Situation Ethics: The New Morality [Paperback]

Joseph Fletcher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1967

Joseph Fletcher says: . . . Whether we ought to follow a moral principle or not would always depend upon the situation. . . . In some situations unmarried love could be infinitely more moral than married unlove. Lying could be more Christian than telling the truth. . . stealing could be better than respective private property . . .no action is good or right of itself. It depends on whether it hurts or helps people. . . .There are no normative moral principles whatsoever which are intrinsically valid or universally obliging. We may not absolutize the norms of human conduct. . . . Love is the highest good and the first-order value, the primary consideration to which in every act . . .we should be prepared to sidetrack or subordinate other value considerations of right and wrong. MONTGOMERY

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joseph Fletcher taught at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He was the author of many books, including Morals and Medicine and The Ethics of Genetic Control: Ending Reproductive Roulette. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: SCM-Canterbury Press Ltd; New edition edition (November 1967)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0334015383
• ISBN-13: 978-0334015383
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Montgomery 1, Fletcher 0, March 12, 2003

By 

Pat Goltz "PatGoltz" (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Situation Ethics (Paperback)

This transcribed debate is between John Warwick Montgomery, Lutheran theologian, and Joseph Fletcher, situation ethicist. Fletcher actually founded the particular school of thought of situation ethics, which argues that anything evil a person can do is morally acceptable provided it is done for the "right" reasons and because of love. Obviously, Fletcher does not characterize these acts as evil, but some people who can see that the emperor has no clothes will readily pick up on the subterfuge. Montgomery, on the other hand, is a man who says he was "dragged kicking and screaming to the foot of the cross." As a young adult and an atheist, Montgomery set out to disprove Christianity and ended up being a believer. A brilliant man, he hold eight earned degrees, five of them on the doctoral level. He has also written at least 50 books, many of them very scholarly, is an accomplished French chef and connoisseur of French wines, and speaks French fluently. He has taught at the Sorbonne and more recently, he has been the dean of the Simon Greenleaf School of Law.

With grace, wit, and good humor, Montgomery tears Fletcher's philosophy to smithereens. He shows how ethically bankrupt Fletcher's philosophy is, and the consequences of its acceptance. Its impact on our society has been very destructive; this book couldn't be more timely. Even if you agree with Fletcher, read this book to enjoy a good intellectual dissection. Yet, this book is accessible to the average reader. Too many lives have been destroyed by the likes of Fletcher, and it is a pleasure to meet someone who can show the foolishness of this point of view. Make no mistake: those who support situation ethics will disagree with me and take comfort in what Fletcher has to say. But for those of us with discernment, it will be a pleasure to read Montgomery's treatment. This book needs to be widely circulated and read.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Montgomery at his best against Situation Ethics founder, March 31, 2004

By 

Dr. J. Sarfati (Brisbane, Queensland Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Situation Ethics (Paperback)

This is an important book for defending ethics against the increasing trend to deny that they truly exist. Among the best arguments were showing that the situation ethicist can't even live consistently by his own belief system. Montgomery scored a powerful point when he informed his audience that **under Fletcher's own belief system**, he could be lying through his teeth in everything he said, since lying could be OK if it achieves the desired end.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clarifies the issues., June 13, 2010

By 

GangstaLawya (TimBuckToo) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Situation Ethics (Paperback)

This book is only 90 pages. However, it is packed with information with regard to ethics. It manages to put in black and white all the fuzzy areas in ethics. Joseph Fletcher is often blasphemous, however, articulate. John Warwick Montgomery is a competent debater and more astute amongst the two. Fletcher is an ordained Episcopal minister, now deceased, who was also an atheist, much like most Episcopal ministers (such as Shelby Spong).

Fletcher asserts that situation ethics appreciates the complexity of human experience more than its rival ethical theories. He asserts that situation ethics is between legalism (moral absolutism) and antinomianism (no morality whatsoever). As an example of the latter, he names atheistic existentialism. He gives an excellent exposition of that position on pages 22 to 23: "These people are saying something we need to respect intellectually. They hold ontologically that by its very nature, reality or being itself is radically discontinuous. Every moment of existence as they see it is separate from what proceeded and what followed. Given this basic ontological theory of radical discontinuity, there is no logical foundation on which to generalize, to say nothing of absolutizing generalizations. They have no web of life, no connective tissue on which to generalize right and wrong or good and evil or desirable and undesirable, and therefore (let it be said to their credit) they don't." As an example of this form of antinomianism, Fletcher cites the case where one man asks "If Bill asks you to borrow a hundred dollars because he's had unexpected medical expenses lately, would you lend it to him?" and the atheistic existentialist replies, "Gosh, I don't know; how can I unless he asks me?" Another example Fletcher cites is when one man asks, "How are you going to vote under the labor board's election three weeks hence, for the management or the union?" The atheistic existentialist replies, "Gosh, I don't know. I don't suppose I will until they hand me my ballot." Sartre and other atheistic existentialists all borrowed this notion of radical discontinuity from Hume in his Treatise on Human Nature, in the chapter entitled "Of Personal Identity," page 251,

Montgomery notes that many of Fletcher's terms are left undefined, such as the term "love" (pages 25 to 26). According to Fletcher, "Love" justifies us in choosing the lesser of two evils. For example, when savages ask someone if anyone else is left in the log cabin so they can murder them, the pioneer out on the prairie will choose the lesser of two evils by lying and letting them live rather than telling the truth and letting them get murdered. But the situation ethicist at this point runs into a problem with his presuppositions: this leads to the old conundrum of the Cretan. If a Cretan tells you that all Cretan's are liars, can you believe him? Similarly, for a situation ethicist, if the end justifies the means in love, and he tells you he is not lying, can you believe him? (page 32).

Montgomery concedes further that there are boundary situations when a person must choose between two sins (pages 50, 68 to 70, 76 to 77) such as committing the sin of lying in order to avoid the greater evil of letting one's family get murdered by savages. But, unlike Fletcher, Montgomery holds the person morally liable for that choice. Montgomery notes that, after the Fall, as illustrated in Genesis, moral absolutes, may, on occasion, come into conflict with each other. While it can be ascertained that one evil is certainly a lesser evil than another evil by comparison, they both remain evils. The situation ethicist sort of baptizes the lesser evil, magically transforming it into a good simply by exercising volition in favor of it in order to subdue a greater evil.

It is presumptuous to assert that, like the Mishna, I can formulate a set of meticulous moral rules on how to deal with every possible situation. It is presumptuous to assert that man can transcend his own situation so as to formulate an ethic that isn't biased by his situation and passions. Montgomery quotes Rousseau's Social Contract, on the section on law, which says,

"To discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them, who had no affinity with our nature but knew it to the full, whose happiness was independent of ours, but who would nevertheless make our happiness his concern, who would be content to wait in the fullness of time for a distant glory, and to labour in one age to enjoy the fruits in another. Gods would be needed to give men laws." (Social Contract, Book II, Chapter 7, The Lawgiver).

Montgomery notes that the conundrum is not resolvable by mankind. The only Person who can resolve this conundrum is God Himself. Thus, Montgomery points out that the inability of mankind to resolve moral conflicts does not show a flaw in the ethic of moral absolutes; rather, it shows the shortcomings of mankind in dealing with the problem and that requires divine intervention to resolve that problem. The ethical situation should drive us to religious commitment. When I have to choose between two evils, I must go to the cross of Jesus Christ and ask for forgiveness for the lesser evil I chose. Only God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, can redeem us. We are trapped in a Fallen Creation because of sin and we need His redemption on the cross to deliver us from inescapable evil.

It is noteworthy in passing that Joseph Fletcher came to abandon ethics altogether, including situation ethics, shortly after this debate. God, not man, can solve these, what Wittgenstein identified as "transcendental" problems. Wittgenstein identified ethics as transcendental in Rousseau's sense of the term of "Gods needed to give men laws." Jesus's resurrection from the dead proved His claims that He transcended our world and could judge it aright.