Casuistry

Different definitions of bioethics in American and Italian literature are reported. It is argued that they refer to three different conceptions of the epistemological status of bioethics: the first conceives of it as an application of moral principles to biomedical problems, the second as a methodology for the working out of clinical judgement, the third as a broader and interdisciplinary public inquiry. It is suggested that each approach grasps a part of the truth, for each singles out one level of the bioethical work. Bioethics is in fact a complex, three-level form of knowledge. The misunderstanding of this complexity has led to some confusion and to conflicts of attribution among those who are concerned with it.

Table of contents

1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism; 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy; 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a form of life; 4. Epicurus and ethics as care for oneself; 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions; 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism; 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism; 8. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelianism; 9. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism; 10. Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian moral doctrine and Aristotelian ethics; 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry; 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living
13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism; 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality; 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism; 16. Richard Price and intuitionism; 17. Adam Smith and sentimentalism; 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism; 19. Immanuel Kant, the practical use of reason and judgment; 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and a critique of Enlightenment universalism; 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment; 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism; 23. Edmund Husserl and the a priori of action; 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism; 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics; 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism; 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy; 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics; 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics; 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics.

RÉSUMÉ. — Souvent associé au nom de Stephen Toulmin, le nom d'Albert Jonsen est moins connu du public français. L'ouvrage qui marque l'entrée de la casuistique dans le champ de la pensée morale, The Abuse of Casuistry (1988), est signé des deux auteurs. Mais, curieu-sement, la pensée de Jonsen semble avoir été occultée par l'aura du philosophe Toulmin. Le présent article expose le modèle casuistique élaboré par Jonsen de 1980 à 1997. Toutefois le projet casuistique qui repose sur ce modèle argumentatif ne peut être cohérent que s'il est fondé par une herméneutique pratique intégrant, dans son approche, les pratiques morales effectives d'une culture. « […] the spirits of the antique casuists inhabit the corridors of modern hospitals » 1 Souvent associé au nom de Stephen Toulmin, le nom d'Albert Jonsen est moins connu du public français. L'ouvrage qui marque l'entrée de la casuistique dans le champ de la pensée morale, The Abuse of Casuistry (1988), est signé des deux auteurs. Mais, curieusement, la pensée de Jonsen semble avoir été occultée par l'aura du philosophe Stephen Toulmin. Si chacun s'est réservé la rédaction de tel ou tel chapitre, Jonsen pour les parties historiques, Toulmin pour les parties de portée philosophique, la réflexion d'Albert Jonsen dans le domaine de la casuistique précède la parution de cet ouvrage fon-damental. Après avoir rappelé les raisons de l'émergence d'une nouvelle casuistique, le présent article exposera les rouages du modèle casuistique que la propre pratique de Jonsen montre à l'oeuvre dans un exemple. Il apparaîtra cependant que le projet de Jonsen ne peut être cohérent que s'il est fondé par une herméneutique pratique intégrant, dans son approche, les pratiques morales effectives d'une culture. L'essor de la casuistique contemporaine s'explique par l'émergence d'une réflexion sur des questions pourtant anciennes et d'une profession inconnue jusqu'alors, celle d'éthicien. Ce qui a été parfois nommé la « nouvelle casuistique » 2 est placé sous la bannière de la pratique médicale 3 , de ses soudaines avancées 4 comme l'hémodialyse ou

The preliminary pages of La pícara Justina offer a parallel between a purported exemplary reading of Justina’s story and court hearings for people accused of crimes, as well as theological views. However, the preposterous circumstances and the arguments used by the female rogue when attempting to exonerate herself, assume such a degree of narrative disproportion and distortion that the discourse moves into parody. Based
on these observations, we analyze the function of casuistry within the framework of fictional literature.

Article for the inaugural issue of Theolog, the theological journal of The Log College and Seminary (formerly The North American Reformed Seminary). This paper, intentionally pitched at a pastor-practitioner level, introduces the philosophy and practice of biblical counseling, and makes connections with Puritan casuistry.

En su ensayo sobre Quevedo, Borges afirma que la obra de este escritor ha desmerecido no por falta de carácter o por alguna imperfección, sino precisamente porque está pensada para leerse por literatos. Un literato que escribe para otro literato: tal es Quevedo.
Las tres páginas de ese breve ensayo titulado El "Biathanatos" adolecen de la misma circunstancia y exigencia denunciadas respecto a la obra de Quevedo; el literato Borges escribe su ensayo con la intención de ser leído por otro literato más que por el lector promedio-si es que tal existe-: este ensayo exige la confirmación y quizá la confrontación del argumento, es decir, el ensayista busca y reclama una disputa inter pares.

Casuistry and principlism are two of the leading contenders to be considered the methodology of bioethics. These methods may be incommensurable since the former emphasizes the examination of cases while the latter focuses on moral principles. Conversely, since both analyze cases in terms of mid-level principles, there is hope that these methods may be reconcilable or complementary. I analyze the role of principles in each and thereby show that these theories are virtually identical when interpreted in a certain light. That is, if the gaps in each method are filled by a concept of judgment or Aristotelian practical wisdom, these methods converge.

Applied ethics is an academic discipline that inquires about the correctness of certain practical human activities, primarily using philosophical methods. This inquiry can be traced to antiquity since ethics is mostly concerned with the practical actions of daily life, and different professions have codes guiding such actions. As an academic discipline, it was conceived in the West in the 1960s due to secularization, technological advances, and a void in public policy. The global dimension in recent years makes these issues more acute. Applied ethics can be further specialized into bioethics, environmental ethics, sexual ethics, business ethics, and social ethics, in additional to newly emerging areas. From a global perspective, this entry will address the debates on the existence of objective moral truths, the sources of morality, the proliferation of competing models, the role of science and technology, the role of religion, and the tension between universal ethics and cultural diversity.

Mental reservations have been the source of great controversy for as long as they have been discussed. A lively debate on the topic flourished for many years among moral theologians, especially within the Catholic Church. More recently, several philosophers have included discussions of the issue in their works on lying. Unfortunately, however, confusion abounds regarding what mental reservations really are and why they were (and still are) defended. In this thesis, I propose to explicate what obtains in a broad mental reservation by having recourse to the tools provided by contemporary speech act theory in the philosophy of language. In so doing, I will examine whether broad mental reservations can in fact be distinguished from lies, as proponents of their use claim.

In this Philological Conversation, Carlo Ginzburg reflects on the place of philology in his work and explores the connections between philology, microhistory, and casuistry. We talk about the people who inspired his early thinking, including his father Leone Ginzburg, his mother Natalia, and his grandfather, moving on to Erich Auerbach, Leo Spitzer, and Sebastiano Timpanaro. We discuss the ethical and political implications of his research and reflect on the power of philology to give voice to the marginalized and suppressed. The conversation, which was edited for readability, took place during the Corona pandemic over three meetings via Zoom on July 13, September 10, and September 17, 2021.

Dernière figure des morales du cas, les morales de l'exemple achèvent le processus d'examen moral des situations par réduction des situations difficiles présentes aux situations analogues, et en elles, corrélativement, s'achève le processus d'extinction de la force obligatoire des normes prescrites 1. Les morales de l'exemple évaluent moralement une situation, ou elles cherchent, pour elle, quelle norme appliquer, en la comparant à une situation unique vécue, empruntée à l'histoire. Deux situations sont donc rapprochées au moyen de leurs énoncés descriptifs de sorte que l'une apporte l'éclairage normatif (ou prescriptif) dont l'autre est dépourvue 2. Les procédés d'évaluation et d'invention des normes reprennent donc ceux de la casuistique. Non sans de grandes différences toutefois. Avec la casuistique, comparaison devait être faite entre deux situations,-l'une typique et l'autre vécue et soumise à examen. Dans les morales de l'exemple, la situation difficile est rapportée à une situation archaïque : les hauts faits d'un héros, les actes surhumains d'un saint traversé par la grâce constituent autant de situations qui permettent d'évaluer une situation présente ou de déterminer quelle norme de conduite morale appliquer. Les morales de l'exemple mettent sur les plateaux d'une même balance deux situations dont elles feignent de ne pas voir les différences dans leur statut ontologique. Ce qui est vécu dans une culture est rapporté à une époque lointaine, à un monde des mythes ou des livres,-ce " monde des paladins " raillé par DESCARTES. Davantage : en constituant des situations typiques, la casuistique prenait garde de constituer un monde possible ; la référence à un monde archaïque retire aux morales de l'exemple la construction d'un monde non contradictoire. Ainsi, les normes qui seraient proposées pour lever les difficultés d'une situation difficile vécue à partir de la comparaison avec des situations archaïques analogues perdent toute force obligatoire : ce qu'un saint a pu accomplir, qui d'autre saurait le faire ? La considération de la singularité ne peut aller au-delà d'un simple constat. L'odyssée des morales du cas arrive au port : le souci de la singularité conduit à rapprocher des situations analogues ; un tel rapprochement retire toute force prescriptive aux normes découvertes par ce rapprochement des singularités.

CHAPITRE 5. La casuistique.
" Few intellectual activities have been more reviled than casuistry ; yet few practical activities are (…) more indispensable " (JONSEN, TOULMIN).

Avec la casuistique, deuxième figure des morales du cas, s'accélère le mouvement vers la confusion des situations difficiles présentes avec des situations humaines analogues, en même temps que s'amenuise la force obligatoire des normes prescrivant l'exécution d'un contenu d'action. D'un point de vue conceptuel, l'originalité de cette figure casuistique tient dans l'organisation des médiations qu'elle propose entre les énoncés, les personnes et les situations. Cette fois-ci, l'évaluation morale de la situation difficile s'effectue par la relation posée entre une situation typique et la situation soumise à examen. En effet, et rien ne le montrera mieux que les Dictionnaires de cas de conscience, les situations soumises à la sagacité des casuistes sont résolues par leur confrontation à des situations factices dans lesquelles se trouvent évidemment des normes de conduite à suivre ou à proscrire. Une situation est donc jugée par une autre situation, laquelle selon les procédés adoptés par les casuistes, est tantôt factice, tantôt empruntée à l'histoire biblique, tantôt empruntée à l'un des auteurs graves dont se moquera PASCAL. Dans son principe, le travail du casuiste sera de mettre en relation la situation vécue avec l'une des situations typiques, déjà résolues ou aisément et clairement traitables, de sorte que la solution puisse lui être empruntée. Les genres livresques du recueil, du dictionnaire, trouvent ici leur pleine mesure : il ne s'agit que de trouver dans le livre ce qui peut rendre un écho, mais un écho intelligible, à la vie. Cela bouleverse la place et la fonction des autres médiations. La médiation entre les hommes perd l'acuité qu'elle avait dans la parénèse antique ; il ne s'agit, avec le " bon Père " des Provinciales que d'entrer dans la bibliothèque, de trouver le bon auteur et le bon livre. La floraison des auteurs n'a rien de scandaleux pour le Père jésuite ; même, elle répond parfaitement aux exigences du projet casuistique. Plus saisissante est la médiation entre les énoncés : la confrontation des situations s'effectue par celle des énoncés qui les décrivent.

A summary of this paper was presented at MESA 2007.
From the introduction:

The terms “casuistry” and “casuistic” have been employed by a number of modern, Western scholars of Islam (including Ignaz Goldziher, Joseph Schacht, Noel Coulson, Yaʿakov Meron, and Baber Johansen) to describe various features, essential processes, and overall trends in Islamic law. It is only Johansen, however, who has treated casuistry in Islamic law as a topic worthy of singular inquiry. Cognizant of a conspicuously negative slant in previous ascriptions of casuistry to Islamic legal method, Johansen takes a different tack, contending that “Muslim jurists often engaged in casuistry in an effort to answer practical problems that evolve from [a] process of social differentiation.”  In supporting this claim, he relies upon a uniquely refined definition of casuistry, a European Catholic paradigm of the evolution of casuistic method, and an illustrative series of ostensibly casuistic Islamic legal phenomena.
It is the intent of the present study to continue the debate regarding the role of casuistry in Islamic law, and to do so from an entirely new set of considerations. In fact, these new considerations indicate clearly that the very use of the term to explain phenomena in pre-modern sharīʿa is at best inappropriate and at worst misleading, and ought to be scrapped entirely. Instead, an ‘indigenous’ lens for analyzing Islamic legal phenomena will be uncovered and re-introduced. Such a lens is molded from established traditions of reasoning and dialectic permeating the Islamic sciences, not least the juridical. It is therefore hoped that the case for replacing discussions of “casuistry” in Islamic law with discussions of juridical reasoning and dialectic shall be convincingly made in the proposed sections of this investigation.
In Part I, the terms “casuistry” and “casuistic” will be exposed as polysemous –far from singular of interpretation –, and a surprising number of significantly nuanced senses of casuistry will be illustrated (first as they occur in various modern reference works, and second as employed by modern, Western scholars of Islam). The application of such discrete senses of casuistry to various phenomena by different scholars will then be analyzed, at which point the problems generated through lack of uniform application will become self-evident. Next, the suitability of applying “casuistry” and “casuistic” – in any sense whatsoever – to Islamicate legal phenomena will be questioned; especially in light of the genesis and evolution of these terms in processes of European Catholicism. The following questions – never before addressed, to my knowledge, by scholars attributing casuistry to Islamic law – will be raised: If in fact so critical an element of pre-modern sharīʿa, where might we locate the internal discourse surrounding casuistry? What did pre-modern, Muslim jurists call casuistry? How is it articulated in Arabic? Or, if in fact never articulated at all, why did the crucial role played by casuistry await the probing of modern, Western scholars for discovery? By the end of this section, it is hoped that “casuistry” will be proven at best an unpromising lens through which to study Islamic legal phenomena.
Part II, therefore, will attempt to provide an alternative to casuistry as a category of analysis, and will do so by uncovering precisely which phenomena Western scholars have been treating with the ungainly term “casuistic”; that is to say, so-called “casuistic” phenomena will be excavated from their ambiguous treatment and re-introduced in the Arabic technical terms largely unmentioned by Western scholars in previous discussions. Consequently, it will become most apparent that “casuistic” phenomena are in fact all related to varying (and internally well-formulated) processes and products of archetypal Islamic juridical reasoning (such as may be subsumed under the rubric of qiyās) and dialectic (jadal). Furthermore, we will be reminded that both Catholic European scholasticism (wherein casuistry-as-method has its origins) and Islamic traditions of manṭiq, jadal, munāẓara, and ādāb al-baḥth share a common and foundational influence in the Aristotelian corpus. Perhaps this common and formative factor lies (in part) behind the temptation to apply a demonstrably alien conception of “casuistry” to Islamicate phenomena; divergent development from a common systemization may retain such vestiges of similarity as encourage this sort of match-making and misperceived universality. We will be reminded, moreover, that Aristotelian systems can in no way be seen as ‘foreign’ to Islam, nor even to the Near East before Islam. The arts of demonstration, dialectic, and rhetoric were as much prominent features of the Near Eastern intellectual landscape before the arrival of Islam as they were throughout the development of its many sciences, and it is within the well-articulated discourses of the dialectical tradition in particular that such Islamic phenomena as have heretofore been described as “casuistic” might better and more meaningfully be understood. A brief overview of the dialectical tradition in pre-modern sharīʿa (as brought to light by Larry Miller and Wael Hallaq) will, it is hoped, firmly demonstrate to the reader its pervasive and foundational role.
A re-examination of so-called “casuistic” features through this lens of Islamic reasoning and dialectic, as may be expected, provides a far more harmonious assessment than peering through the lens of Catholic European casuistry (or merely applying the unqualified label of “casuistic”). Beyond this, however, attention must, and will, be drawn to the very spirit of the dialectical enterprise, whether stated by Aristotle in his Topics or echoed in Arabic treatises on jadal, munāẓara, and ādāb al-baḥth across the whole breadth of Islamic intellectual history. Stated in one Arabic formulation, this is al-maʿūna ʿalā al-naẓar (‘assistance in speculation’). The true spirit of dialectic is one of a cooperative truth-seeking enterprise, not a mere contest for determining the better disputationist. It is the intent of the disputants which determines, in part, whether a disputation is dialectical and in the service of truth, or sophistical and in the service merely of contention. This theoretical spirit of cooperation stands in direct opposition to casuistry in its most negative sense – a synonym of ‘sophistry’ –; and, regrettably, it is in this sense the majority of Western scholars employ the term in describing Islamic law. Supported by recent research in the areas of legal practice, juridical dialectic, and Islamic morality as a whole, it will be argued that attitudes of piety and morality keenly permeated the environment of juridical debate. Certainly, juridical dialectic may have been at least as pure a truth-seeking enterprise as certain scholars have assumed it to be a sophistical one lacking all integrity. At the very least, the classically (and persistently) advocated ‘true spirit’ of dialectic must first be proven absent before accusations of a sophistical casuistry may be levelled.
In concluding this study a few more questions regarding the practice of applying “casuistry” to pre-modern sharīʿa will be raised. Unfortunately, no matter how well-intended such projects may have been, a critical gap of understanding must necessarily proceed from this convention of imposing alien categories. “Casuistry,” in fact, stands in a long list of what can only be seen as imposed categories, including, as has been suggested elsewhere, the term ‘law’ itself.  Such problematic approaches must continue to vex the modern, Western student of pre-modern sharīʿa whose goal is to understand sharīʿa as its formulators and practitioners understood it. A major aim of this study, therefore, is to promote a preliminary immersion in Islamic traditions of logic and dialectic as a partial corrective to this continuing history of misinterpretation, represented – as it most assuredly is – by “casuistry” in Islamic law.

L’orthopraxie catholique en matière de jeûne se fonde sur le respect de trois règles : un seul repas complet par vingt-quatre heures, auquel on a ajouté, à partir du XIIIe siècle, une légère collation vespérale ; l’abstinence des viandes et des laitages ; l’heure imposée pour l’unique réfection quotidienne, soit la mi-journée. Cadre disciplinaire général que nombre de théologiens se sont efforcés d’assouplir pour rendre les contraintes du Carême plus supportables. Dès lors s’est développée une ample casuistique dont les interrogations ont pu surprendre. S’il est vrai que les liquides ne rompent pas le jeûne, est-il permis en Carême de boire entre les repas du café, du chocolat, de la bière, de l’eau-de-vie, ou de manger de la pastèque ? Si les poissons sont incontestablement des aliments maigres, qu’en est-il des oiseaux aquatiques, des canards, des poules d’eau, des flamants, des crocodiles, des reptiles ou, au Brésil, du caïman yacare ? Entre les tenants de la rigueur et les partisans de l’indulgence, l’opposition a été telle que le magistère romain a dû réagir : entre 1741 et 1745, le pape Benoît XIV publie trois encycliques pour tenter de raffermir une discipline du Carême dont les observances tendaient à se relâcher. En dépit du geste pontifical, la pratique quadragésimale apparaît très fortement affaiblie à la mi-XIXe siècle. Avec l’effacement du respect du précepte du jeûne ecclésiastique se donne à voir la sortie du catholicisme de l’ordre pénitentiel qui a longtemps été le sien.

Version préparatoire. La rupture du précepte du jeûne eucharistique a été examinée soigneusement par les théologiens de l’« âge d’or de la casuistique ». Quoique le précepte semble clair et sans ambiguïté, des situations et des occasions se sont présentées pour lesquelles nulle réponse univoque n’était possible : comment déterminer si la limite du jeûne a été franchie ? La contribution s’intéresse d’abord aux raisonnements produits par les théologiens pour sauver les pénitents de toute faute morale, et elle examine quel usage est fait de la notion de « circonstances ». Elle montre ensuite que ces raisonnements font appel à des connaissances médicales et qu’ils s’appuient sur des représentations implicites du corps et des relations de la personne à son corps. Enfin, elle propose un bref recensement des raisonnements et des stratégies argumentatives de la casuistique mobilisés par les auteurs. La contribution se propose de démontrer d’une part que la casuistique est une discipline argumentative et discursive, et d’autre part que le cas est l’occasion d’expliciter le pouvoir de la norme pour l’étendre et en repousser les limites.

This article focuses on one of the most important figures of the so-called Middle Stoicism, Hecato of Rhodes. By his use of the disputatio in utramque partem («debating both sides»), Hecato tackles the problem of moral dilemma, or conflict of duties. An analysis of his examples, compared to the ones previously used by Antipater of Tarsus, Diogenes of Babylonia and Chrysippus, sheds a new light on Stoic ethics. Hecato first shows that a moral rule is always linked to practical parameters and that the moral calculation consists precisely in articulating all of them, without crushing it under the weight of the absolute value that is virtue. Saying virtue is the supreme value is not enough, when it comes to matter of conscience: the whole question rests in our balancing the burden that each parameter places on us. But how can we be sure that this rational calculation is still following the moral compass we have, that is, the absolute value that is virtue? Hecato's suggestion is the following: practising morality causes a good to be passed on and returned in a continuous movement; its aim is to make the good pervade the world, and this can be achieved by the most visible good on the human stage, i.e. the practice of beneficence, love and friendship. Therefore, our first injunction is not a strictly rational one: it is an appeal to loving other people, because by this we orient ourselves in the right direction.

Resumen Este artículo se centra en una de las figuras más importantes del llamado estoicismo intermedio, Hecato de Rodas. Mediante el uso de la disputatio in utramque partem, Hecato aborda el problema del dilema moral o conflicto de deberes. Un análisis de sus ejemplos, comparado con los utilizados anteriormente por Antípatro de Tarso, Diógenes de Babilonia y Crisipo, arroja una nueva luz sobre la ética estoica. Hecato muestra en primer lugar que una regla moral está siempre ligada a parámetros prácticos y que el cálculo moral consiste precisamente en articular todos esos parámetros, sin aplastarlos bajo el peso del valor absoluto de la virtud. Decir que la virtud es el valor supremo no es suficiente, cuando se trata de una cuestión de conciencia: toda la cuestión está en equilibrar la carga que cada parámetro nos impone. Pero, ¿cómo podemos estar seguros de que este cálculo racional sigue todavía la brújula moral que tenemos, es decir, el valor absoluto representado por la virtud? La sugerencia de Hecato es la siguiente: practicar la moralidad hace que un bien se transmita y se devuelva en un movimiento continuo; su objetivo es hacer que el bien penetre en el mundo, y esto puede lograrse mediante el bien más visible en el escenario humano, es decir la práctica de la beneficencia, el amor y la amistad. Por tanto, nuestro primer mandamiento no es estrictamente racional: es un llamado a amar a otras personas, porque así nos orientamos en la dirección correcta.

Em 1603, o teólogo jesuíta Lopo de Abreu concluiu a sua Suma de Moral. Voltada ao uso em colégios da Ásia portuguesa, o manuscrito estabeleceu a autoridade de Abreu em diversas partes do Padroado, dentro e fora de instituições jesuítas. O presente artigo contextualiza a obra e a sua versão latina, a Summa Lusitana, tradução feita em torno de 1630 e recentemente descoberta. Esta obra revela a importante contribuição de Abreu à produção de uma teologia da Ásia portuguesa e os seus esforços na padronização do ensino de casos de consciência como parte do processo, cuja marca mais profunda se deu na publicação da Ratio Studiorum em 1599.

Following the Second Vatican Council, the predominant trend in Catholic moral theology has been decidedly antagonistic toward the tradition that dominated moral theology before the Council, namely the use and formulation of ecclesiastically-approved “manuals” or “handbooks” of moral theology, the contents of which chiefly involved general precepts of morally good and bad behavior as well as the extension of those precepts to particular cases. In this paper, I will oppose the dominant anti-manual trend. More particularly, I will first sketch what I take to be the central aspects of the manual tradition. Second, I will provide several arguments in favor of this tradition. Last, I will raise and respond to objections to this tradition that feature prominently in the works of Pinckaers and Cessario.

Философское знание представляет собой область постоянно  возникающих вопросов, парадоксов, проблем. В истории философии различные системы и учения демонстрируют усложнение вечных философских вопросов, и в то же время предлагают всевозможные решения. Сам термин “казуистика” происходит от латинского “casus” (случай, ситуация), выражает непредвиденный характер и сложность случая, когда только здравого смысла становится недостаточно, чтобы быстро принять ответственное решение, которое было бы морально приемлемо и оценивалось как добрый поступок в определённой системе норм.

During the first decades of the persecution against Christians and missionaries in early 17th-century Japan, priests and friars faced a new array of moral challenges. In the late 1610s, Japanese authorities forced residents of Nagasaki to sign an oath stating that they would deny shelter to missionaries, meaning that the mere presence of Jesuits and Dominicans in the house of the faithful represented a risk to the lives of their protectors. In addition to other difficulties, this resulted in two consultations being sent to the superiors of the Society of Jesus in Macau and to the rector of the Dominican college in Manila. This chapter analyzes how moral theology and casuistry was used by both orders when discussing the problems faced by Christians in sheltering missionaries. It thus explores the uses of so-called missionary casuistry, a normative practice informed by both written theological authoritative texts, contextual circumstances, and personal experience.

In an editorial (1) Dr Gillon looks at some recent difficulties which have been raised about philosophy and the teaching of health care ethics. This matter is of sufficient importance to the readers of this journal that it is worth looking at it again, this time in an historical perspective. One ...

Propositions pour une ethique descriptive (Thèse soutenue le 5 décembre 1998) Introduction Enjeux Concepts

THESE pour obtenir le grade de DOCTEUR DE L'UNIVERSITE AIX-MARSEILLE I. Formation doctorale : Philosophie présentée et soutenue publiquement par Serge BOARINI Propositions pour une éthique descriptive. Le cas, la règle, la norme. Directeur de thèse : Monsieur Pierre LIVET. JURY M. le professeur Robert DAMIEN M. le professeur Pascal ENGEL Madame le professeur Anne FAGOT-LARGEAULT

Attempting to rectify casuist and manualist theories of conscience, Catholic moral theology has since sought to quell the unnecessary conflict these theories have imposed between freedom and law.  For such a dichotomy necessitated an errant understanding of conscience as that capacity by which one discerns and applies the dictates of natural law over and against human freedom.  However, despite its attempt to offer a more holistic and “orthodox” conception of conscience, Catholic moral theology has often found itself bound by notions of “natural law” still indebted to the definitions and constructions of these very traditions.  Following Herbert McCabe’s assessment, I wish to propose that Catholic moral theology’s reconciliation between law and freedom, though necessary, is misinformed in its present understanding of natural law as obligation. Examining the critique of conscience offered by the 1993 papal encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, might best elucidate this error.  I will then argue that by reconceptualizing natural law anthropologically, McCabe is able to present a more robust theory of conscious that enables moral growth and opens the individual more fully to the community.

This article examines how Catholic moral theologians analyzed the constraints imposed by the rights of the dead to their good name on historical writing and research.  The concern of Catholic moral theologians for persons’ rights to their good name coupled with their concern for the rights of dead persons placed serious moral constrains on the work of historians. At the same time, from very early on, these moral theologians showed appreciation of the benefits of historical writing, including writing on the less public aspects of historical figures. The general tendency was to allow to historians some greater moral elbow room. There was, however, a clear red line: what was and had been always secret could not be revealed, regardless of the benefits.

By the end of the nineteenth century the authors of the casuist manualists revised the traditional doctrine and removed the moral red line that was accepted up to then. Historians could now reveal what had always been secret. This doctrinal development resulted from two historical events. On the one hand the opening of the Vatican Archives and the need to give to propagandists and journalists within politically organized Catholic conservatism to fight as equals in the printed media.

The book is a history of twentieth-century ethics. Chapters from one to four reconstruct the Anglo-Saxon ethics up to the 1958 turning point, starting with Dewey’s “naturalism” and indeed stressing his originality, comparable to Nietzsche’s whose critique of modernity may be found in Dewey’s work without Nietzsche’s proto-post-modern charlatanry. The following three chapters reconstruct the neo-intuitionist reaction to naturalism, giving more weight to Ross than to Moore, non-cognitivism, giving more weight to Stevenson than to Russell and Ayer, and finally the discussion in the Fifties that carried the crisis of non-cognitivism, giving due weight to Kurt Baier.
Chapters five-seven cover Continental thinkers from the first half of the century. One chapter is dedicated to the philosophy of values and particularly to Hartmann; another to its critics, from Freud to Heidegger and Sartre and de Beauvoir; one more chapter is dedicated to twentieth-century Christian theologians and Jewish religious thinkers, mainly inspired by a post-liberal attitude as a reaction to the liberal theologians’ reduction of religion to ethics.
Chapters eight to ten are dedicated to the three main currents in normative ethics after the 1958 normative turn, Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and Virtue ethics. Among the Kantians, Gewirth and Donagan enjoy an extended treatment. Among utilitarian philosophers, Brandt has been given the most detailed presentation; Hare, Lyons, and Smart follow. Among virtue theorists, Bernard Williams has pride of place, followed by MacIntyre and others.
Chapter eleven is a follow-up to the abovementioned three chapters. It presents the revolution of applied ethics stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea.
Chapter twelve illustrates the fresh start of meta-ethical discussion in the Eighties and Nineties and the resulting new alignments: metaphysical naturalism, internal realism, anti-realism, and constructivism.

In juxtaposition with the myth and tragedy of Ovid’s Medea, this paper investigates the possibility within the Kantian conception of agency of understanding moral evil as acting against one’s better judgment. It defends the thesis that in Kant self-deception, i. e. the intentional untruthfulness to oneself, provides the fundamental structure for choosing against the moral law. I argue that, as Kant’s thought progresses, self-deception slowly proceeds to become the paradigmatic case of moral evil. This is discussed with regard to two important topics in his later moral philosophy: the doctrine of radical evil and the crucial role of the duty of truthfulness in ethics. The inquiry into Kant’s theory of conscience unfolds both against this theoretical background and in light of its historical roots in the polemic against casuistry and probabilism. This contribution closes with a brief look at the tools Kant implements to counter this tendency to self-deception in moral judgment and particularly at the role casuistry plays within his conception of moral education.

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„Einen besonders interessanten Beitrag stellt Sara Di Giulios Analyse der Irreführung des Gewissens bei Kant dar. Der Beitrag bezieht zentrale volitionale Phänomene wie die praktische Selbsttäuschung und Selbstlüge sehr differenziert auf das Problem des Gewissens. Sehr zurecht verweist Di Giulio darauf, dass unsere Gewissenlosigkeit „einen Akt der Verweigerung gegen die Gewissensaufrufe oder mindestens ein schuldiges Unterlassen“ voraussetzt (266). […] Sehr überzeugend diskutiert Di Giulio am Ende ihres Beitrags verschiedene „Maßnahmen“, mit denen Kant versucht, unserem Hang zur Selbsttäuschung zu entkommen, und sie zählt dazu die „Herzenskündigung“ und die „Aufklärung der Gründe“ (279).“
(Rez. von J. Noller, in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch I 2022, 139–141.)

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S. Di Giulio geht in ihrem Beitrag der Frage nach, wie das oft zu beobachtende Phänomen zu erklären ist, dass der Mensch trotz Überzeugung von der Richtigkeit einer Handlungsoption eine andere wählt, die dem Eigeninteresse besser zu dienen scheint. Kant habe gesehen, dass dies durch einen Akt des Sichbelügens verursacht wird: Man wendet sich von dem, was man als Pflicht erkannt hat, ab und sucht ange¬nehmere, aber als Pflichtmaxime weniger wahrscheinliche Regeln auf. Dies Verfah¬ren sei kein anderes als das, was der moraltheologische Probabilismus empfiehlt. Darin sei zugleich eine gewissenlose Attitüde mangelnder Umsicht zu erkennen, weil man sich weigert, „alle möglichen Mittel einzusetzen, um zu einer moralisch richtigen Beurteilung zu kommen“ (266); oder eben auch ein Fall selbstverschulde-ter Unmündigkeit, der nur durch Stärkung der „Fähigkeit, die Gründe der eigenen Entscheidung selbständig zu bewerten“, entgegenzuwirken sei. Kant reklamiere daher in aufklärerischer Absicht einen neuen Sinn des kasuistischen Verfahrens als „einer kontinuierlichen, nie abgeschlossenen Übung in der Suche nach Wahr¬heit“ (282). Der Autorin gelingt auf diese Weise, mehrere Problembereiche der Kant- Forschung in einen schlüssigen Zusammenhang zu stellen, der das Feld für einen gelingenden Kongress abstecken konnte.
(Rez. von Burkhard Gerlach, in: Kant-Studien 114 (2023), 174–180.)

I argue that applied ethics is a phenomenon born spontaneously in the sixties and seventies as a result of the encounter between the evolution of theoretical ethical discussion and public discourse in liberal societies. I argue that the novelty brought about by such a phenomenon lies in a special relationship it has established between ethical theories and attempts at solving real-world problems, and that the decisive point in applied ethics as deliberation is recourse to judgment, that is, casuistry  understood in Kant’s terms.

Shoshana Razel Gordon gives a juxtaposed reading of cases in Mīmāṃsā and Rabbinic legal reasoning that validates a sense of similarity in ritual-legal hermeneutics. She compares cases enunciated in verses of the fourteenth-century Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons with sixth-century Talmudic and twelth-century Maimonidean cases pertaining to the competing oughts of ritual agency and efficacy, and in doing so rethinks as complimentary several concepts formerly thought to have been singular to one or the other of these traditions. The deeper riches of these instances of legal reasoning become visible, although neither tradition is confined by inappropriate labels or antithetical categories. Such reading promises further opportunities for mutual text examination through fresh generative lenses. As a scholar with a passion for comparative ritual hermeneutical reasoning and as a woman of faith seeking understanding, Gordon-Guedalia seeks to show us how this quest for a deeper grasp of ritual and legal particulars, rather than doctrines, is a manner of doing comparative theology of potentially great significance.

This paper examines the role of time in Just War theory. It maintains that contemporary Just War theory’s legalist focus on rules and principles, rather than judgment and interpretation, makes a serious engagement with timing appear quite irrelevant. To deal with this shortcoming, the paper clarifies the dual nature of political time as both chronos and kairos. It is argued that a cogent account of the justice of warfare needs to incorporate the two faces of political time. I show that a casuistic re-orientation of Just War theory would also have the beneficial effect of putting critique back on the agenda. The moral core of my argument is that judgment and interpretation ought to be guided by the spirit of “pragmatic fallibilism”, thereby combining the willingness to assertively uphold one’s values with a disposition to revise, through reflection and deliberation, one’s commitments.

Although Emer de Vattel is widely acknowledged as a pivotal figure in the history of international thought, his legacy remains contested. Scholars struggle to find a comfortable intellectual collocation for what is often seen as an incoherent and contradictory thinker. The present article tackles this interpretation and suggests that the supposed inconsistencies in Vattel’s international thought diffuse once we fully grasp the nature of his intellectual intervention. In order to substantiate this view, the paper focuses on Vattel’s reasoning on the legitimacy of international interventions, as disclosed in his The Law of Nations. It recovers his casuistic mode of reasoning with reference to the historical and intellectual context from which it emerged. The article concludes by suggesting that this long-forgotten mode of reasoning offers a different entry point into current debates on international intervention and the use of force, one that might help us move beyond a merely moralistic approach.

Casuistry and rhetoric both are terms long maligned for their unpredictability and ethical bendability.' The debate about rhetorical ethics is ancient and ongoing-as is the debate surrounding the appropriate use and application of casuistry.

Chapter 1 of Interests and Values: Political Casuistry and the Ethics of Warfare (Dissertation as partial completion for the requirements of a Ph.D. in Ethics and Social Theory).  Presidential rhetoric on war does not fit any of the typical organizational structures offered by scholars of war, but rather works across a plurality of scholarly schools of thought on war.

This article reassess the role of practical reasoning in Barth’s theology. Frequently, Barth’s account of  practical reasoning is critiqued as incoherent. On the one hand, we are commanded to obey God. On the other hand, a qualitative divide separates God and God’s command from our moral ability to obey and rational ability to discern which actions constitute proper obedience. Such criticisms lose their force when one appreciates Barth’s thick description of the sociality of reasoning found at the end of Volume 1 of the Church Dogmatics. This is because Barth has a covenantal account of the authority of divine command. The good that God does justifies the right that God commands, and authorizes the community’s rational discernment of which actions may best reflect the normative rule of the divine command. The doxastic and pragmatic norms governing the Christian community are discerned through communal practices of scriptural interpretation that incorporate Kantian self-legislation and Hegelian mutual recognition. If confessional authority always derives from divine normativity, and if Christian communal casuistry must be practical only, it is also the case that appreciation of Barth’s account of the subjective conditions of revelation illuminates a kind of oral law tradition within Christian communal life that holds much promise for future developments in Jewish-Christian relations.

In an earlier paper, 'Peter Geach on nonsense, confusion and sin' 1 , I suggested that what one can say in explanation of one's own actions suffers from a severe limitation: one can shed little light on the question why one acted on one's reasons for an action rather than on one's reasons against that action. In this paper I want to explore this suggestion further. One of my tasks will be to distinguish my question from three standard philosophical questions that have tended to overshadow it: the question of freewill and determinism; that of the relation between fact and value; and that of the possibility of weakness of will. On these I shall, on the whole, maintain a studied agnosticism.

Historien du droit romain, Yan Thomas fut un penseur inclassable. Ses recherches érudites et novatrices n’ont pas cessé d’interpeller les sciences sociales qui y ont trouvé les ressources pour repenser les objets et les catégories à travers les montages institutionnels caractéristiques de la culture juridique occidentale. Ce volume recueille les actes d’un colloque international qui a eu lieu à Paris (EHESS) du 25 au 27 mars 2010, à l’occasion duquel historiens, juristes, sociologues, anthropologues et philosophes ont illustré la fécondité d’une oeuvre qui a su combiner comme aucune autre inventivité et rigueur. Divisé en quatre parties, l’ouvrage reconstruit l’itinéraire intellectuel d’un «romaniste» qui, explorant le Digeste mais aussi d’autres corpus anciens et modernes, a été capable de valoriser la culture juridique de Rome pour recomposer des pans fondamentaux de l’anthropologie occidentale. Le droit privé comme le droit public sont interrogés pour dénicher les artifices à la base de notions telles que personne, chose, cité, nature, vie, toutes délimitées par deux pierres angulaires : la fiction et le cas. Un fil rouge parcourt ainsi les contributions ici réunies : penser avec Yan Thomas signifie relever le défi de suivre jusqu’au bout la volonté de réduire à zéro la distance qui sépare l’origine des faits sociaux de leur institution juridique.

This article explores whether or not animal activists who engage in violence might legitimately be labelled “terrorists.” To this end, I examine common assumptions concerning the use of pre-emptive counter-violence in order to defend the comparatively defenceless. Through the use of casuistry, this essay compares specific hypothetical instances of killing comparatively defenceless individuals, beginning with scenarios that offer a clear general consensus, moving to more controversial cases. This indicates that contemporary violence on behalf of animal liberation, often assumed to be rash and radical, is actually quite restrained. The intent of this paper is not to make claims as to how liberationists ought to behave, but rather to highlight egregious inconsistencies in our attitudes toward violence on behalf of those who are comparatively defenceless.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Preface


Chapter I  From the death of ethics to the normative turn

Twentieth century ethics after the death of ethics
Three Diagnoses of Death for Ethics
And one Prognosis of Resurrection with Transfiguration
The anti-normative turn: the Anglo-Saxon version
And the Continental version


Chapter 2  From the Normative Turn to the Controversy between Utilitarianism and ‘Deontology’

1949-1958: freeing moral discourse from the “third person”
1958: From Moore’s anti-naturalism to Anscombe’s, Geach’s and Foot’s anti-anti-naturalism
1958: Baier’s way from metaethics to normative ethics:
1958: Lewis’s discovery of Apel’s performative contradiction
1966: Searle’s infringement of Hume’s Law
1960-1983: The Continental Normative Turn and the rehabilitation of practical philosophy
1960-1983: The Continental Normative Turn and discourse ethics
1936-1981: Utilitarianism redivivus
1971-1998: a resurrection of several kinds of ‘deontological’ ethics
The new controversy between Utilitarians and Kantians and the emergence of a third way
Theoretical and Practical reasons for the revival of practical philosophy
A few intermediate considerations


Chapter 3  The applied ethics revolution

Conscientious Objectors and Ethical Committees
The methods of Applied Ethics
The New Political Philosophy qua Applied Ethics
A slightly odd example: development ethics
Applied ethics is not ethics applied
Applied ethics is a ‘Kantian’ approach for non-Kantians
Applied Ethics is Deliberation
Applied Ethics is Reverse Subversion
Applied Ethics is a Gift from Zeitgeist
A provisional moral


The first chapter tries to reconstruct a plot, or a hidden agenda, in the twentieth-century ethical discussion. It singles out two starting points for the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental discussion, to be identified with the philosophies of Sidgwick and Nietzsche, both supporting some kind of ethical scepticism. It discusses how far the diagnosis formulated by Karl-Otto Apel of a ‘parallel convergence’ between Existentialism and Analytic philosophy in separating facts and values and thus justifying ‘decisionism’ is useful in making sense of the agenda of the discussion.

The second chapter discusses the reasons for two parallel U-turns at about 1958 which brought back to the forefront two traditional schools of normative ethics, Kantian and Utilitarian, and the reasons for criticism from the heterogeneous alignment of virtue ethicists.

The third chapter discusses the phenomenon of emergence of ‘applied’ ethics from the Seventies, the reasons, both theoretical and political, for the revival, the point to which applied ethics may look like a grand return of casuistic and natural-law ways of thinking, and the difficult coexistence between general normative ethics and procedures to settle issues reasonably while ethical dissent is as alive as ever.