Casuistry

Casuistry is a method of reasoning that resolves an ethical or legal dilemma by extracting general rules from a specific case of conscience and then reapplying those rules to other, different situations. It is used across applied ethics and jurisprudence as a way of working from concrete cases toward general principles rather than starting from abstract doctrine. In philosophy the term casuistry has also become a pejorative label for clever but unsound reasoning used to excuse questionable conduct, comparable to sophistry. As a method it draws heavily on natural law, equity, civil law and ecclesiastical precept, and applying it well demands skill at interpreting those different bodies of norms together. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/