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Situation Ethics: The New Morality (Library of Theological Ethics)

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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.

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.

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.

By its cover, this book looks as though it would be a reprint of Joseph Fletcher's original 1966 book. Yet all the reviewers thus far extol some "Montgomery" person for countering Fletcher's thesis.

But then the dishonesty of religious believers is utterly limitless.

Do not buy this version. Seek out the original. It may not have been perfect, but it was a serious and respectable quest. I acquired my copy around 1970 from a Lutheran student aspiring to ministry. I do not know whether his class was reading it to learn, or merely to oppose.

This book was delivered on time and in perfect condition. Would def. use seller again.

The book was in good shape. Nothing was written in it and the book looks pretty new. The description matched how the book really was. It beat waiting in line and paying for more. It took 3 days to get to me but just in time for all my classes to start.

I am a person that believes in the malleability of ethics...this book has permitted me to defend my points of view. i highly recommend it for anyone interested in the topic of ethics and how they change in different situations.

Hey...if I ever wanted to justify my sinful urges to have extramarital SEX I would read this book and live by Fletcher's maxim's! LOVE is the justification for all kinds of self gratifying SIN. What a great concept from a trusted source at that. Here is a guy that started out as an Episcopal Priest and died as an anti-christian atheist! Now that's a trustworthy source for ethical standards of righteousness and moral purity!

This is a good book in a way that shows that life quickly becomes too complicated for a few simple rules to work everything out effectively. The intellectual part played by the author seems to be like the "no actor anywhere better than the Jack of Hearts" in the song, "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts" by Bob Dylan, the longest song on the "Blood on the Tracks" album, which has been extremely popular for years. Situations are as different as the verses of that song, and Rosemary is not unusual when "she was with Big Jim but she was leaning toward the Jack of Hearts." Lily "had come away from a broken home with lots of strange affairs with men in every walk of life which took her everywhere, but she never met anyone quite like the Jack of Hearts." The song is more tragic than this book. The book is religious enough to adopt love as its ultimate standard. Love can be a great motivator on a personal level, but the situations that it leads to in sex and warfare can be quite striking, like American troops breaking down doors in the middle of the night because they are trying to find people and weapons that are more dangerous than Hosea's wife. I liked this book because it illustrated that sex might be considered useful in a lot of situations, which was not what I was experiencing in real life at the time. Our society is due for some attitude adjustment on sex and love, and this book clearly thinks love is more important, but people who read it are more likely to be interested in the sex. After you read it, you might know what Bob Dylan meant when he sang, "I know I've seen that face somewhere, Big Jim was thinking to himself."