How Does Fletcher Understand The Concept Of Christian Love

Explain how Fletcher understood the concept of Christian love, with reference to his six fundamental ideas [30 marks]
Joseph Fletcher approached Christian love as a situationist: all decisions must bring about the best outcome in terms of love and people, not just rules for rules' sake. He offered different ethical principles to those of the church, know as situation ethics, yet maintains that these are still true to Christian beliefs. Fletcher's new approach to Christian love was clearly stated using his six fundamental principles; to show that agape overrules all other laws - any decision with unconditional love and selfless motives at the heart of it will always end with a desirable result. Fletcher used a quote by Tillich
to show the basis behind his new principles, that "love is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law".
Fletcher believed in the proposal that "only one thing is intrinsically good; namely love: nothing else at all".
This first proposition sums up Fletcher's view on agape as being the only thing good in and of itself. Love is intrinsically valuable, it has inherent worth; love is good. In Fletcher's eyes nothing else has intrinsic value but "it gains or acquires its value only because it happens to help [...] or to hurt persons", meaning that only love is not extrinsically good - every other action is good or bad depending on its circumstances and consequences. "For the Situationist, what makes the lie right is its loving purpose; [they are] not hypnotised by some abstract law" - this quote shows that a lie, in the eyes of a situationist, may not be considered a sin if love is best served in telling this lie. This is how Fletcher's approach differs from that of the church - situation ethics allows laws to be set aside if love is best served in doing so; whereas the church would argue that there is no good in lying as it goes against the law 'thou shalt not lie'. It is in this situation that Fletcher argues that legalistic ethics does not consider love, only rules - hence his founding of situation ethics - to ensure that the distribution of agape is the only absolute
rule.
Another of Fletcher's propositions held love with the upmost importance as he stated that love replaces law. Fletcher alleged that "the ruling norm of Christian decision is love: nothing else", showing that not only is love imperative in Christianity, it is the most imperative. To support his statement, Fletcher used Jesus as an example. He said that even Jesus disobeyed the laws laid down by the Bible and worked (healed) on the Sabbath day. Jesus was not doing this in blatant disregard of the Bible and everything it stood for, but he was instead doing it because he felt as though he was justified in breaking the law just once for love to prevail. This example helps to support Fletcher's understanding on Christian love - that love is not equalled by any other law, because "love is the absolute law". Jesus Himself summarised entire law by saying ‘love God’ and ‘love your neighbour’ hence showing that love is the only true law within Christianity. The law should only be obeyed in the interests of love, not for the law’s sake - it is for this reason that Fletcher rejects Natural Law. He says "there are no [natural] universal laws held by all men everywhere at all times". The problem with this is that it allows the individual to do anything in the name of love – there are no rules to say that someone has done the wrong thing if, in their eyes, it was the most loving thing to do.
Fletcher understood agape as "love distributed", this is his third proposition. He said that love and justice cannot be separated from one another, that "justice is love at work in the whole community, for the whole community". Fletcher stated that there are only injustices in this world because love has not been distributed correctly. One example of his was poverty: this is due to the lack of love between the greedy and the impoverished. Without this lack of love, there would be no injustice. Therefore, Fletcher understood Christian love, agape, as justice.
Fletcher's understanding of Christian love is not concerned with the feeling one person has towards another, it is not erotic nor is it sentimental, but rather a desire for the good of another person. It is our attitude of will towards someone else that is the unconditional love spoken of in the Bible. Fletcher said that "love wills the neighbour's good, whether we like him or not". In his mind, Christian love goes out to everyone as everyone is your neighbour - it is not reserved for those we like, but at hand for those we dislike also. Fletcher believes that agapeic love is unconditional, it requires nothing in return. This is the basis of his fourth proposition.
Fletcher's fifth proposition stated that "only the end justifies the means, nothing else". He believes that to consider moral actions without reference to their ends is a chaotic approach. Actions acquire their moral statement regarding their end - nothing has been labelled as good if it has never had a desired outcome. Therefore, Fletcher argues that when weighing up a situation, it is imperative to consider the desired end, the means available, the motive for acting and the foreseeable consequences. Without doing so, Fletcher would argue that love could not prevail as you could not claim to be right simply by following rules knowing the outcome will cause great harm. Only the end can justify your action and the outcome should have agape best served if love is at the heart of the decision.
Fletcher's final proposition was that "love's decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively". Whether something is right or wrong, Fletcher believes, depends on the situation. If an action will bring about an end that serves love most, then this action is right. Once again, he used an example of Jesus to justify his proposal. Jesus reacted against the kind of rule-based morality that surrounded him - for instance, He distanced Himself from the Jewish people He saw living within rule-based moral systems as He believed that there is never one action that will bring about the best outcome. Fletcher used Jesus' approach to show that the action put into place may not always coincide with the rules already laid out for us, there are times where, for love to prevail, laws must be set aside and situation ethics must be enforced.
Overall, Fletcher argues that Christian love is at the heart of every decision we make. Whether this decision is compatible with our moral 'rules' or whether we have to alter our decisions to best serve this love, should agape have been the intention the outcome will always be satisfactory.