The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning

(review)
Alasdair C. MacIntyre

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 28, Number 4, October 1990,

pp. 634-635 (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.1990.0086

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/226365/summary

[ Access provided at 25 Mar 2022 15:17 GMT from University of Southern Denmark ]
634 JOURNAL OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 2 8 : 4 OCTOBER 1 9 9 0
Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin. The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral
Reasoning. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988. Pp. ix
+ 420. $45.oo.

The genuine interest of this book makes it regrettable that the subtitle may mislead.
This is not a history of moral reasoning as such and the authors never pretend other-
wise. It is a treatment of some important episodes in the history of casuistical reason-
ing, designed to elicit its salient characteristics, and a defense of the use of casuistry as a
method of moral reasoning. This defense involves a philosophical critique of what the
authors take to be the dominant theses of moral philosophy since Sidgwick, theses
which assign an importance to appeals to universally applicable rules which ought
instead, on the view defended by Jonsen and Toulmin, to be accorded to the study of
particular cases.
The historical parts of the book focus upon the late medieval and early modern
periods of European moral thought. Particular attention is paid to rebutting Pascal's
attack upon casuistry. The precursors of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century casuistry
are reviewed in a highly selective outline of the relevant parts of Greek, Roman,
Jewish, and patristic thought, and a coda to the history is provided by a brief account of
how casuistry fell into disrepute. The early historical sections of the book suffer greatly
from too much compression. The unfortunate results range from grossly inadequate
treatments of important topics---for example, the cursory glance at Talmud--through
bald assertions of what is in fact highly debatable, to occasional misrepresentations.
The last of these includes the statement that Aristotle's moral theory asserts "the
absence of 'essences' from the world of human affairs and ethical deliberation" (67).
Yet none of this detracts from the importance of what follows. Three subjects of
casuistical investigation in the medieval and early modern periods are discussed: usury,
perjury, and killing in defense of one's honor. All three discussions are full of interest-
ing material and apposite comment. There is a large dependence upon secondary
sources and a certain partisanship is evident in the narration. But this makes for
liveliness. What these studies provide is a basis for a thorough and sustained attack on
Pascal's critique of casuistry, and an analysis of what was at issue between Pascal and his
Jesuit opponents, and for this alone the book would be valuable.
In the latter part of the book there is less history and more philosophy, although
accounts of the decline of casuistry and of the rise of the type of moral philosophy
abhorred by the authors, a rise signalled by the change in the title of Whewelrs chair at
Cambridge from the Knightsbridge Professorship of Casuistical Divinity to the
Knightsbridge Professorship of Moral Philosophy, contribute significantly to the philo-
sophical discussion.
The authors endorse at least four positions concerning the application of rules to
particular cases. The first, which they recognize to be uncontroversial, is that a rule
may need to be extended or reformulated in order to cover some hitherto unrecog-
nized or new type of case (329-3o). The second is that rules are to be derived from and
framed in terms of judgments about particular cases (33o-31), a position anticipated
by Adam Smith (whom the authors do not mention). The third is that there is an
 BOOKS RECEIVED 635
alternative morality to the morality o f rules, the morality of "equitable discretion," and
that which morality it is a p p r o p r i a t e to follow is a matter o f social context (291). T h e
fourth is that there are alternative moralities o f rules, that the principles to be derived
from such abstract theories as those o f Kant and Bentham provide not rival sets of
rules, but instead sets o f rules each o f which has a limited scope (293), so that there are
particular cases in which it is right to behave as a Benthamite and others in which it
would be right to act as a Kantian. And, if I u n d e r s t a n d the authors aright, the decision
as to which type o f rule to apply in a particular case cannot itself be rule-governed.
What is n e e d e d to s u p p o r t these contentions is more than the authors supply,
especially in two key respects. T h e relationship o f different types o f rules to their
applications is a f u n d a m e n t a l philosophical problem and it is no reproach to the
authors that they allude to it only in a superficial way. In a book o f this scope it could
scarcely have been otherwise. A second crucial issue, on which the authors are largely
silent, is that o f how particular cases are to be described and what it is in a particular
case that makes it right to describe it in one way rather than another. Here again
Jonsen a n d T o u l m i n need to furnish better reasons than they do to r e n d e r their more
radical conclusions even plausible.
ALASDAIR MACINTYRE
University of Notre Dame

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Philosophy of Science, Voi. i 15. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989. Pp. xxv +
195. NP.
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Beiner. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982. Pp. viii + 174. Paper, $9.95.
Aristotle. Prior Analytics. Translated, with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary, by Robin Smith.
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1989. Pp. xxxi + 262. $27.5 o.
Bernhardt, Jean. Hobbes. Que sais-je? Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989. Pp. 126.
Paper, NP.
Bianchi, Lorenzo. Tradizione libertina e critica storica. Da Naud~ a Bayle. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1988.
Pp. 218. Paper, L 2~.ooo.
Black, Alison Harley. Man and Nature in the Philosophical Thought of Wang Fu-chih. Publications on
Asia of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington,
No. 4 x. Seattle: University of Washington Press, t989. Pp. xix + 375- $3 ~
Bogue, Ronald. Deleuze and Guattari. Critics of the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge, x989 .
Pp. xiii + 196. Cloth, $42.5o. Paper, $13.95.
Bonacina, Giovanni. Storia universale e filosofia del diritto. Commento a Hegel. Istituto Italiano per gli
studi filosofici. Naples: Guerini e Associati, x989. Pp. 324. Paper, L 4o.oo0.
Boucher, David. The Social and Political Thought of R. G. Collingwood. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989. Pp. xi + 3oo. $44.5 o.
Brandt, Reinhard, and Heiner Klemme. David Hume in Deutschland. Literatur zur Hume-Rezeption in
Marburger Bibliotheken. Marburg: Universit~t Marburg, a989. Pp. 1o4. Paper, NP.