Aristotle on equity, law and justice.

Abstract

In a famous passage in his Ethics, Aristotle considers the nature of equity and its relation to justice.1 His conclusion seems to be that equity's role is to prevent the law from adhering too rigidly to its own rules and principles when those rules and principles produce injustice. Hence equity permits judges to depart from legal principle in order to promote justice. In this article, however, I argue that this conclusion is problematic as it is inconsistent with other claims Aristotle makes, both in his short discussion of equity in the Ethics and elsewhere. Accordingly, I suggest a reinterpretation of Aristotle's view that explains more satisfactorily the connection between law, in its various senses, and justice.