Situational Ethics
I think that there are really a number of issues wrapped up in the cliche:
1. Is it ever necessary to do something morally wrong?
2. Is it acceptable for someone or for society in general to derive benefit from an evil act that a third party committed?
3. Is the morality of an action dependent on the harm done or by the benefits obtained?
I am not arrogant enough to suspect that I know the answers to those questions.
I respect intellectual humility and I know you are being sincere by disclaiming arrogance. However, I suggest that difficult ethical dilemmas can only be resolved by wearing a mantle of arrogance. My father, for example, was a conscientious objector during World War II. He had no problem undergoing malaria vaccine or medical starvation tests to defend his conviction that the taking of human life for any reason is murder. But when pressed on whether or not we need police or soldiers, Dad's answer would basically come down to an ethical claim that he saw was Biblically derived but nevertheless was also hopelessly subjective. Thus, for my father, a humble man, his moral creed was placed into the subjunctive: "For me, the taking of human life is wrong." I really don't see how this differs from someone who says, "For me, the taking of human life is right."
One approach that appeals to me was suggested by the existentialists, who embrace the presupposition of individual moral choice-- one of the few philosophies that really do so. What they ask you to do when you are trying to decide whether to join the Free French underground to fight the Nazis or care for your dying mother or who you need to throw overboad in a storm-tossed lifeboat is to be in effect God's consigleri, pope, president, and grand pooh bah of the universe, making a decision not merely for yourself but for all of humanity, and by so doing defining yourself and humanity by how you make that choice. The paradox is that sometimes we need to be selfish or at least a-ethical to make the clearest ethical decisions. An example is in the one choice that in my opinion accounts for most of one's misery or happiness-- who you marry. The question to ask is not will I be good for her, fulfill her, please her? The one question that must be asked and the answered in a clear affirmative is: is she good for me? It is that selfishness that in the scheme of things is selflessly ethical.
The questions you raise above basically relate to situational ethics, a theory of Christian ethics that was developed by Joseph Fletcher in the 1960s, based on the theory best articulated by the Beatles that "All you need is love." Thus, to put it simplistically, for Fletcher the ends jusitify the means if somehow the means are rooted in agape love.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation_ethics
The more I think about situational ethics, the less I think it provides much ethical guidance, as it is highly conditional or what Kant would call hypothetical on some fuzzy construct that we identify as "love". I'm not sure how much use it would be in resolving, for example, William Styron's scenario in Sophie's Choice, that compelled Sophie to select one of her children at Auchwitz for the ovens. However, I do think Fletcher's thinking was at least a step in the right direction away from the moralistic absolutism common not just among many Christians but people generally. John Caputo in his challenging but well-written book Against Ethics deconstructs ethics to the point where it becomes sometimes not just irrelevant but dangerous and that fixed moral rules are something of a mirage.
1. Is it ever necessary to do something morally wrong?
2. Is it acceptable for someone or for society in general to derive benefit from an evil act that a third party committed?
3. Is the morality of an action dependent on the harm done or by the benefits obtained?
I am not arrogant enough to suspect that I know the answers to those questions.
I respect intellectual humility and I know you are being sincere by disclaiming arrogance. However, I suggest that difficult ethical dilemmas can only be resolved by wearing a mantle of arrogance. My father, for example, was a conscientious objector during World War II. He had no problem undergoing malaria vaccine or medical starvation tests to defend his conviction that the taking of human life for any reason is murder. But when pressed on whether or not we need police or soldiers, Dad's answer would basically come down to an ethical claim that he saw was Biblically derived but nevertheless was also hopelessly subjective. Thus, for my father, a humble man, his moral creed was placed into the subjunctive: "For me, the taking of human life is wrong." I really don't see how this differs from someone who says, "For me, the taking of human life is right."
One approach that appeals to me was suggested by the existentialists, who embrace the presupposition of individual moral choice-- one of the few philosophies that really do so. What they ask you to do when you are trying to decide whether to join the Free French underground to fight the Nazis or care for your dying mother or who you need to throw overboad in a storm-tossed lifeboat is to be in effect God's consigleri, pope, president, and grand pooh bah of the universe, making a decision not merely for yourself but for all of humanity, and by so doing defining yourself and humanity by how you make that choice. The paradox is that sometimes we need to be selfish or at least a-ethical to make the clearest ethical decisions. An example is in the one choice that in my opinion accounts for most of one's misery or happiness-- who you marry. The question to ask is not will I be good for her, fulfill her, please her? The one question that must be asked and the answered in a clear affirmative is: is she good for me? It is that selfishness that in the scheme of things is selflessly ethical.
The questions you raise above basically relate to situational ethics, a theory of Christian ethics that was developed by Joseph Fletcher in the 1960s, based on the theory best articulated by the Beatles that "All you need is love." Thus, to put it simplistically, for Fletcher the ends jusitify the means if somehow the means are rooted in agape love.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation_ethics
The more I think about situational ethics, the less I think it provides much ethical guidance, as it is highly conditional or what Kant would call hypothetical on some fuzzy construct that we identify as "love". I'm not sure how much use it would be in resolving, for example, William Styron's scenario in Sophie's Choice, that compelled Sophie to select one of her children at Auchwitz for the ovens. However, I do think Fletcher's thinking was at least a step in the right direction away from the moralistic absolutism common not just among many Christians but people generally. John Caputo in his challenging but well-written book Against Ethics deconstructs ethics to the point where it becomes sometimes not just irrelevant but dangerous and that fixed moral rules are something of a mirage.
Labels: ethics
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