Chapter 20

CASUISTRY.

Casuistry is the application of the general principles of morality to individual _cases_ in which there is room for question as to duty. The question may be as to the obligation or the rightfulness of a particular act, as to the choice between two alternative courses, as to the measure or limit of a recognized duty, or as to the grounds of preference when there seems to be a conflict of duties. A large proportion of these cases disappear under any just view of moral obligation. Most questions of conscience have their origin in deficient conscientiousness. He who is determined to do the right, the whole right, and nothing but the right, is seldom at a loss to know what he ought to do. But when the aim is to evade all difficult duties which can be omitted without shame or the clear consciousness of wrong, and to go as close as possible to the boundary line between good and evil without crossing it, the questions that arise are often perplexing and complicated, and they are such as, in the interest of virtue, may fittingly remain unanswered. There are always those whose aim is, not to attain any definite, still less any indefinitely high, standard of goodness, but to be saved from the penal consequences of wrong-doing; and there are even (so-called) religious persons, and teachers too, with whom this negative indemnity from punishment fills out the whole meaning of the sacred and significant term _salvation_. It must be confessed that questions which could emanate only from such minds, furnish a very large part of the often voluminous and unwieldy treatises on casuistry that have come down to us from earlier times, especially of those of the Jesuit moralists, whose chief endeavor is to lay out a border-path just outside the confines of acknowledged wrong and evil.

Yet there are *cases in which the most conscientious persons may be in doubt as to the right*. We can here indicate only the general principles on which such cases are to be decided, with a very few specific illustrations.

*The question of duty is often a question*, not of principle, but *of fact*. It is the _case_, the position and relations of the persons or objects concerned, that we do not fully understand. For instance, when a new appeal is made for our charitable aid, in labor or money, the question is not whether it is our duty to assist in a work of real beneficence, but whether for the proposed object, and under the direction of those who make the appeal, our labor or money will be lucratively invested in the service of humanity. There are, certainly, benevolent associations and enterprises for the very noblest ends, whose actual utility is open to the gravest doubt. It is sometimes difficult even to determine a question of justice or equity, simply because the circumstances of the case, so far as we can understand them, do not define the right. Instances of this class might be multiplied; but they are all instances in which there is no obscurity as to our obligation or duty, and therefore no question for moral casuistry. We are, however, obviously bound, by considerations of fitness, to seek the fullest information within our power in every case in which we are compelled to act, or see fit to act; nor can we regard action without knowledge, even though the motive be virtuous, as either safe or blameless.

*The measure or limit of duty* is with many conscientious persons a serious question. Here an exact definition is hardly possible, and a generous liberty may be given to individual taste or judgment; yet considerations of fitness set bounds to that liberty. Thus direct and express self-culture is a duty incumbent on all, yet in which diversity of inclination may render very different degrees of diligence equally fitting and right; but all self-centred industry is fittingly limited by domestic, social, and civic obligations. Thus, also, direct acts of beneficence are obviously incumbent on all; but the degree of self-sacrifice for beneficent ends need not, nay, ought not to be the same for every one; and while we hold in the highest admiration those who make the entire surrender of all that they have and are to the service of mankind, we have no reason to scant our esteem for those who are simply kind and generous, while they at the same time labor, spend, or save for their own benefit. Indeed, the world has fully as much need of the latter as of the former. Were the number of self-devoting philanthropists over-large, a great deal of the necessary business and work of life would be left undone; and did self-denying givers constitute a very numerous body, the dependent and mendicant classes would be much more numerous than they are; while the withdrawal of expenditure for personal objects would paralyze industrial enterprise, and arrest the creation of that general wealth which contributes to the general comfort and happiness, and the accumulation of those large fortunes which are invaluable as safety-funds and movement-funds for the whole community.

There are cases in which there is manifestly a *conflict of duties*. This most frequently occurs between prudence and beneficence. Up to a certain point they coincide. No prudent man will suffer himself to contract unsocial, or selfish, or miserly habits, or to neglect the ordinary good offices and common charities of life. But is one bound to transcend the limits of prudence, and, without any specific grounds of personal obligation, to incur loss, hardship, or peril, in behalf of another person? One is no doubt bound to do all that he could reasonably expect from another, were their positions reversed; but is it his duty to do more than this? In answer, it must be admitted that he who in such a case suffers prudence to limit his beneficence has done all that duty absolutely requires; but, in proportion to the warmth of his benevolence and the loftiness of his spirit and character, he will find himself constrained to transcend this limit, and to sacrifice prudence to beneficence. Thus—to take an instance from a class of events by no means infrequent—if I see a man in danger of drowning, it is obviously my duty to do all that I can do for his rescue without putting my own life in jeopardy. But I owe him no more than this. My own life is precious to me and to my family, and I have a right so to regard it. I shall not deserve censure or self-reproach, if I decline exposing myself to imminent peril. Yet if I have the generosity and the courage which belong to a truly noble nature, I shall not content myself with doing no more than this,—I shall hazard my own safety if there is reason to hope that my efforts may have a successful issue; and in so doing I shall perform an act of heroic virtue. The same principle will apply to exposure, danger, and sacrifice of every kind, incurred for the safety, relief, or benefit of others. We transgress no positive law of right, when we omit doing for others more than we could rightfully expect were we in their place. Prudence in such a case is our right. But it is a right which it is more noble to surrender than to retain; and the readiness with which and the degree in which we are willing to surrender it, may be taken as a fair criterion of our moral growth and strength.

Under the title of *Justice*, with the broad scope which we have given to it, there may be an apparent conflict of duties, and there are certain obvious laws of precedence which may cover all such cases. We should first say that our obligations to the Supreme Being have a paramount claim above all duties to inferior beings, had we not reason to believe that God is in no way so truly worshipped and served as by acts of justice and mercy to his children. The Divine Teacher has given us to understand, not that there is no time or place too sacred for charity, but that holy times and places have their highest consecration in the love to man which love to God inspires.

Toward men, it hardly needs to be said that justice (in the limited and ordinary acceptation of the word) *has the precedence of charity*. Indeed, were it not for the prevalence of injustice—individual, social, and civic—there would hardly be any scope for the active exercise of charity. Want comes almost wholly from wrong. Were justice universal, that is, were the rights and privileges which fitly belong to men as men, extended to and made available by all classes and conditions of men, there would still be great inequalities of wealth and of social condition; but abject and squalid poverty could hardly exist. In almost every individual instance, the withholding or delay of justice tends more or less directly toward the creation of the very evils which charity relieves. No amount of generosity, then, can palliate injustice, or stand as a substitute for justice.

As regards the persons to whom we owe offices of kindness or charity, it is obvious that *those related to us by consanguinity or affinity have the first ** claim*. These relations have all the elements of a natural alliance for mutual defence and help; and it is impossible that their essential duties should be faithfully discharged and their fitnesses duly observed, without creating sympathies that in stress of need will find expression in active charity. In the next rank we may fittingly place our benefactors, if their condition be such as to demand a return for their kind offices in our behalf. Nearness in place may be next considered; for the very fact that the needs of our neighbors are or may be within our cognizance, commends them especially to our charity, and enables us to be the more judicious and effective in their relief. Indeed, in smaller communities, where the dwellings of the rich and of the poor are interspersed, a general recognition of the claims of neighborhood on charity would cover the field of active beneficence with an efficiency attainable in no other way, and at a greatly diminished cost of time and substance. There is yet another type of neighborhood, consecrated to our reverent observance by the parable of the Good Samaritan. There are from time to time cases of want and suffering brought, without our seeking, under our immediate regard,—cast, as it were, directly upon our kind offices. The person thus commended to us is, for the time, our nearest neighbor, nay, our nearest kinsman, and the very circumstances which have placed him in this relation to us, make him fittingly the foremost object of our charity.

The question sometimes presents itself *whether ** we shall bestow an immediate, yet transient benefit, or a more remote, but permanent good*. If the two are incompatible, and the former is not a matter of absolute necessity, the latter is to be preferred. Thus remunerative employment is much more beneficial than alms to an able-bodied man, and it is better that he suffer some degree of straitness till he can earn a more comfortable condition, than that he be first made to feel the dependence of pauperism. Yet if his want be entire and urgent, the delay of immediate relief is the part of cruelty. On similar grounds, beneficence which embraces a class of cases or persons is to be preferred to particular acts of kindness to individuals. Thus it seems harsh to refuse alms to an unknown street beggar; but as such relief gives shelter to a vast amount of fraud, idleness, and vice, it is much better that we should sustain, by contributions proportioned to our ability, some system by which cases of actual need, and such only, can be promptly and adequately cared for, and that we then—however reluctantly—refuse our alms to applicants of doubtful merit.