Situation ethics : the new morality /
Joseph Fletcher
- Philadelphia The Westminster Press 1966.
- 176 pages ;
Three Approaches -- Some Presuppositions -- Love Only Is Always Good -- Love Is the Only Norm -- Love and Justice Are the Same -- Love Is Not Linking -- Los Justifies Its Means -- Love Decides There and Then -- Postscriptum: Why? -- An Appendix: Two Other Corruptions and Four Cases
Explosive, as contemporary as tomorrow, this book will offend some, excite many many, and challenge all! Here is a manifesto of individual freedom and individual responsibility, elaborated within an ethic of love, which extricates modern man from rigid, archaic rules and codes. Proclaiming that any moral system is too shallow and petty to provide answers, the author outlines a methodology for decision-making which presupposes individual responsibility and declares that every man must decide for himself what is right. Dr. Flecher takes up where Bishop Robinson left off in Honest to God, in which the Bishop calls Dr. Fletcher's development of the new morality the "most consistent statement" of the situationist ethic. Rising above any creed, renewed morality of loving concern is based on agape, the love of which only God is capable, but which every man must endeavor to emulate. Just as Jesus defied convention to make decisions on the basis of particular people and particular circumstances, so must modern man. The sensational deductions which the author draws from this premise include the bold statement that any act–even lying, premarital sex, abortion, adultery, and murder–could be right, depending on the circumstances. This book will be called an invitation to anarchy. It will also be called a potent weapon in the contemporary war to free man from conformity, from fear, and from crippling guilt. It will provide a meeting place for Christians and existential agnostics–and a map for the perplexing terrain of moral issues that all must travel.
Christian ethics--Anglican authors. Situation ethics