In Community: Christian Situation Ethics January 20, 2013
by: Brent “Ber” Stackhouse, MBA
Within Situation Ethics, Episcopal priest and teacher Joseph Fletcher (1905-1991) discusses the outworking of love beyond self into the society in which one lives. Through an identification of Christian Situation Ethics, the role and importance of love are paramount. Fletcher notes, “For what is it that is due to our neighbors? It is love that is due—only love…. Love is justice, justice is love. Again granting that justice is giving to each man what is his due (the suum cuique of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas), how are we to calculate, weigh, and distribute love’s benefits among so many? As ‘persons’ we are individuals-in-community. Therefore love’s outreach is many-sided and wide-aimed, not one-directional; it is pluralist, not monist; multilateral, not unilateral. Agapeic love is not a one-to-one affair. (That would be philia or erōs.).
The active aspect of love within situation ethics is to know the ideals for others just as one would desire such an archetype for oneself. “[A]gapē is what is due to all others, to our various and many neighbors whether we ‘know’ them or not. Justice is nothing other than love working out its problems…. The right to religious freedom, free speech, public assembly, private property, sexual liberty, life itself, the vote—all are validated only by love.” From the examples of Fletcher, to love is not a nebulous and elusive concept, rather a purposeful activity resulting in an end, an end of good – an effect of that which is just.
