Situation Ethics: Christian Ethical Theory Developed By Joseph Fletcher

Situation Ethics, is a Christian ethical theory that was developed by Joseph Fletcher. It basically says that sometimes other moral principles can be overruled in some situations if love is the final consequence of an action. "Love is the ultimate law"1. Situation ethics underlines the importance of the individual in making moral decisions. The general understanding towards situation ethics has been taken up by the likes of Tillich, Fletcher and Bultman. Bultman believed that jesus didn't work to any ethical theory and that he had no ethics. Tillich wrote that 'the law is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law' meaning that the moral principle is based on christian love and that it should be applied to real life situations. Joseph
Fletcher developed the idea of making a moral decision for a particular situation. He wrote the book 'Situation Ethics' in 1996 explaining his theory. He stated that it was better that a person made a decision on what moral course of action they should follow rather than follow a set of unwritten rules they hardly know anything about. He believed that God doesn't want us to follow and conform to rules like robots as we are given the decision ...read more.