The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning

Title: The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning
ABP identifier: ABP-W-0025
Creator: Albert R. Jonsen
Date: 1988
Type: Book
Description: Jonsen and Toulmin recovered casuistry from its reputation as clever rationalization by reconstructing a tradition of reasoning from paradigmatic cases, circumstances, and moral maxims. Their history followed the method from antiquity through medieval and early modern moral theology and argued for its revival in contemporary practical ethics.
Intellectual stream: Principles & methods; Theological ethics
Verification status: Verified
Evidence confidence: High
Historical significance: Jonsen and Toulmin recovered casuistry from its reputation as clever rationalization by reconstructing a tradition of reasoning from paradigmatic cases, circumstances, and moral maxims. Their history followed the method from antiquity through medieval and early modern moral theology and argued for its revival in contemporary practical ethics. The book mattered in bioethics because commissions and clinical consultations often reasoned through cases even when theorists described their work in terms of general principles. It supplied a historical and methodological defense of that practice. In doing so, it sharpened a lasting debate over whether bioethical judgment proceeds chiefly from theory downward or develops through comparison among concrete cases.