| 释义 |
casuistry|ˈkæzjuːɪstrɪ, ˈkæʒ(j)uː-|
[f. casuist + -ry. App. at first contemptuous = ‘the casuist's trade’; cf. sophistry, Jesuitry, foolery. A term of more respectful application would prob. have been casuism: Fr. has la casuistique, as if ‘casuistics’.]
The science, art, or reasoning of the casuist; that part of Ethics which resolves cases of conscience, applying the general rules of religion and morality to particular instances in which ‘circumstances alter cases’, or in which there appears to be a conflict of duties. Often (and perhaps originally) applied to a quibbling or evasive way of dealing with difficult cases of duty; sophistry.
1725Pope Rape Lock v. 122 Cages for gnats..and tomes of casuistry. 1736Bolingbroke Patriot. (1749) 170 Casuistry..destroys, by distinctions and exceptions, all morality, and effaces the essential difference between right and wrong. 1836Penny Cycl. VI. 359 The science of casuistry..has been termed not inaptly the ‘art of quibbling with God’. 1841Emerson Lect. the Times Wks. (Bohn) II. 254 The Temperance-question..is a gymnastic training to the casuistry and conscience of the time. 1862Mill Utilit. 37 Self-deception and dishonest casuistry. 1887Fowler Princ. Morals ii. vi. 247 Granted that duties may clash, or that general rules may be modified by special circumstances, it is surely most important to determine beforehand, as far as we can, what those circumstances are, and, in the case of clashing duties, which should yield to the other. Now this, and this alone, is the task which ‘Casuistry’ or the attempt to ‘resolve cases of conscience’ proposes to itself.
2. A register or record of (medical) cases.
1883J. W. Legg in Barthol. Hosp. Rep. XIX. 202 Nor can I find any similar case in the casuistry of pemphigus as recorded in the year-books. |