Section 10: Equity

Our next subject is equity and the equitable (epiekes), and their respective relations to justice and the just. For on examination they appear to be neither absolutely the same nor generically different. And while we sometime praise what is equitable and the equitable person (so that we apply _[35] the name by way of praise even to instances of the other virtues, instead of “good” meaning by epieikestebon that a thing is better), at other times, when we reason it out, it seems strange if the equitable, being something different from the just, is yet praiseworthy. For either the just or the equitable is not good, if they are different; or, if both are good, they are the same. _[5]

These, then, are pretty much the considerations that give rise to the problem about the equitable. They are all in a sense correct and not opposed to one another. For the equitable, though it is better than one kind of justice, yet is just, and it is not as being a different class of thing that it is better than the just. The same thing, then, is just and equitable, and while both are good _[10] the equitable is superior.

What creates the problem is that the equitable is just, but not legal justice but instead a correction of legal justice. The reason is that all law is universal but about some things it is not possible to make a correct universal statement. In those cases, then, in which it is necessary to speak universally, but not possible to do so correctly, the law _[15] takes what holds for the most part, although it is not ignorant of the error involved. And it is no less correct for doing thing. For the error is not in the law nor in the legislator but in the nature of the thing, since the subject matter of practical affairs is of this kind from the start. When the law speaks universally, then, and a case arises not covered by _[20] the universal statement, then it is right, where the legislator fails us and has erred by oversimplicity, to correct the omission–to say what the legislator himself would have said had he been present, and would have put into his law if he had known.

Thus the equitable is just, and better than one kind of justice, [namely, legal justice], yet not better than absolute justice but better than the error that arises from the absoluteness of the statement. _[25] And this is the nature of the equitable, a correction of law where it is defective owing to its universality. In fact, this is the reason why all things are not determined by law, because about some things it is impossible to lay down a law, so that a decree is needed. For when the thing is indefinite the standard also is indefinite, like the lead standard used in Lesbian _[30] building. The standard adapts itself to the shape of the stone and is not rigid, and so too the decree is adapted to the facts.

It is plain, then, what the equitable is, and that it is just and is better than one kind of justice. It is evident also from this who the equitable person is: Someone who chooses and does such actions is equitable, _[35] and is no stickler for his rights in a bad sense but tends to take less than his share even if _[1138a1] he has the law on his side. And this state of character is equity, which is a sort of justice and not a different state of character.