Probabilism and the problem of “uncertain” conscience in the Early Modern Times: Historical and Theoretical Contexts

Abstract

The phenomenon of “uncertain” and “scrupulous” conscience, that is, conscience, which is difficult to make a decision in a situation of doubt, and therefore is subject to both rational and irrational fears, has drawn attention at the turn of the Early Modern Times as a consequence of changes in the practice of the penance, different social, religious, and theoretical factors. Proposed by I. Nieder, J. Gerson and Antonin of Florence practical procedures for overcoming the situation of moral uncertainty testified to the gradual break with the medieval tradition of tutiorism, which states that in all cases of uncertainty the safer side is to be preferred, and later developed in the ideas of probabilism. Its origin was influenced by the blossoming of Neopirronism and the evolution of the Aristotelian concept of “probability” in the direction of Cicero’s more reasons-based notion, but also by the Reformation and confessional fragmentation of Europe, the discovery of the New World, the development of science. The Jesuits moved to the position of probabilism in the 1580s, taking from the rhetorical heritage of Cicero the principle of adaptation, but also in connection with the consistency of probabilism to one of the main principles of the spirituality of the Jesuits – the ability to make the right choice of means to achieve the highest goal depending on the current situation. The probabilistic reasoning assimilated by the Jesuits was spread both through their system of education and manuals for confessors, in which the post tridentine legal image of confession as a kind of judicial process was significantly “softened”. The benign way of guiding consciences was one of the reasons for the attacks by the Jansenists who criticized the laxism, which developed from probabilism, bringing the latter to the point of absurdity.