Disclaimer: I thought I was being a little genius when coming up with this title. Just to learn that "Situational Ethics" is a thing. So everything I am about to type down today, someone has probably written it down before I, and gave it a name for it to be described.
What is Situational Ethics?
According to BBC UK, Situational Ethics is the concept for right and wrong depending on the situation (surprise surprise). For example, if you are an elected leader of a town, and you had the choice to save group of townspeople or a save a group of foreigners, you'd save your townspeople because you want to keep your job. Let's change the situation a bit to keep things intriguing. Lets say you are the elected leader of a sovereign land, and you have allied with a powerful nation to help your country with trade and resources. Now let's put you back in that same situation, except this time the foreigners are obviously from that allied country. If you save your people, you are guaranteed more support from your land, but your alliance may wain and hurt the economical situation of your country. If you save the foreigners, your alliance will grow, and you may gave more incentive for that powerful country to help you more. Alternatively, you lose your backing from your people, and your days as an elected leader may be numbered. That is Situational Ethics, making the best decision based on the desired final outcome.
Of course, there could be more to a situation, and there isn't always just two final choices. You can always find another country to support you, or you and the country's leader can negotiate a resolve that leads to better outcomes in the future. Your career may not be over with the people if you rather help the other nation. If your savvy, you can elaborate on how you made a decision based on the country's future, it all just depends on the situation. I believe Niccolo Machiavelli believed the same, he did what he did because of the climate of Italian politics (LHP #53). However, I believe there is a problem with how Situational Ethics is set-up, but I will confront that later.
Who titled this idea?
Joseph Fletcher founded the Modern idea. According to Fletcher's Model, we should make decisions on the situation, and there is no such thing as fixed laws, other than love. "Love is the motivator of decisions" he claims, probably because of his religious background stating 1 John 4:8, "God is Love". Which was problematic when it later states that if you love God you'll keep his (10) commandments. Fletcher than stated if we were to do break the commandments it would be in good conscious if love was the motivator. Personally, I believe Fletcher is wrong, not everything is motivated out of love. If you are angry, and hit your spouse, it is not out of love. In Fletcher's model, in love is a law, therefore hatred is a law, disgust, lust, fear, humans do a multitude of things that aren't motivated by love. I believe Fletcher wanted to be correct so badly, that he perverted the meaning of love, and perversely used the Bible as his defense.
The problem I have with Situational Ethics
To use Situational Ethics is an interchangeable belief, for me is malpractice of Situational Ethics. What I mean is in everyday life, I believe the use of it is morally wrong. To not help someone because it might hurt you is wrong, unless it is fatal harm to you and others, or it is fatal harm to you and others livelihood. Taking the time to help someone and expecting nothing in return is a good thing to have. When we use Situational Ethics in our everyday life, we only prove to help ourselves, and that is not helpful to a society. we should be charitable and kind, but also rigorously truthful and not diluted.
The same isn't true when it comes to political/business situations however. Sometimes we have to show aggression towards other countries, there are ways of doing that other than war. In most cases, we can't be isolationist. While we should expect something in return for helping weaker nations, we should also help the weaker nations, therefore in the future, they won't ally with our enemies. America needs to stay the strongest superpower country, because the alternatives are worse. Sometimes, that comes on making perceivable immoral decisions. We should make decisions that makes puts our country further ahead than others, but at the same time doesn't hurt our people. We should display our dominance always, whether that is the military, negotiations, or sports. At the same time, we should show to other countries that we're reasonable approachable for weaker countries. We should negotiate for the best offer, we needn't ask for other countries help, but offer them our help with something in return. But we shouldn't apply all of this to our regular everyday life.
In conclusion, Situational Ethics is pretty hard when it comes to making political decisions. In everyday life however, it is self-serving, and does little to help in social societal development. As people we should do good because it is the right thing to do. Mind you, we should not be obligated to do good or forced to do good, that is how you ruin a society. We should do good out of kindness, because we have free will. As Al Steward said, "Nothing that's forced can ever be right, if it doesn't come naturally, leave it."
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On that note, I have just informed myself that I haven't reached my 1000 word mark. I know it is not a huge requirement, but I would like to get the best grade I possibly can. Therefore, To accomplish this goal, I will now write a bunch of silly words unknowingly unbeknownst to you to obtain the 1000 word mark. Good luck trying to find them all!
Silly extra words don't help. A total absence of links, embeds, and graphics hurts. If you were just going for 1,000 words, chapGPT could have done it for you. But that wasn't the assignment.
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