Overview of psychiatric ethics IV: the method of casuistry

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this paper is to describe the method of ethical analysis known as casuistry and consider its merits as a basis of ethical deliberation in psychiatry.

Conclusions: Casuistry approximates the legal arguments of common law. It examines ethical dilemmas by adopting a taxonomic approach to 'paradigm' cases, using a technique akin to that of normative analogical reasoning. Casuistry offers a useful method in ethical reasoning through providing a practical means of evaluating the merits of a particular course of action in a particular clinical situation. As a method ethical moral reasoning in psychiatry, casuistry suffers from a paucity of paradigm cases and its failure to fully contextualize ethical dilemmas by relying on common morality theory as its basis.