Editing Casuistry (section)

==History==
Casuistry dates from at least [[Aristotle]] (384–322 BC), yet the peak of casuistry was from 1550 to 1650, when the [[Society of Jesus]] (commonly known as the ''Jesuits'') used case-based reasoning, particularly in administering the [[Sacrament of Penance]] (or "confession").<ref>{{cite book|title=The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal|last=Franklin|first=James|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=2001|location=Baltimore|pages=83–88}}</ref> The term became pejorative following [[Blaise Pascal]]'s attack on the misuse of the method in his ''[[Provincial Letters]]'' (1656–57).<ref>{{cite book|url=https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/pascal/blaise/|title=The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal|last=Pascal|first=Blaise|publisher=Chatto & Windus|others=M'Crie, Thomas (trans.)|year=1898|series=eBooks@Adelaide|location=London|orig-year=1657|access-date=23 January 2009|archive-date=5 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905104257/https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/pascal/blaise/|url-status=dead}}</ref> 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<ref>{{Cite web |title=Letters on the spirit of patriotism : On the idea of a patriot king : and on the state of parties at the accession of King George the First / Henry St John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke. 1752 |url=https://www.rct.uk/collection/1057691/letters-on-the-spirit-of-patriotismnbspnbspon-the-idea-of-a-patriot-kingnbsp-and |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220620052050/https://www.rct.uk/collection/1057691/letters-on-the-spirit-of-patriotismnbspnbspon-the-idea-of-a-patriot-kingnbsp-and |archive-date=20 June 2022 |website=[[Royal Collection Trust]]}}</ref> by [[Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke|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".<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Oxford English Dictionary |url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/28642 |url-access=subscription |access-date=21 September 2017 |article=Casuistry}}, quoting {{cite book |last=St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke |first=Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/lettersonspirito00boli/page/187/mode/1up |title=Letters on the spirit of patriotism : On the idea of a patriot king : and on the state of parties at the accession of King George the First |publisher=A. Millar |year=1752 |location=London |page=187}}</ref>

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]]<ref>Albert Jonsen and [[Stephen Toulmin]], ''The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning'', Berkeley, U. California Press (1990, {{ISBN|0-520-06960-9}}).</ref> 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.{{by whom|date=June 2022}}

===Early modernity===
The casuistic method was popular among [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] 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 [[Apostolic Penitentiary|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).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Decock|first=Wim|date=2011|title=From Law to Paradise: Confessional Catholicism and Legal Scholarship|journal=Rechtsgeschichte|volume=2011|issue=18|pages=012–034|doi=10.12946/rg18/012-034|issn=1619-4993|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The progress of casuistry was interrupted toward the middle of the 17th century by the controversy which arose concerning the [[Catholic probabilism|doctrine of probabilism]], which effectively stated that one could choose to follow a "probable opinion"{{mdash}}that is, an opinion supported by a theologian or another{{mdash}}even if it contradicted a more probable opinion or a quotation from one of the [[Fathers of the Church]].<ref>Franklin, ''Science of Conjecture'', p. 74–6, 83.</ref>

<section begin=Alleged corruption in the Catholic Church transclusion/>Certain kinds of casuistry were criticised by early [[Protestant Reformation|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 [[Lettres provinciales|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 [[sophist]]ic reasoning to justify moral laxity.<ref>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.</ref> By the mid-18th century, "casuistry" had become a synonym for attractive-sounding, but ultimately false, moral reasoning.<ref>Jonsen, Albert R., The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning, University of California Press, 1988. {{ISBN|0-52-006063-6}} (p. 2).</ref><section end=Alleged corruption in the Catholic Church transclusion/>

In 1679 [[Pope Innocent&nbsp;XI]] publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (''stricti mentalis''), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, [[Francisco Suarez|Suarez]] and other casuists as ''propositiones laxorum moralistarum'' and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of [[excommunication]].<ref>Kelly, J.N.D., The Oxford History of the Popes, Oxford University Press, 1986. {{ISBN|0-19-282085-0}} (p. 287).</ref> Despite this condemnation by a pope, both Catholicism and Protestantism permit the use of ambiguous statements in specific circumstances.<ref>J.-P. Cavaillé, ''[http://dossiersgrihl.revues.org/document281.html 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 {{in lang|fr}}.</ref>

===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".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZLpcgAQvr_gC&q=%22the+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%22&pg=PA57|title=Principia Ethica|last=Moore|first=George Edward|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1993|isbn=0-521-44848-4|editor-last=Baldwin|editor-first=Thomas|editor-link=Thomas Baldwin (philosopher)|edition=2|location=Cambridge|page=57|author-link=George Edward Moore|orig-year=1903}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Casuistry {{!}} Ethics & Moral Decision Making {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/casuistry |access-date=2024-04-11 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>

[[Pope Francis]], a Jesuit, has 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.<ref>[https://archive.today/20140527185002/http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1402173.htm "Pope to meet with sex abuse victims for first time in June", Francis X. Rocca]. Catholic News Service. Online.</ref>