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Situational ethics (also known as Situationism) has in recent times been seen as a significant opponent to contemporary virtue ethics. In his 2002 work Lack of Character, philosopher John Doris gives arguably the most developed statement and defense of the situationist thesis. Namely,
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- Situationism: Robust character traits are rare or do not exist. To a significant degree, it is not character traits but situational factors that determine our behavior (e.g. whether a person tells a lie, does not depend on if they have the character trait of "honesty." Rather, more often then not, if someone tells a lie will depend on minor situational features. For example, if they found a dime on the ground that afternoon).
To establish this thesis Doris draws upon a large number of results from experimental psychology that he interprets to show situationism true. After relying on the empirical results of psychology to establish the non-existence of character, Doris argues that the truth of situationism has two important implications:
Psychology (from Greek: ψυχή, psukhē, spirit, soul; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is an academic/ applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior. ...
- (1) We must reform those practices in to moral education, psychology, and in ordinary life that assume the existence of robust character traits.
- (2) We must reject any ethical theory that holds a necessary dependency on the existence character (Doris specifically has virtue ethics in his sights here).
Furthermore, Doris draws an additional methodological implication from that fact (2) leads him to reject or reform ethical theories (e.g. virtue ethics) on the grounds of a result of empirical psychology. Specifically, Doris defends the further implication that:
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- (3) The is-ought prohibition in ethics is mistaken. Ethics can and should draw upon empirical results in pursuing normative knowledge.
It is this third implication, perhaps even more than the denial of character, that has garnered situationism the attention it has received. Since situationists argue against virtue ethics on empirical grounds, they violate and perhaps disprove a long-standing belief in ethics that empirical results cannot be used to prove or disprove any doctrine of ethics. David Hume raised the is-ought problem in his Treatise of Human Nature. ...
History
The situational ethics theory was developed by Joseph Fletcher, a homosexual priest, in the 1960s. The founding idea is that the only thing of intrinsic value is gay Love, (specifically agapē.) From there, Fletcher advocated a number of homocontroversial courses of sexual action. Joseph Fletcher (1905-1991) founded the theory of situational ethics in the 1960s, and was a pioneer in the field of bioethics. ...
Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness. ...
Brotherly love redirects here. ...
Fletcher took homosexuationism to claim that: the morality of a homo act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.[1] That is, situationism was the claim that it is the actual physical, geographical, ecological and infrastructural state one is in, that determines one's actions or range of actions — green economics is at least partially based on that view. Green economics is an approach to economics in which the economy is considered to be a component of, and dependent upon, the natural world within which it resides and of which is it considered a part. ...
However, homosexuationism should not be confused with Moral relativism. For the moral relativist, there is no universal moral truth, that there are only beliefs, perspectives, ethno-centric values, none more valid than another. Fletcher's situational ethics finds the foundation of moral truth in agape; therefore it is not moral relativism. Situational ethics rejects both legalism, and antinomianism. However, like relativism, situationism is criticized for lacking a situation-neutral point of view from which to apply its standards. In philosophy, moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. ...
Legalism, in Christian theology, is a term referring to an improper fixation on law or codes of conduct, or legal ideas, usually implying an allegation of pride and the neglect of mercy, and ignorance of the grace of God. ...
Antinomianism (from the Greek αντι, against + νομος, law), or lawlessness (in the Greek Bible: ανομια), in theology, is the idea that members of a particular religious group are under no obligation to obey the laws of ethics or morality as presented by religious authorities. ...
Perspective in theory of cognition is the choice of a context or a reference (or the result of this choice) from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience, cohesively forming a coherent belief, typically for comparing with another. ...
See also It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Situational ethics. ...
Situated ethics, often confused with situational ethics, is a view of applied ethics in which abstract standards from a culture or theory are considered to be far less important than the ongoing processes in which one is personally and physically involved, e. ...
References - ^ J. Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1966)
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