10 Mark Washofsky

general rules and maxims that play a part in people’s ethical deliberations are only rarely matters of serious dispute.... On the contrary, it is just those situations that are not covered by appeal to any single simple rule that begin to be problematic; and in just those cases our concern to act rightly gives rise to genuinely moral ‘questions’ and‘issues’[emphasis in original].”*” Generalizations, in other words, are empty of substantive content beyond the obvious and uncontroversial examples— cases— which gave rise to them in the first place. Once we move past those obvious areas of agreement to the more difficult(and interesting) questions of morality and ethics, it is only through the application of casuistry, the identification of similarities and differences between types of example, that moral thought can productively proceed. Rules are important, even essential, but it is by considering examples— that is, through casuistry and analogical reasoning— that we determine just what those rules cover and how far they extend.’® Such an approach, which Jonsen and Toulmin attribute to such distinguished contemporary writers as Michael Walzer and Sissela Bok ,“is wholly consistent with our moral practice.” On the other hand, analogical thinking has its weaknesses, too. The most obvious of these lies in step four of our description of the process of analogy, the determination that the similarities between the two cases outweigh or do not outweigh the differences between them. This raises the“problem of importance”: how exactly do we evaluate the relative legal or moral significance of the similarities and differences?** Analogical reasoning does not by itself solve this problem. It can suggest possible precedents, but it cannot assure us that these prior decisions are in fact precedential, because that decision must rest with the interpreter.“At most, analogical thinking can give rise to ajudgment about probabilities, and these are of uncertain magnitude.” Unlike deductive reasoning, in which the conclusion is said to follow logically from the premises, analogy cannot make a methodological, quasi-mathematical claim for the validity of its conclusions. It rather suggests its conclusion, the correctness of which must therefore be argued by its advocate on the