Abstract
Casuistry in its modern form is an applied ethics approach that uses case-based reasoning to achieve ethical convergence from pluralistic stakeholders in the form of expert opinions in paradigm cases. The general but variant ethical decisions can be revised with later cases. This anti-theory has emerged in bioethics as one of the most influential alternative approaches to traditional ethics theories and religious ethics. Drawing from its classical form in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, modern casuistry was developed to answer the need in 1960s’ emerging bioethics for providing ethical decisions and policies for a secular, diverse population. Casuistry in a global context is analyzed for its own strengths and weaknesses and then those facets on an international stage particularly from the context of market pressures and pluralism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arras, J. D. (1990). Common law morality. Hastings Center Report, 20(4), 35–37.
Arras, J. D. (2009). The Hedgehog and the Borg: Common morality in bioethics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 30, 11–30.
Arras, J. D. (2013). Theory and bioethics. In: E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Accessible from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/theory-bioethics/. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
Benatar, S., Fleischer, T., Deaton, A., Blustein, J., Charuvastra, A., & Hofmann, P. B. (2006). Bioethics with blinders. The Hastings Center Report, 36(5), 4–7.
Brody, B. A. (2003). Taking issue: Pluralism and casuistry in bioethics. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Eig, J. (2014). The birth of the pill: How four crusaders reinvented sex and launched a revolution. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Faden, R. R., & Beauchamp, T. L. (1986). A history and theory of informed consent. New York: Oxford University Press.
George, A. R. (2011). The law collection of Ur-Nammu. In Cuneiform royal inscriptions and related texts in the Schøyen collection (pp. 221–286). Bethesda: CDL Press.
Hippocrates. (1923). 1 Hippocrates. W.H.S. Jones (Trans.). New York: Heinemann.
International Theological Commission. (2012). In search of a universal ethic: A new look at the natural law. Catholic Truth Society, London.
Jonsen, A.R. (1991). Of balloons and bicycles, or the relationship between ethical theory and practical judgment. Hastings Center Report 5.
Jonsen, A. R. (1995). Casuistry: An alternative or complement to principles? Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 5, 237–251.
Jonsen, A. R., & Toulmin, S. (1988). The abuse of casuistry. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Juengst, E. T. (1989). Casuistry and the locus of certainty in ethics. Medical Humanities Review, 3(1), 19–27.
Kuczewski, M. (1998). Casuistry and principlism: The convergence of method in biomedical ethics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 19(6), 509–524.
Langlois, A. (2013). Negotiating bioethics: The governance of UNESCO’s bioethics programme. London: Routledge.
Maritain, J. (1951). Man and the state. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McGinn, C. (1993). Problems in philosophy: The limits of inquiry. Oxford: Blackwell.
National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW) (1978). The Belmont Report. (DHEW pub. no. (OS) 78–0012). Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office.
Pellegrino, E. D. (2003). The metamorphosis of medical ethics. A 30-year retrospective. Journal of the American Medical Association, 269(9), 1158–1162.
Rawls, J. (2005). Political liberalism: Expanded edition (2nd ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Stigliz, J. E. (2002). Globalization and its discontents. New York: W.W. Nortan and Co. Press.
Tham, S. J. (2008). The secularization of bioethics. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 8(3), 443–454.
United States Central Intelligence Agency. (2010). World factbook. Retrieved from: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html. Accessed 12 Feb 2015.
Further Readings
Cherry, M. J., & Iltis, A. S. (2007). Pluralistic casuistry: Moral arguments, economic realities, political theory. Dordrecth: Springer Press.
Heinze, E. A. (2013). Justice, sustainability, and security: Global ethics for the 21st century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Garcia, A., Monlezun, D. (2015). Casuistry. In: ten Have, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_72-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_72-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05544-2
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities