In Book V, Chapter 10 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle offers an account of “equity” (epieikeia). The virtue of equity, according to Aristotle, serves as a necessary “correction of justice according to law.” This presents us with a difficulty: On the one hand, the need for “equitable” judges seems to belong to the nature of the case—there is simply no way of capturing the demands of justice in a set of general rules; on the other hand, one thing justice demands is that “like cases be treated alike” and that individuals not be treated arbitrarily—and this seems to require legal verdicts be determined by general rules, with judicial discretion kept to an absolute minimum. I want, in this talk, to go some way towards resolving this tension. I’ll do so on the basis of a careful consideration of why justice resists being reduced to a set of rules, and why we nonetheless value the rule of law.

Santa Fe Graduate Insitute summer lectures will be recorded and premiere on YouTube on Fridays at 7 p.m. MT/5 p.m. ET.