Situational ethics began as something well intentioned. Writing in the 1960s, Joseph Fletcher was an American theologian who claimed that “all laws are contingent, and only valid if they happen to serve love.” Laws and rules are particular to the situation. If they don’t fit the situation, they can be broken. Fletcher went on to justify eugenics and euthanasia using similarly doubtful and slippery thinking.
Cummings didn’t claim it, but he could have done, as a very convenient self-(post) -justification. He was simply demonstrating love by bunking off against the rules to stay at a location 250 miles away to access child care, in case it was necessary, in times of Covd19.
In my current book Do Agile, I dwell on timeless principles (including honesty) as being the bedrock of the capacity to future-proof yourself in order to more agile in today’s rollercoaster world.
Trust, as the Dutch saying has it, arrives on foot, and leaves on horseback. Breaking rules that depend on trust to save lives stretches the veracity of situational ethics to breaking point.
