Fleming: “Different casuists, whether philosophers or novelists, will come to different conclusions, because ethics is not (as St. Alphonsus acknowledged) an abstract science; it is more like the art of tuning a piano or tacking a sailing ship against the wind. The rules are as fixed as the points of a compass or the overtone series, but applying them to the imperfections of human life is a messy and sometimes dangerous business.”

Fleming: “Different casuists, whether philosophers or novelists, will come to different conclusions, because ethics is not (as St. Alphonsus acknowledged) an abstract science; it is more like the art of tuning a piano or tacking a sailing ship against the wind. The rules are as fixed as the points of a compass or the overtone series, but applying them to the imperfections of human life is a messy and sometimes dangerous business.”

The Morality Of Everyday Life By Thomas Fleming - California Literary Review

https://calitreview.com/the-morality-of-everyday-life-by-thomas-fleming/

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