Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
34Extract 1: William Barclay, ‘Situation Ethics’ (1971).
Taken from: Et hic s in a Permissive Soc iet y, by William Barc lay (Collins 1971)
Chapter 4, Situation Ethic s, pp.69–91.
When we talk about ethic s, we mostly mean a series of rules and laws and
princ iples by whic h we ac t and whic h t ell us what t o do. Most ly we take it that
ethic s c lassifies words and ac tions into things whic h are good and things whic h are
bad, and we take it that the goodness and the badness belong to the thing as suc h.
On t he whole t his is meant t o simplify t hings and t o make life easy. It means that
we have got, so we think, a series of prefabricated rules and laws and principles,
whic h we ac c ept and apply. It saves us from the diffic ult and the often dangerous
task of making our own judgments and dec iding things for ourselves.
But in 1966 an American professor called Joseph Fletcher wrote a book called
Situation Ethic s, whic h has proved to be one of the most influential books written
t his c ent ury. Flet c her’s basic princ iple is t hat t here is not hing whic h is universally
right or universally wrong; t here is not hing whic h is int rinsic ally good or int rinsic ally
bad. Goodness and badness are not built in, essential, unc hangeable qualities of
anything; they are only things whic h happen to ac tions in different situations; they
are only desc ript ions of things in different c irc umstanc es; they are not properties,
they are predic ates. Ac c ording to this theory of ethic s, there is no suc h thins as a
predefinition of goodness or badness. What we have to take to any situation is not
a prefabricated decision, but an ac t of judgment. Throughout this c hapter the
arguments and the illustrations are taken mainly from Fletc her’s two books,
Situation Ethic s and Moral Responsibilit y.
It has to be noted that the situation ethics man does not as it were start from
nothing. He knows all the rules and the princ iples; he knows all that the
ac c umulated experienc e of human beings has found out. He knows that there are
rules and princ iples; but he refuses t o say t hat any princ iple is absolut ely binding
and always valid, right or wrong in it self. Bonhoeffer said: ‘Princ iples are only t ools
in the hand of God, soon to be thrown away as unservic eable.’ The situationist does
not deny that there are princ iples; he does not for a moment deny the
c lassific at ions of t hings t hat experienc e has built up; but he c ompletely refuses to
be shac kled or bound by anything.
We have got to qualify all this; for to the situationist there is one thing and one
t hing only t hat is absolut ely, always and universally good – and that one thing is
love. So Fletcher’s first two propositions are:
Only one t hing is int rinsic ally good, namely love: not hing else. T he ult imat e
norm of Christ ian dec isions is love: not hing else.
Quit e c learly we will have t o be sure of just what love is. T he sit uat ionist is not
talking about what we might c all romantic love. In Greek there are four words for
love, there is erōs, whic h means passion; there is always sex in erōs. There is
philia, whic h is friendship-feeling; t here is physic al love in philia, but t here is loyalt y
and c ompanionship as well. T here is storgē, whic h is love in t he family c irc le; t here
is no sex in it; it is the love of a father for a daughter, a son for his mother, a
brot her for a sist er. And t here is agapē; t his is t he word. Agapē is unc onquerable
goodwill; it is t he det erminat ion always t o seek t he ot her man’s highest good, no
matter what he does to you. Insult, injury, indifferenc e – it does not matter;