Anthony Wilbert S. Dianon, SDB
Reaction Paper On Fletcher’s Situational Ethics
Love is undoubtedly the main rule of the game - the game of Christian Ethics. Either Thomistic or Ochamistic Ethics, each recognized the relevance and the intrinsic goodness of love. However, even if how situation ethics tries to say that it does not use a pre-conceived solution to a problem in a situation, yet it thrives to pose for a principle, that is, the principle of ethics in situations.
Situation Ethics is but a good formulation of what the root of Ethics should be, which is Christian charity. But it would become a minimalistic one if one kills or steals out of love for one’s neighbor. And considers his action as good inasmuch as he did it out of love. There must be another principle which the agent must consider, aside from Love, which is the intrinsic goodness or badness of an act. Acts can never be all indifferent. There are always an intrinsically good or evil acts.
Take for example, stealing from the rich in order to help the poor. Does the act of stealing indifferent? Yes, for the Casuists. But no for the Thomists. Why? Because simply speaking, while doing a good act for the poor, you’re doing an evil act against the rich. Does love for neighbor enter in this scenario? I think, no.
Casuists reject the Thomistic Ethics because the latter uses principles which are true for all intrinsically good or bad actions. Whereas, for the former, all acts are neither good nor bad, but it depends on the motives of the agent. If the agent’s motive is Love, then even the Thomis-considered evil act would be become a good one in that particular situation.
I think, Situation Ethics lacks something which is very important with regards to Ethical problem. First is the intrinsic goodness and badness of a act. St. Thomas states: "In the moral order, an object is good when it is in conformity with reason, when it is suitable to reason. Other wise it is evil." Man has a proximate norm of morality, which is reason or moral conscience. He knows what is evil and what is good. Situation Ethics does not consider this. If all acts are indifferent, then why do we personally sense that stealing or killing is absolutely evil?
Secondly, Situationism has forgotten to consider the circumstances of the act. For them, circumstance does not affect morality of an act. What gives a say is Love. And therefore in the Ethics of the Situation, only the motives of the individual is considered.
What I think in this regard is, even if a person do something which is an act out of love, and yet the act is intrinsically evil as it is judged by our conscience, it does not make the act good, but it remains evil as it is. However, with regards to the morality of the person committing the act, it now depends on the motives or the circumstances of the individual’s action. "An objectively good act may become morally evil", when it regards the agent. Or "circumstances may increase or diminish the goodness or badness of an action". In this concern, the objectively good act may become even an evil once it is subjected to the morality of the agent. But never does it happen that an intrinsically good act becomes an intrinsically evil act. It always remains as it is, no matter what the circumstances of the agent are.
I see in the Situation Ethics, that while it has a grain of truth in its approach to morality, human act and morality are equated the same, so much so intrinsic goodness and badness is rejected. What left behind is the subjectivity of morality as well as the subjectivity of the goodness and badness of human acts. It, therefore, rejects moral conscience, as the determiner of the intrinsically good and evil acts. And thus morality varies according to the culture and practices of people.