[net.religion] Situational Ethics!=Moral Relativism

mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (04/25/85)

In article <498@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP> bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) writes:

>When I was much younger (in the days when we called moral relativism
>"situational ethics") I used to engage in thought experiments where I
>would envision social/cultural systems wherein things thought of as "moral"
>could be considered "immoral" and vice-versa.  Something very close to
>the situation you describe (random murder) is hypothesizeable in a
>society very overpopulated with respect to available resources -- your own
>lifeboat situation!  Remember, too, that any "absolute" morality must
>apply to non-human societies and cultures as well as to human ones.  An
>analysis of human nature is, at best, "insufficient data" for the divi-
>nation of an "absolute" morality -- what we would find is morality 
>relative to being a member of the human species.

Now wait a minute, Byron.  I don't want to get into another discussion about
the existence of absolute morality, but I have to take issue with your
identification of situational ethics with moral relativism.  The trend of
modernist theology, especially with in Anglicanism, has been towards a view
of the world in which the absolute morality is, when fully developed,
expressible only purely situationally.  There is a longstanding dispute in
Christianity over the need for codified moral rules; the anglican position
claims a need for them, but does not identify them with the "true" law.
When pressed, the codified rules must give way to what the situation demands;
in traditional language, you should follow the spirit of the law, not the
letter.

Now situational ethics are certainly very controversial, but it seems to me
that they represent a different notion than pure moral relativism.
Situational ethics claim that a practical set of rules is not absolute.
They imply a certain form of cultural relativism, but it is limited in a
very important fashion.  Moral relativism claims that the authority of the
rules derives entirely from the society.  Situational ethics, however, says
that, ideally, the differences between the rules do indeed reflect societal
differences, but that the rules get their authority from their embodiment of
the law IN THAT PARTICULAR SOCIETY.  One can imagine different sets of rules
deriving from the same spirit.


Charley Wingate     umcp-cs!mangoe