An issue that I attempted to raise in my SLAP for this week
(although I do not think that I expressed myself clearly enough) concerned
Aristotle’s description of the relationship between fairness and lawfulness. He states that fairness relates to lawfulness
as a part to a whole. He then uses this
to say that everything fair is lawful, but not everything lawful is fair. He also asserts that the same relationship
applies to unfairness and lawlessness.
My
confusion has to do with how something could be lawful, but not fair, yet
somehow not unfair, since everything unfair is lawless. The reverse would also seem to cause an issue
(i.e. something being lawless and not unfair, yet not fair). Is it simply that there exists some significant
gray area between fair and unfair, whereas the line between lawfulness and
lawlessness is much sharper? Or am I
completely confusing Aristotle’s meaning?
In my SLAP
I came to the conclusion that the issue is simply a distraction from more
important points that Aristotle is making.
However, I would still appreciate any helpful input that anyone might
have.
I think that you may have misinterpreted Aristotle in trying to write out the relationship.
ReplyDeleteWhat is lawful is fair, but what is fair is not always lawful. (When a law does not work well).
What is lawlessness is unfair, but what is unfair or not fair is not always lawlessness/unlawful.
The gray area arises from how laws are crafted and the fact that if a law is crafted poorly, either by accident or by the purpose of those in power, the result is unfair actions that are lawfully committed.
This is the premise of Stories like Robin Hood, where those in power preform unfair actions thanks to their defining what is "fair" through laws that leave gray area's though the consideration of how those are enforced.
The big issue comes from the enforcement of the law and when a law allows for a wide range of variations in enforcement.