De 1897 à 1914, une rubrique anonyme paraît dans L’Ami du Clergé. Son auteur, un « vieux moraliste », consacre l’une de ses chroniques à la définition du « cas ». Il s’efforce d’expliciter cette notion si importante pour les confesseurs et les théologiens moralistes. Très curieusement, rares sont, avant lui, les témoignages imprimés attestant d’un intérêt semblable. La recherche du vieux moraliste trouve une juste postérité qui n’est pourtant pas une filiation dans les théories de la « nouvelle casuistique (...) ». From 1897 to 1914, an anonymous column appeared in L’Ami du Clergé . Its author, an « old moralist », devotes one of his chronicles to the definition of the « case ». He endeavours to clarify this notion which is so important for confessors and theologians specialized in ethics. It is very curious that earlier printed evidence of such an interest is rare. The research of the old moralist has a true posterity which, however, does not end in the theories of the « new casuistry ». (shrink)

In the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, August 26, 1789, the possession of human rights is subject to the condition of birth and to a particular stipulation: only one who is born a man in entitled to human rights. Birth, that is, the manifestation of a body according to natural laws in a social world, is the condition by which a being comes to personhood. According to a long tradition in moral theology and sacred embryology (...) examined here, human identity is recognized at birth by the possession of a ‘human form.’ The difficulty lies in defining this ‘form,’ and in determining if it extends to beings formed or transformed by human industry. This article looks into the conditions necessary to recognize or grant human rights to trans/posthuman individuals. (shrink)