The first thing we are going to do, before determining the meaning of the casuistic term, is to discover its etymological origin. In this case, we can determine that it derives from Latin and that it is the result of the sum of several clearly defined components:
-The noun "cause", which is synonymous with "reason."
-The suffix "-ista", which is used to indicate "office" or as a synonym for "supporter of".
-The suffix "-ico", which is used to indicate "relative to".
The idea from casuistry It is used in the field of applied ethics to refer to an analysis of different specific cases They are expected in a certain context. In this way the casuistry differs from those arguments that are based on rules or principles.
In other words, what the casuistry does is consider particular cases for the resolution of moral dilemmas , taking care of the application of the rules in specific circumstances. Moral precepts, therefore, are applied to specific situations caused by the action of the human being and not something abstract.
These questions allow us to discover that casuistry is not only a branch of the so-called applied ethics: it is also a reasoning method and even a basis for the development of jurisprudence within the framework of right common.
Suppose a man who has no money or work decides steal food of a market for feed your child . A reasoning based on moral principles can hold that stealing is always bad. According to these rules, theft is intrinsically incorrect from the moral point of view. An approach that appeals to casuistry, on the other hand, would pay attention to the specifics of the specific case and could conclude that man's behavior does not constitute a moral fault. In fact, having obtained food for your child is an option that, morally, transcends theft since with this action he managed to keep his descendant alive. This demonstrates that the same action can be considered in opposite ways from different methods of reasoning.
Other information of interest on the casuistry are the following:
-There is already knowledge of the casuistry in Ancient Greece. Specifically, it was used during the time of the philosopher Aristotle.
- It is considered, however, that the moment of greatest splendor of the aforementioned casuistry took place between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries.
-Numerous are the works that have been published on the casuistry. However, we cannot ignore that one of the most important works in this regard is "The abuse of casuistry: history of moral reasoning." It is a work published in the 80s, specifically in 1988, and is written by Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin.
-In the field of science, casuistry is also frequently used. A good example of this is that it is used, for example, to observe and analyze certain phenomena of Mother Nature. What is achieved from this work is to use that one to later establish different theories on, for example, pathologies of different kinds.
