What The Comparison Tests

Moral decision making is the process of deciding what ought to be done in a particular situation. AQA places this comparison inside normative ethical theories, so the focus is not just "what do I personally feel?" It is: what rule, value, aim or character standard should guide a moral choice?

The comparison in this lesson can be remembered by the first question each approach asks.

This framing matters because students often compare ethical theories only by their conclusions. A better comparison begins earlier: what does each theory treat as morally decisive? Natural moral law looks first to act, reason and precept. Situation ethics looks first to loving outcome in context. Virtue ethics looks first to character, practical wisdom and the kind of person the agent is becoming.

Natural Law And Proportionalism

Natural moral law is deontological in the AQA specification because it treats some kinds of action as right or wrong according to objective moral law, not merely according to the result they happen to produce. In Aquinas, this does not mean arbitrary rule-following. Natural law is rooted in practical reason: human beings can use reason to identify goods that fulfil human nature and to avoid what frustrates those goods.

In decision-making terms, natural moral law normally works like this:

1. Identify the kind of act being considered.
2. Ask whether it is compatible with the basic goods and precepts of natural law.
3. Consider intention: what is the agent choosing as an end or means?
4. If the act has both good and bad effects, use double-effect reasoning to ask whether the bad effect is only foreseen, not intended.
5. Ask whether there is a proportionate reason for tolerating the bad effect.

The principle of double effect is important because it shows that natural moral law is not simply "ignore consequences." It distinguishes between directly intending a bad effect and accepting a bad effect as an unintended side effect of pursuing a good end. The act itself, the means, the intention and the proportionality of effects all matter.

Proportionalism changes the emphasis. It keeps the natural-law concern for moral value, but it gives much more weight to the overall proportion between values and disvalues in a concrete act. A proportionalist is more likely to ask whether there is a sufficiently serious reason to permit an exception to a moral norm. That makes proportionalism more flexible than strict natural law, but also more controversial, because critics argue that it can weaken clear moral prohibitions.

Situation Ethics

Situation ethics is teleological because it judges actions by the loving end they produce in the actual situation. Fletcher rejects both rigid legalism and lawless antinomianism. He does not say that moral decisions have no guide at all. His guide is agape: self-giving love that seeks the neighbour's good.

The decision-making chain looks different from natural law:

1. Look at the whole situation, including the people affected.
2. Treat rules as useful principles, not as absolute commands.
3. Ask what action would best realise agape.
4. Consider likely consequences for persons.
5. Choose the action that produces the most loving outcome.

This means situation ethics may approve an action that a stricter rule-based theory rejects, if breaking the rule is judged to serve agape in that case. But it is not simple selfish relativism. The agent is not asking "what do I want?" The agent is asking "what does self-giving love require for the people involved?"

The main contrast is therefore clear: natural law begins with the moral status of the act and its relation to objective goods; situation ethics begins with the situation and the loving outcome. One treats rules as close to moral structure; the other treats rules as subordinate to agape.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is character based. It does not begin by asking only "which rule applies?" or "which outcome is best?" It asks what a good person would characteristically choose, and how the action fits a flourishing life shaped by virtue.

For Aristotle, moral virtue is concerned with choice. Virtue involves finding the mean relative to us, determined by reason and by the judgement of the practically wise person. This does not mean "always choose the middle amount" or "everything is fine in moderation." Aristotle thinks some acts are wrong by kind. The point is that many moral decisions require trained judgement about how a virtue should be expressed in this situation.

The virtue-ethics decision chain looks like this:

1. Identify which virtues or vices are relevant, such as honesty, courage, justice, compassion or temperance.
2. Consider the specific circumstances and the people involved.
3. Ask what a person with practical wisdom would perceive as noble, balanced and fitting.
4. Choose in a way that expresses stable virtuous character, not impulse or self-interest.
5. Reflect on how the choice contributes to eudaimonia, or human flourishing.

This makes virtue ethics less like a rulebook and more like moral training. A beginner may ask, "What should I do?" Aristotle's deeper question is, "What kind of person must I become to see and choose the good well?"

Comparison And AO2 Bridge

The cleanest comparison is not "which theory is nicest?" It is a comparison of moral authority: where does each theory locate the reason for choosing one action over another?

This gives a useful AO1-to-AO2 bridge:

Notice how the judgement stays inside the specification point. We are not yet writing a full strengths-and-weaknesses essay. We are showing that different decision methods create different evaluative pressures.

Paragraph Craft And Links

A weak comparison says:

Natural law uses rules, situation ethics uses love, and virtue ethics uses virtues.

That is not wrong, but it is too thin for A-level. It names labels without explaining how decisions are actually made.

A stronger paragraph would say:

The theories differ in what they treat as morally decisive. Natural moral law, with reference to Aquinas, begins from right reason and objective goods, so a decision is judged by whether the act fits natural-law precepts and by whether any bad effect is only foreseen rather than intended. Situation ethics, with reference to Fletcher, is teleological: it treats rules as subordinate to agape and asks what concrete action will bring about the most loving outcome. Virtue ethics, with reference to Aristotle, is character based because the key question is what a practically wise and virtuous person would choose. This means the theories may reach different conclusions because they begin from different moral authorities: law, love or character.

Why this improves:

Useful synoptic links later:

• Theft and lying: the next AQA bullet asks how these decision methods apply to two concrete issues.
• Strengths and weaknesses: a later comparison asks whether these ways of deciding are persuasive, coherent and useful.
• Bentham and Kant: a later topic compares different approaches to moral decision making, but it is not the same AQA row as this natural law, situation ethics and virtue ethics comparison.