it made ethics a matter of consulting a code rather than caring about persons. Antinomianism he judged unprincipled and unpredictable, since a person with no norm at all has nothing to reason from. Situationism was meant to keep the wisdom of the tradition without its rigidity.

5. 5

   List Fletcher's six propositions.

   Model answer

   One: nothing is intrinsically good except love. Two: love is the governing standard in ethics and displaces law. Three: justice is nothing other than love distributed. Four: love seeks the neighbour's wellbeing whether or not the neighbour is liked. Five: only the end of love justifies the means. Six: love's decisions are made situation by situation, not settled in advance.

6. 6

   Explain Fletcher's first proposition, that only love is intrinsically good.

   Model answer

   Fletcher held that everything else, including honesty, obedience and even life itself, has value only instrumentally, in so far as it serves love. Nothing carries goodness in its own right. The practical consequence is radical: no act can be labelled wrong in itself, because its moral quality depends entirely on whether love is served by it in that situation.

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