A Note on Casuistry and the Virtues Connected with Prudence

In a relatively recent online article, "Shifting Away From Manualism: On Forming Consciences" (published by the Church Life Journal at Notre Dame’s McGrath Center), Dr. Nicholas Senz rightly critiques the “casuistic minimalism” that, for significant portions of Roman Catholic theology (and, no doubt, Eastern Catholics, whose curricula were quite Latinized), functioned as the cramped analytical framework for moral theology not only prior to the Second Vatican Council but, in fact, for several centuries following in the wake of the debates over probabilism. Latin Catholic moral theological training, which was generally inflected toward the concerns of confessors, tended to focus on specific action case studies, supplemented by methods for applying general moral rules of conscience (and, at times, a very abstract and general list of “reflex principles”) to given accounts of moral laws, in order to discern the lines of venial and mortal sin. The state of affairs was noticed well by honest theologians of various persuasions. Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, who is wrongly referred to by some as being a “manualist”¹ once remarked: “Some modern manuals of moral theology contain almost nothing other than casuistic theology, and in them moral theology appears like a science of grave and minor sins to be avoided rather than a science concerning virtues to be perfected.”²

It is important, here, to clearly disambiguate the term “casuistry.” In a broad sense, we could speak of “casuistry” merely as referring to general reflection upon individual moral cases, whether difficult, standard, or anodyne, searching for moral intelligibility therein. In this sense, “casuistry” is not only an acceptable activity but, in fact, is something utterly necessary for obtaining the objective instruments needed for moral abstraction. Such “casuistry” is, in point of fact, the imaginative-cogitative and memorative consideration of cases needed for the formation of adequate “phantasms” in order for the human intellect (which is abstractive and discursive by its nature) to articulate its knowledge of moral matters.

However, there is another, very specific sense of casuistry that is (rightly) in the crosshairs above:³ an attempt to formulate a universal methodology for arriving at moral choices, based upon the weighing of external authorities that present supposedly⁴ probable statements that can be anonymously weighed out by any person, deploying the various maxims of the various schools of “probabilist” logic which arose in the modern period.⁵ In the words of the great Dominican moral theologian Marie-Michel Labourdette:

[It is not] astonishing that this morality, inspired by voluntarism, which places the idea of “commandment” in the foreground (and, correlatively, the intention to obey in good faith), would become “intellectual” in the worst sense of the term. Nothing more purely cerebral than probabilistic casuistry could be conceived of, nothing more cut off from subjective life and from love [affection]. It is a mechanical calculation, a pseudo-universal schematization of individual cases, with a technical accounting tally sheet in hand for each opinion.⁶

In his article, Dr. Senz was concerned with showing, in particular, how Amoris Laetitia and other papal remarks concerning moral discernment and conscience should be understood as part of the truly salutary attempts of 20^th century moral theology to overcome the limitations of an action theory shaped by the legalism of the probabilist debates. While reading Dr. Senz’s article, I was reminded of how, from the first days of the debates concerning this post-synodal exhortation, I was personally drawn to the fact that a number of pre-conciliar Thomists who took seriously the heritage of the traditional schola Thomae critiqued the logic of casuistic excesses (e.g., Frs. Ambroise Gardeil, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Benoît-Henri Merkelbach, and Marie-Michel Labourdette, as well as Jacques Maritain and Yves Simon). I found much of the contemporary brouhaha over the exhortation to be uniquely forgetful of important debates that took place a century ago, even before the critiques of casuistry registered by thinkers like Dominican fathers Thomas Deman and Servais Pinckaers, though the criticism was widespread by the time of the Second Vatican Council. Such forgetfulness seemed like yet another confirmation of the Stoic assertion of the law of the Eternal Return: one generation forgets the one that comes before it, and so on until the breaking of the world.⁷

Dr. Senz rightly notes the role that the virtue of epikeia played in a certain form of moral analysis (likely inspired by Fr. Bernard Häring and others in his general orbit), seeking to explain how it is that we discern exceptions to the (moral) law. This virtue is of particular importance in a just social order so that the letter of the law does not ultimately snuff out the law’s own spirit. However, as a matter of universal and regular moral discernment, I question the importance of epikeia, at least in comparison with some other virtues that are connected to prudence. Indeed, epikeia is a virtue pertaining solely to the domain of human law, where the activity of finite lawgivers cannot enunciate principles (i.e., universal laws) that comprehensively provide guidance for the contingency of all possible free acts. Moreover, it is arguable that overreliance on the single justice-focused virtue of epikeia, supposedly enabling one to find the boundaries for the application of natural law or the “evangelical law,” in fact remains methodologically trapped within the logic of probabilistic legalism: where does freedom have its rights? Where does the law retain its force?⁸

For a number of the Thomists mentioned above (and arguably for St. Thomas Aquinas and the moral tradition of Aristotelian action theory), the primary point of reference in moral discernment is not the virtue of epikeia, a species of justice, but rather the whole cortège of virtues that surround the virtue of prudence: euboulia, synesis, gnome, memory, understanding, foresight, etc. Far more illuminating than the virtue of epikeia is an analysis of the full discursus of the virtue of prudence. (In fact, it was, in part, my own exasperation with the recent focus on epikeia that led me to translate Fr. Ambroise Gardeil’s, The True Christian Life, a Thomist volume containing a wonderful exposition of the nature of infused prudence.)

Although all of these virtues connected with prudence are important for understanding just how supple this moral virtue is, two in particular provide very important parallels to epikeia: synesis and gnome. The former, which is related to a cluster of Greek terms related to “judgment,” “knowledge,” or “conscience” is, for the Aristotelian tradition, a virtue that enables moral agents to discern how, in the particular circumstances facing that person, one’s action can cohere with general and common moral principles. In other words, it is a kind of perfection of prudential reasoning that enables one to espy, in the particular circumstances of life, generally “normal” cases of human action. And very often, we discern the path of virtue in the midst of easy or moderately easy cases. Synesis is the virtue that enables such discernment (cf. ST II-II, q. 51, a. 3).

Gnome, having a meaning something like “thought” or “opinion,” indicates a deeper sort of moral judgment, to be exercised when the common run of things does not hold and the moral good is much more difficult to perceive for guiding our actions. As the discourse of prudence arrives at its terminal judgment, prior to one’s act of self-command by which one performs this or that deed, moral reflection sometimes requires an extra, well-practiced eye for discerning tough moral cases. St. Thomas Aquinas, developing the general lines of what one finds in the Nicomachean Ethics, will speak of needing to find something that is higher than the “common rules of action.” Note well, it is not a question of “finding exceptions to the moral law.” Rather, when faced with tough scenarios, we find that we need to discern how it is that higher, more universal moral ends and norms are refracted into the particularities of our possible action. This can be something that is very difficult to espy at first glance, something for which we have no ready examples at hand (cf. ST II-II, q. 51, a. 4). Thus, we need special virtue, the virtue of gnome.

And it is here that Fr. Ambroise Gardeil, in his The True Christian Life, makes an important connection, which is echoed by other members of the Thomist tradition: what epikeia is for matters of justice, gnome is for matters of prudential moral discernment. This particular paragraph deserves citation in full:

However, exceptional cases exist, where mere good sense is insufficient. In order to illustrate this fact, St. Thomas cites the example of a deposit entrusted to a man who becomes the enemy of his country. This is a clear enough case. Other, less-clear cases exist, involving conflicts between the law and conscience, between justice and prudence or charity. In order to resolve them, we need, says St. Thomas, a superior form of good sense, something superior, more penetrating, more perspicacious, and more universal than ordinary sense. What is needed is discernment, gnome, which some- times is a natural quality, but more often is an acquired virtue or a supernatural gift. It is the counterpart of what the virtue of epikeia is in matters of justice, the interpretation of laws when the strict application of the latter leads precisely to the opposite of the legislator’s intention.⁹

At this point, the reader perhaps expects me to draw my final conclusion: and thus, let us be done with the Tractatus De conscientia and cast all casuistry into the dustbin of history! If one proposes to replace the living and virtuous “tact” of prudence with the mechanistic casuistry of the days of yore, then yes, disgust is all that is justified. However, I think that a kind of “either / or” attitude is not necessary here.

A few years ago, Dr. Brian Besong received the Rising Scholar award from the American Catholic Philosophical Association for his excellent article, “Reappraising the Manual Tradition.”¹⁰ The expression, “manual tradition,” is, of course, a bit nebulous. Despite differences in genre, many sorts of texts are called manuals: introductory teaching texts (what most mean by “manual”), detailed treatises in Latin, detailed scientific summaries, and scholastic commentaries. The term, derived from the size of the text, fit for the hand (manus), provides only a per accidens unity to this grouping. Such ambiguity should always be borne in mind.¹¹

However, in his article, Dr. Besong is most concerned with promoting the reviviscence of one particular kind of manual subject matter: volumes that present casuistic analysis. He is not motivated by a supposed traditionalist naivety that would presume that the casuistic subset of moral manuals would provide a kind of “silver bullet” against contemporary antinomianism and deficient analytical clarity. He merely notes the very sound fact that examples are necessary for us to orient our thought, especially in utterly complex moral cases. As Heidi Giebel discussed recently, in an admirable ACPQ article, “What Moral Exemplars Can Teach Us About Virtue, Psychology, and Ourselves,”¹² moral examples and exemplars are incredibly important in the formation of virtue, including in the formation of the virtue of prudence and its various “adjuncts.”

It is the nature of embodied, finite human intellection to seek out its surety step by step, example by example. We always need orientation by way of precedent. A carpenter masters his or her craft only after years of apprenticing and experiencing many job sites. Bach was a great and synthetic musician in no small part because of his many years of copying and performing works by the masters of his era. When one practices the physical sciences, one stands in need of particular examples to stabilize one’s abstract speculations. And, when we morally reason, we stand in need of many examples, whether from others or our own memory and reflection. Homo non potest intelligere sine phantasmatibus.

Obviously, I believe that such examples should strive to go beyond mere minimalistic cases and should look to impart a kind of “moral sympathy” in those who read them. However, such a casuistic genre can be maintained alongside an appreciation for what it is that cannot be written down in such moral casuistry, that is, alongside a moral theology that appreciates the primacy of prudence. Yes, the latter is most essential and ultimately requires something that never can be put down on paper. Again, as is excellently observed by Gardeil:

The secret of this outlook [exercised by prudence] will not be found in the manuals of asceticism or of casuistry that strive to predict every possible case and to provide lines of appropriate conduct corresponding to them. Such a book has its use, for it renders its services by furnishing authoritative models for resolving problems. However, given that, concretely speaking, no equivalent case exists, onsite adaptation remains the proper task of our good personal government. Suggestions, orientations—yes, as many as you can desire! However, such casuistry cannot, in the end, furnish wholly polished-off solutions that are practical on all points and imperative, applicable straight- away to every single concrete case. There is no prudence that is written on paper. In order to govern oneself well, a tactical maneuver is needed, one that is utterly versatile because it unfolds on the essentially moving terrain of human contingencies.¹³ (Gardeil, 89)

Yet, as Maritain once remarked so keenly (in words that wholly cohere with Fr. Gardeil’s observations): “Cram human liberty with advice as much as you like; we know that it is strong enough to digest advice and that it thrives on rational motivations which it bends as it pleases and which it alone can render efficacious.”¹⁴

I think, in the end, on this topic, that much wisdom can be drawn from the pre-conciliar Thomist tradition of the great Dominican Thomists, whose sensitivity to the vital suppleness of prudence was well on the way to overcoming the desiccated and rationalistic calculus of a casuistry that would propose itself as the means for resolving exact moral problems that, in point of fact, fall to the exercise of the virtue of prudence. However, what is more, it is quite defensible to say that a fully developed moral science must regularly engage in casuistry in order to provide a sufficient basis for the articulation and abstraction of moral notions and principles. But such casuistry must be placed in its proper analytic context: the specific treatments of the various virtues. In addition to incredibly abstract principles that are fitting in the “general treatise” De conscientia, one must turn to the rich and variegated, though more specific, universal guidance that can be drawn from a sufficient analysis of the moral intelligibility of various virtues, whether theological or moral (here setting aside the question of infused moral virtues, though the Thomist will say they too are quite important). In short, the late-scholastic Tractatus de conscientia tacked on to the sub-treatise on morality in the treatise on human acts provides only a sketch, not a full drawing, for what a robust casuistry should look like.

We need not cast aside every thinker who wrote prior to the important and essential advances in moral and spiritual theology that took place in the 20^th century, focusing on the centrality and universality of the call to supernatural beatitude and divinization, lived out in the context of a Christian self-government that is enabled by the virtue of faith-directed prudence. These advances are a sine qua non and represent something of immense importance, correcting excesses and problems from the casuistic era. However, no Catholic with a sense for the living nature of the Church can hold that the whole of Catholic moral theology between the fourteenth century and the early twentieth is a kind of morass of poorly formulated questions, responded to with equally poorly formulated answers, presented to a laity that would thus have had poorly formed consciences. It is thinkable—although requiring much labor—that conscience and prudence, rightly-understood casuistry¹⁵ and theosis, can be brought together in the synthetic outlook of a mature moral theology that is at once old and new, offering great fruit for our own era.

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1. See the essay “Of Manuals and of Those Who Did Not Write Them: The Case of Garrigou-Lagrange” also available here on To Be a Thomist.↩︎

2. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, On Divine Revelation, trans. Matthew K. Minerd, vol. 1 (Steubenville: Emmaus Academic, 2022), 116n76.↩︎

3. Concerning the history of probabilism see Albert R.R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Sara Rubinelli, Ars Topica: The Classical Technique of Constructing Arguments from Aristotle to Cicero (New York: Springer, 2009); Rudolf Schuessler, The Debate on Probable Opinions in the Scholastic Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2019); Matthew Levering, The Abuse of Conscience: A Century of Catholic Moral Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2021); Gregory Pine, The Incipient Probabilism of Francisco de Vitoria , Nova et Vetera (English edition) 17, no. 3 (Summer 2019): 717–746; Thomas Deman, “Probabilisme,” Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Vol. 13, No. 1, ed. E. Amann, et al. (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1936), col. 417–619.↩︎

4. The reason I refer to this as “supposedly probable” is explained at great length and with great depth in Ambroise Gardeil’s articles on Probable Certainty, which I have translated and released here on To Be a Thomist. These articles, which are available on the website itself, are also available in a single file here****.↩︎

5. In the end, all of the various systems of such casuistry are caught in the web of probabilism’s presuppositions, as is very well observed by Marie-MIchel Labourdette in “Comments on Conscience” in Conscience: Four Thomistic Treatments, ed. and trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Providence: Cluny Media, 2022), 129–156.↩︎

6. Labourdette, “Comments on Conscience,” 154.↩︎

7. Some cure for such forgetfulness can be found in Matthew Levering’s recent text, The Abuse of Conscience: A Century of Catholic Moral Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021).↩︎

8. The appeal to epikeia by Fuchs, Häring, and others was perhaps in part motivated by remnants of the legalism of their own prior training in moral theology. In any case, the over-extension of the notion is not limited to Western moral theologians. Very often, Orthodox thought will elide from the canonical application of oikonomia (a term which, if not the same as epikeia, tracks closely thereto) into a kind of much more universal moral-exempting use of the notion.↩︎

9. Ambroise Gardeil, The True Christian Life: Thomistic Reflections on Divinization, Prudence, Religion, and Prayer, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022), 120.↩︎

10. See Brian Besong, “Reappraising the Manual Tradition,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 89, no. 4 (2012): 557–584.↩︎

11. See the article I cited above in note 1.↩︎

12. See Heidi M. Giebel, “What Moral Exemplars Can Teach Us About Virtue, Psychology, and Ourselves,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 96, no. 2 (2022):235–261.↩︎

13. Gardeil, The True Christian Life, 89.↩︎

14. Jacques Maritain, “Action: The Perfection of Human Action” in Existence and the Existent, trans. Gerald Phelan (New York: Pantheon, 1948), 60.↩︎

15. See the paragraph starting “It is important, here, to disambiguate the term…” above.↩︎