Casuistry ( ) is a process of reasoning for resolving an ethical dilemma (moral problem) either by extracting or by extending abstract rules from a particular case of conscience, and reapplying those abstract rules to other, different ethical dilemmas.
Study of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct. . . .
Etymology
The term
casuistry and the noun "casuist" date from 1600 and derive from the Latin noun ,
case, as used in the phrase a "case of conscience", and the usual sense of the usage was pejorative.
History
Casuistry dates from
Aristotle (384–322 BC), and the peak of casuistry was from 1550 to 1650, when the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) used casuistic reasoning, particularly in administering the Sacrament of Penance (or "confession").
The term became pejorative following
Blaise Pascal's attack on the misuse of the method in his
Provincial Letters (1656–57).
The French
mathematician, religious philosopher and
Jansenist sympathiser attacked priests who used casuistic reasoning in confession to pacify wealthy church donors. Pascal charged that "remorseful" aristocrats could confess a sin one day, re-commit it the next, then generously donate to the church and return to re-confess their sin, confident that they were being assigned a penance in name only. These criticisms darkened casuistry's reputation in the following centuries. For example, the
Oxford English Dictionary quotes a 1738 essay
by Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke to the effect that casuistry "destroys, by distinctions and exceptions, all morality, and effaces the essential difference between right and wrong, good and evil".
[, quoting ]
The 20th century saw a revival of interest in casuistry. In their book The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin[Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning, Berkeley, U. California Press (1990, ).] argue that it is not casuistry but its abuse that has been a problem; that, properly used, casuistry is powerful reasoning. Jonsen and Toulmin offer casuistry as a method for compromising the contradictory principles of moral absolutism and moral relativism. In addition, the ethical philosophies of utilitarianism (especially preference utilitarianism) and pragmatism have been identified as employing casuistic reasoning.
Early modernity
The casuistic method was popular among
Catholic Church thinkers in the early modern period. Casuistic authors include Antonio Escobar y Mendoza, whose
Summula casuum conscientiae (1627) enjoyed great success,
Thomas Sanchez, Vincenzo Filliucci (Jesuit and penitentiary at
St Peter's),
Antonino Diana,
Paul Laymann (
Theologia Moralis, 1625),
John Azor (
Institutiones Morales, 1600),
Etienne Bauny,
Louis Cellot, Valerius Reginaldus, and Hermann Busembaum (d. 1668).
The progress of casuistry was interrupted toward the middle of the 17th century by the controversy which arose concerning the doctrine of probabilism, which effectively stated that one could choose to follow a "probable opinion"that is, an opinion supported by a theologian or anothereven if it contradicted a more probable opinion or a quotation from one of the Fathers of the Church.[Franklin, Science of Conjecture, p. 74–6, 83.]
Certain kinds of casuistry were criticised by early Protestant theologians, because it was used to justify many of the abuses that they sought to reform. It was famously attacked by the Catholic and Jansenist philosopher Blaise Pascal during the formulary controversy against the Jesuits, in his Provincial Letters, as the use of rhetorics to justify moral laxity, which became identified by the public with Jesuitism; hence the everyday use of the term to mean complex and reasoning to justify moral laxity.[170 "Casuistry..destroys, by distinctions and exceptions, all morality, and effaces the essential difference between right and wrong." Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism 1736 (pub. 1749), quoted in Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 ed.] By the mid-18th century, "casuistry" had become a synonym for attractive-sounding, but ultimately false, moral reasoning.[Jonsen, Albert R., The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning, University of California Press, 1988. (p. 2).]
In 1679 Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions ( stricti mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Francisco Suarez and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication.[Kelly, J.N.D., The Oxford History of the Popes, Oxford University Press, 1986. (p. 287).] Despite this condemnation by a pope, both Catholicism and Protestantism permit the use of ambiguous statements in specific circumstances.[J.-P. Cavaillé, Ruser sans mentir, de la casuistique aux sciences sociales: le recours à l’équivocité, entre efficacité pragmatique et souci éthique, in Serge Latouche, P.-J. Laurent, O. Servais & M. Singleton, Les Raisons de la ruse. Une perspective anthropologique et psychanalytique, Actes du colloque international «La raison rusée», Louvain la Neuve, mars 2001, Paris, La Découverte, 2004, pp. 93–118 .]
Later modernity
G. E. Moore dealt with casuistry in chapter 1.4 of his
Principia Ethica, in which he claimed that "the defects of casuistry are not defects of principle; no objection can be taken to its aim and object. It has failed only because it is far too difficult a subject to be treated adequately in our present state of knowledge". Furthermore, he asserted that "casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannot be safely attempted at the beginning of our studies, but only at the end".
Since the 1960s, applied ethics has revived the ideas of casuistry in applying moral reasoning to particular cases in law, bioethics, and business ethics. Its facility for dealing with situations where rules or values conflict with each other has made it a useful approach in professional ethics, and casuistry's reputation has improved somewhat as a result.
Pope Francis, a Jesuit, criticized casuistry as "the practice of setting general laws on the basis of exceptional cases" in instances where a more holistic approach would be preferred.[ "Pope to meet with sex abuse victims for first time in June", Francis X. Rocca. Catholic News Service. Online.]
See also
Further reading
-
Bliton, Mark J. (1993). The Ethics of Clinical Ethics Consultation: On the Way to Clinical Philosophy (Diss. Vanderbilt)
-
-
Carney, Bridget Mary. (1993). Modern Casuistry: An Essential But Incomplete Method for Clinical Ethical Decision-Making. (Diss., Graduate Theological Union).
-
Carson, Ronald A. (1988). "Paul Ramsey, Principled Protestant Casuist: A Retrospective." Medical Humanities Review, Vol. 2, pp. 24–35.
-
Chidwick, Paula Marjorie (1994). Approaches to Clinical Ethical Decision-Making: Ethical Theory, Casuistry and Consultation. (Diss., U of Guelph)
-
Drane, J.F. (1990). "Methodologies for Clinical Ethics." Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization, Vol. 24, pp. 394–404.
-
Dworkin, R.B. (1994). "Emerging Paradigms in Bioethics: Symposium." Indiana Law Journal, Vol. 69, pp. 945–1122.
-
Elliot, Carl (1992). "Solving the Doctor's Dilemma?" New Scientist, Vol. 133, pp. 42–43.
-
Emanuel, Ezekiel J. (1991). The Ends of Human Life: Medical Ethics in a Liberal Polity (Cambridge).
-
Franklin, James (2001). The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal (Johns Hopkins), ch. 4.
-
Gallagher, Lowell (1991). Medusa's Gaze: Casuistry and Conscience in the Renaissance (Stanford)
-
Green, Bryan S. (1988). Literary Methods and Sociological Theory: Case Studies of Simmel and Weber (Albany)
-
Houle, Martha Marie (1983). The Fictions of Casuistry and Pascal's Jesuit in "Les Provinciales" (Diss. U California, San Diego)
-
Jonsen, Albert R. (1986). "Casuistry" in J.F. Childress and J. Macgvarrie, eds. Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Philadelphia)
-
Jonsen, Albert R. and Stephen Toulmin (1988). The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (California).
-
Keenan, James F., S.J. and Thomas A. Shannon. (1995). The Context of Casuistry (Washington).
-
Kirk, K. (1936). Conscience and Its Problems, An Introduction to Casuistry (London)
-
Kuczewski, Mark G. (1994). Fragmentation and Consensus in Contemporary Neo-Aristotelian Ethics: A Study in Communitarianism and Casuistry (Diss., Duquesne U).
-
-
Long, Edward LeRoy, junior (1954). Conscience and Compromise: an Approach to Protestant Casuistry (Philadelphia, Penn.: Westminster Press)
-
Mackler, Aaron Leonard. Cases of Judgments in Ethical Reasoning: An Appraisal of Contemporary Casuistry and Holistic Model for the Mutual Support of Norms and Case Judgments (Diss., Georgetown U).
-
-
McCready, Amy R. (1992). "Milton's Casuistry: The Case of 'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.' " Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Vol. 22, pp. 393–428.
-
-
Odozor, Paulinus Ikechukwu (1989). Richard A. McCormick and Casuistry: Moral Decision-Making in Conflict Situations (M.A. Thesis, St. Michael's College).
-
Pack, Rolland W. (1988). Case Studies and Moral Conclusions: The Philosophical Use of Case Studies in Biomedical Ethics (Diss., Georgetown U).
-
Pascal, Blaise (1967). The Provincial Letters (London).
-
Río Parra, Elena del (2008). Cartografías de la conciencia española en la Edad de Oro (Mexico).
-
Seiden, Melvin (1990). Measure for Measure: Casuistry and Artistry (Washington).
-
Smith, David H. (1991). "Stories, Values, and Patient Care Decisions." in Charles Conrad, ed. The Ethical Nexus: Values in Organizational Decision Making. (New Jersey).
-
Starr, G. (1971). Defoe and Casuistry (Princeton).
-
-
Tallmon, James Michael (2001). "Casuistry" in The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Ed. Thomas O. Sloane. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 83–88.
-
Tallmon, James Michael (1993). Casuistry and the Quest for Rhetorical Reason: Conceptualizing a Method of Shared Moral Inquiry (Diss., U of Washington).
-
Taylor, Richard (1984). Good and Evil – A New Direction: A Foreceful Attack on the Rationalist Tradition in Ethics (Buffalo).
-
Toulmin, Stephen (1988). "The Recovery of Practical Philosophy." The American Scholar, Vol. 57, pp. 337–352.
-
Weinstein, Bruce David (1989). The Possibility of Ethical Expertise (Diss. Georgetown U).
-
Wildes, Kevin Wm., S.J. (1993). The View for Somewhere: Moral Judgment in Bioethics (Diss. Rice U).
-
Zacker, David J. (1991). Reflection and Particulars: Does Casuistry Offer Us Stable Beliefs About Ethics? (M.A. Thesis, Western Michigan U).
External links
