What is situation ethics?
In situation ethics, right and wrong depend upon the situation.
There are no universal moral rules or rights - each case is unique and deserves a unique solution. Situation ethics rejects 'prefabricated decisions and prescriptive rules'. It teaches that ethical decisions should follow flexible guidelines rather than absolute rules, and be taken on a case by case basis. Key ideas: Pragmatism- it is a practical theory Personalism- puts people first Positivism- tries to get the best outcome in situations Relativism- there are no absolute rules |
One of the biggest difficulties in our contemporary society is that we try to locate the evil in somebody else and then we try to get rid of him. The police are pigs or the students are worthless, and so on and so on. The Marxists are the devils or the Republicans are the devils or you name it. We try to isolate the evil and then get rid of it. But the teaching of the Bible is that we are thoroughly entrenched in this ourselves, so we can't toss rocks at someone else; we have to see the extent to which the moral ambiguities fall directly on us. We need forgiveness; and only when we receive it do we have our lives cleaned up so that we can start seeing situations accurately- Joseph F. Fletcher |
Situation Ethics and genetic modification
This idea celebrates love- agape love, uses of gene editing to harvest human organs in e.g. pigs does not show that kind of love. As this is the fundimental principle of this ethical ideology it is hard to believe that genetic modification would not contradict Situation Ethics.
As well as this it promotes equality. One of the ways in which we could use gene editing in the future is to make 'designer babies' However, only the rich could afford this so our population would get less and less equal. The rich generations would get richer and more clever due to their 'designer' qualities.
On the other hand genetic editing in farming for fruits and vegetables would be fine. In fact, fletcher would support this as it promotes better and sometimes cheaper food. In a way this shows love to mankind as better food is provided for them.
In conclusion, i believe that Situation Ethics would not allow genetic modification as it would go against what the theory is built around- Agape love and equality. It is impossible to overlook these defects as it would be overlooking Situationism's fundamental ideas and principles.