Balancing in Ethical Deliberation: Superior to Specification and Casuistry

Approaches to clinical ethics dilemmas that rely on basic principles or rules are difficult to apply because of vagueness and conflict among basic values. In response, casuistry rejects the use of basic values, and specification produces a large set of specified rules that are presumably easily applicable. Balancing is a method employed to weigh the relative importance of different and conflicting values in application. We argue against casuistry and specification, claiming that balancing is superior partly because it most clearly exhibits the reasoning behind moral decision-making. Hence, balancing may be most effective in teaching bioethics to medical professionals.