Casuistry, Probabilism and the Demandingness of Morality

Christian moral theology is a huge repertory of moral psychology, abounding with claims and assumptions concerning human emotions, intellect, will, and their interaction. Much of this also extends to moral casuistry, which deals with cases of conscience. Casuistry approaches what we today call problems of practical ethics on a mixed theological and philosophical basis. The chapter introduces Christian casuistry, focusing on the moral and psychological demandingness of Catholic probabilist and antiprobabilist moral systems. Scholastic theologians tried to limit the demandingness of moral duties for ordinary Christians. Probabilists advanced further in this direction than antiprobabilists. Both sides supported their views with action-theoretical assumptions concerning the goals of a rational will and intellect. Most theologians accepted a form of moral satisficing, that is, the permission to choose the merely good over the morally best. Some theologians even condoned epistemic satisficing, which is the permission to choose the less likely but still defensible alternative over the most likely alternative if the former was more practically expedient. The chapter highlights the sophisticated early modern scholastic debate on moral demandingness, a discussion that was almost entirely forgotten in modern moral philosophy.