News
www.engageworship.org/events/Luton2014
Training
http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/Teachers/Training/
Meeting guides part 2
Click here for "What are they talking about?"
Meeting guides part 4
RTU Discussion
http://www.christianitymagazine.co.uk/Browse%20By%20Category/features/Madibas%20Legacy.aspx
http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography
RTU FOOD
www.Christianaidcollective.org
http://www.food.com/recipe/brown-rice-with-fried-bananas-from-angola-499408
Schoolswork
5 Ethical Dilemmas
1: Doctor’s Sick Patients
You are a very skilled doctor with five dying patients, each of whom needs a different organ in order to live. Unfortunately, there are no organs available to perform any of the transplants. It just so happens that you have a sixth dying patient, suffering from a fatal illness, who will die sooner than the other five if not treated. If this sixth patient dies, you will be able to use his organs to save the five other patients. However, you have a medicine you can give to this sixth patient that will cure his illness and he won’t die. Would you:
a: Wait for the patient to die and then harvest his organs
b: Save the patient even though the other patients won’t get organs.
2: Robin Hood Robber
You have witnessed a man rob a bank, but then, he did something completely unusual and unexpected with the money. He donated it to an orphanage that was poor, run-down and lacking in proper food, care, water and amenities. The sum of money would be a great benefit to the orphanage, and the children’s lives would turn from poor to prosperous. Would you:
a: Call the police and report the robber, even though they would likely take the money away from the orphanage?
b: Do nothing and leave the robber and the orphans alone?
3: Friend’s Wedding
Your best friend is about to get married. The ceremony will be performed in one hour, but you have seen, just before coming to the wedding, that your friend’s fiancee has been having an affair. If your friend marries this woman, she is unlikely to be faithful, but on the other hand, if you tell your friend about the affair, you will ruin his wedding. Would you, or would you not, tell your friend of the affair?
4: Plagiarised Report
You are head of a student group at school, and are faced with a difficult decision regarding a year 11 girls’ risky, last-resort choice. This girl is generally an excellent student. All through her academic years, she has obtained straight A’s, has many friends and has never been in trouble. However, as her GCSE’s approached, she fell ill with the flu and fell way behind in her school work. She missed three weeks of classes, which resulted in her having to rush an essay that would be worth 40% of her English GCSE. She was so desperate about the essay that she went online and passed off a essay she found on that subject as her own. Her English teacher caught her and has referred her to you. If you enter on her academic record that she plagiarised, she will likely not be eligible to move onto Sixth Form and will have to retake her GCSE English exam the following year. What would you do?
5: Train Track
You are a train driver who is having a bad day at work. The brakes on the train have failed, and much to your horror there is a small
child stuck on the track in front of you. Just in front of the child however, is another track that you can flick a switch to move on to.
On this track however, there are 5 older men. If you change tracks you will save the life of the boy but at the cost of 5 older people.
Do you do nothing (and the child’s death is not your fault) or do you actively choose to change tracks?
Situation Ethics
Situation Ethics on 1 side of A4
Summary
Situation Ethics says that ethical decisions should be based on one single principle – to do the most loving thing. It is based on the golden rule “Love your neighbour as yourself”. The love referred to is AGAPE – a disinterested but compassionate concern for one’s neighbour. It is a CONSEQUENTIALIST theory.
Background.
Developed in 1960s by Joseph Fletcher. Reaction against LEGALISM of traditional Christianity and ANTINOMIANISM of sexually liberated “swinging 60s”
Biblical Justification – Fletcher claimed that Jesus took a situationist approach on several occasions and said that love God and your neighbour summed up the whole law.
Fletcher’s 4 working principles
1. Pragmatism - This is that the course of action must be practical and work
2. Relativism - All situations are always relative; situational ethicists try to avoid such words as 'never' and 'always'
3. Positivism - The whole of situational ethics relies upon the fact that the person freely chooses to believe in agape love as described by Christianity.
4. Personalism - Whereas the legalist thinks people should work to laws, the situational ethicist believes that laws are for the benefit of the people.
6 fundamental propositions
1. Only one thing is intrinsically good; namely love: nothing else at all.
2. The ruling norm of Christian decision is love: nothing else
3. Love and Justice are the same, for justice is love distributed nothing else.
4. Love wills the neighbour's good, whether we like him or not.
5. Only the end justifies the means, nothing else.
6. Love
Strengths
Situation ethics gives Christians greater autonomy (personal control) in their decisions which fits with the individualism of contemporary society.
It reconciles Christian ethics with contemporary morality. It offers a less rigid approach pre-marital sex, homosexuality, abortion and euthanasia which is more tolerant but still rooted the words and actions of Jesus.
It puts people before rules – personalism.
It can adjust to new situations that didn’t exist in the past. E.g embryo research.
Weaknesses
It is extremely difficult to practise agape love.
It is just utilitarianism for Christians and so has all its weaknesses e.g. calculating consequences.
There is a real danger that people will mistake agape love for their own selfish desires.
Many people expect more clear guidance from a religious ethic. Situation Ethics would leave people always unsure whether they have made the right decision.
