Casuistry Primer

Copyright 2000 by Robert David Boyle................................ Posted 7-26-00

COMMENTS:

Casuistry. What is it? What does it mean? How do you pronounce it? How do you do it? Why do you do it -- and when -- and how?

The links above offer a smorgasbord of perspectives on just what Casuistry is. Their purpose is to wet one's feet on the subject of Casuistry, not to lay down the final word. Casuistry, in the spirit of Casuistry itself, is not a complete formal theory. It can't be, due to the nature of its subject. Rather, it is a Methodology, a set of methods, rules, postulates and procedures that is incomplete, but useful within the scope of a particular field of study, in this case, Ethics. Like its cousins: the field of science (as it addresses Ontological questions (what kind of stuff is there?)) and the 'scientific method' (and its other Epistemological kin, having to do with what we know, and can and cannot know), Casuistry does not provide universally true claims nor offer universal justifications. Instead, it offers rational strategies for discovering correct answer to the specific question: "what should I (or you, or (s)he) do in this situation". Casuistry bootstraps particular justifications on the backs of particular subjects of inquiry, in a kind of "pay as you go" plan. This will seem slipshod and inadequate to many critics, and will infuriate the Idealist who will settle for nothing less than Sound and Complete Theories, but this feature of Casuistry is the natural result of its subject: the Actual World. Like practical approaches in other fields of knowledge, Casuistry is a "bottom up" approach. The Casuistic solution to ethical problem A is correct in and of itself, but may also shed light on what the solution to problem B might be. Thus, Casuistry is useful in constructing valid Generalizations, without falling into the Humean trap of making unwarranted, unjustified, and just plain invalid claims of Universalization.

[NOTE: Generalization without Universalization appears to be a general feature of Methods (which can be seen as quasi-Theories) that purport to explain phenomena of the Actual World, as opposed to some ideal, abstract world. This raises a host of significant questions about what the requirements are for knowledge of the Actual World -- some of which I eventually hope to address on this site. Meanwhile, my advice at the early stages is to bite the bullet and learn to live with it.]

The links above are no less than six ways for the neophyte to take a basic, introductory look at Casuistry. (As a bonus, there is a seventh, jaundiced view which bears on the history of the reputation of Casuistry). There are reasons for offering this approach, rather than a terse, full-blown edict on the subject.

(1) While Casuistry is intuitive and widely practiced, a good understanding of Casuistry is neither well understood, nor remotely intuitive.

(2) Different people access and comprehend the same information in different ways.

(3) The intent of this page is to provide the user a handle on the subject -- six handles, really -- just like a coffin -- rather than a long, erudite, comprehensive and turgid explanation that would encompass all aspects of Casuistry at the cost of requiring an even longer explanation of what that explanation means. The rest of this site will be devoted to a fuller, more detailed aspects of Casuistry, where all of the nasty, intractable questions that Casuistry raise can be expressed and confronted in controlled lab conditions.