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The Persistence Of Casuistry: A Neo-Premodernist Approach To Moral Reasoning, Richard Arthur Mercadante Jan 2011

The Persistence Of Casuistry: A Neo-Premodernist Approach To Moral Reasoning, Richard Arthur Mercadante

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The general purpose of this dissertation is to explore casuistry--case-based reasoning--as a discredited, rehabilitated, and, most importantly, persistent form of moral reasoning. Casuistry offers a much needed corrective to principle-based approaches. I offer a defense of a "principle-modest" casuistry and explore the epistemology of casuistry, describing the prerequisite knowledge required for casuistry. I conclude by arguing that casuistry is best understood as a neo-premodernist approach to moral reasoning.