Religious Studies

Religious Studies GCSE - Christianity offers fully-comprehensive coverage of the Christianity full syllabuses and Christianity elements of the multi-faith syllabuses, including Roman Catholic. Written by two principal examiners for the largest exam board, it features: * All exam boards syllabus coverage including Roman Catholic * Full cross-referencing to enable the student to find the information they need to know at the depth required for their syllabus * Student graded answers to show the student how you gain marks, and, equally importantly, how you lose them, as marked by the people who actually set the exam * Large format, fully-illustrated double-page spreads to stimulate the learning process

From the chapter on situation ethics INTRODUCTION Situation ethics is a way of making the right decision. It is a way of making a moral decision. When we have to decide to do something that can be right or wrong, it is a moral decision we have to make. ONE CASE We are in a ship that sinks in the Atlantic. Fortunately, we manage to reach a lifeboat. There are seventy people in the lifeboat. One of the survivors is a ship's officer. He tells us that the lifeboat has rations for twenty people for ten days, and that twenty people could row the lifeboat to the nearest land in ten days. He says it is impossible to row the lifeboat to land with seventy people in it. He adds that the ship was miles off course when it sank and that it failed to send out an SOS. Everyone realises that we would certainly starve or freeze to death if we stayed put. No search plane would know where to find us. What should we do? Put overboard the fifty eldest or frailest people, so that twenty healthy people can row to the nearest land and live? Or should we do nothing, knowing that this will lead to the death of all seventy? WRONG PRINCIPLES According to those who use Situation ethics, there are two wrong ways to make moral decisions.

Use a set of moral rules, such as - do not kill; do not steal; do not commit adultery; do not make false accusations against someone; do not act out of jealousy; be forgiving; be patient; be kind; be good mannered; and so on. We decide whether an action is right or wrong by seeing if it keeps or breaks one of these moral rules. Situationists suggest that most Christians use this way of making moral decisions.

Use no rules. Decide spontaneously what is right or wrong. Alternatively, trust that the Spirit of God will tell us what to do. RIGHT PRINCIPLE According to those who use Situation ethics, there is one right way to make moral decisions. We apply the moral rule, 'love our neighbour as ourselves.' We apply this rule in any situation to discover what is the right thing to do. Take, for instance, the lifeboat situation in the example above. We decide what we should do by asking: what should I do to love my neighbour in this situation? Why do Situationists say that 'love your neighbour' is the only moral rule? Because, say Christian Situationists, this is the only moral rule that Jesus taught. They argue that Jesus did not teach a set of moral rules, just this rule. See Chapter E25, on Love-two commandments for the meaning of love. ANOTHER CASE A house is on fire. I am standing outside it. Inside the blazing building there are two people: my father and a skilled surgeon. I have the chance to dash into the house and rescue one of the two people, but I do not have time to rescue both of them. Which one should I rescue? Notice the question! It does not ask, which one do I feel I want to rescue? It asks, which one should I rescue? GUIDELINES According to Situationists we should decide which would be the most loving thing to do in any situation. We should not act on impulse, but think carefully about the right thing to do. We should make our decision using rational calculation, not sentimental feelings. In the two cases outlined above, it would be loving to rescue all the people shipwrecked, and both of the people in the building. However, it is not possible to do this. So we must decide which of the people we will help. Fletcher, a leading Situationist, argues that in a situation such as this we should use the following principles to decide what to do.

help the person whose need is greater;

do the action that helps the greatest number of people;

help the person who is more valuable. Let us consider these principles. It seems that in the case of the lifeboat, the second principle could apply. Thus the right thing would be to jettison fifty people so that twenty can survive. This would help twenty people. Otherwise everyone would die and we would have helped nobody. In the case of the burning building, the third principle could apply. So, the loving thing would be to rescue the surgeon, because she would be able to save many more lives than my father. A THIRD CASE A hundred years ago a group of migrants was making its way across America to settle in the West. They spotted some local Indians, so they hid in some bushes. They knew that the Indians would kill settlers. The group of Indians came very close to where the settlers were hiding in the bushes. One of the settlers had a baby who had been asleep when they first hid. But the baby was now wakening and was about to cry. The mother put her hand over the baby's mouth. If the baby made a noise the Indians would quickly discover the settlers and kill them. The mother saw that she was suffocating her baby. She had a difficult decision to make. If she kept her hand over her baby's mouth, she would kill her child. If she took her hand away, the baby would cry and the Indians would kill the settlers. What should she do? What do you think a Situationist would say? Remember that a Situationist thinks only one thing is right: to love other people. Nothing else is right or wrong. Fletcher says that 'everything is permitted' - killing, jealousy, generosity, stealing, and so on. None of these is right or wrong. Any of them becomes right if it is a loving action. It becomes wrong if it is done out of hatred or indifference.