CASUISTRY AND CLINICAL DECISION MAKING. A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

Abstract

Casuistry depends on the basic assumption that the
casuist method is the ideal way of decision making in
medical ethics because of its structural similarity to
clinical practice. Our close examination of the basic
assumption shows that it overemphasizes the role of
building analogies between cases for clinical decision
making and that it is incongruent with the contemporary understanding of clinical practice. Therefore, the
basic assumption has to be refuted both as a description
of clinical practice and as an argument in favor of the
casuist method.