The time is now: education and organisation of services.

In the absence of a determinate decision procedure the most common method for making decisions in cases where moral principles conflict is the much maligned method of casuistry, developed so exhaustively by both the Jewish and the Roman Catholic religions, also adopted by Kant, and also (in a way) by the British legal system. Essentially the method, whose objective is the application of accepted moral principles to specific circumstances in which these principles conflict, requires the careful separation ofthe moral principles relevant to a particular case, comparison with clearer or "paradigm" cases determined by each of the principles, and an attempt to settle the difficult case as coherently as possible with the existing pattern. Though the methods of casuistry have far more value than the common prejorative use of the term indicates, they are, none the less, radically limited so far as determining or questioningwhat those basic principles and their relativeimportance should be.