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Jesus said nothing about birth control, large or small families, childlessness, homosexuality, masturbation, fornication, premarital intercourse, sterilisation, artificial insemination, abortion, sex, foreplay, petting and courtship. Whether any form of sex (hetero, homo or auto) is good or evil depends on whether love is fully served. (Fletcher quoted by Jenkins p.49).
The precept 'to do whatever is the most loving thing' is not a law but a motive and an attitude that can inform moral choice. One needs to take each situation differently and act in love accordingly even if that means breaking established moral rules/codes of practice (laws?). For example, it is considered wrong to steal but if by stealing a gun you are preventing a person from killing people then you have acted in love and thus your theft is non-accountable. In fact the only accountability in Situation Ethics is whether your actions will result in the highest possible expression of love for others (i.e. what is the best decision I can make to help others?). .
Fletcher's position was developed in response to what he perceived as the only other alternatives in the ethical debate: Legalism (unalterable laws - absolutes) or the Antinomian approach (doing what seems right at the time - cultural relativism). Thus he sought to traverse a middle way of love between lots of rules and no rules. One of Fletcher's main arguments in 'Situation Ethics' is that Christians are meant to love people not laws and it is an argument that is grounded in four working principles and six fundamental principles. These are:.
Four working principles: 1) The practical course of an action is motivated by love; 2) The necessity to always respond in love to each situation; 3) The necessity to accept the premise of acting in love by faith rather than by reason; 4) The desire to put people, not laws, first. .
Six fundamental principles: 1) No actions are intrinsically right or wrong.
