ABSTRACT
The Greek Stoics stop there, and in their moral rigor they explicitly reject any application of epieikeia that goes beyond the careful classification of offenses. There is a puzzle in the evidence for ancient Greek thought about legal and moral reasoning. Two concepts that do not appear to be at all the same are treated as so closely linked as to be aspects of the same concept, and introduced together by one and the same moral term. Aristotle ends the discussion with some remarks that seem ill-suited to their context. For what Aristotle recommends is precise attention to circumstance of offense and offender, both in ascertaining whether or not there is any guilt and in assessing the penalty if there is. He is prepared to let people off the hook if it can be shown that their wrongdoing is unintentional, or to judge them more lightly if it is the result of something less than full deliberate badness.
