ABSTRACT
Two senses of justice and equality are involved in this confusion. The root notion of justice, progenitor of the other, is the one that Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics 5:6; Politics 1:2; 3:1) assumes to. be the foundation and proper virtue of the political association. It is the condition which free men establish among themselves when they “share a common life in order that their association bring them self-sufficiency”— the regulation of their rela tionship by law, and the establishment, by law, of equality before the law. Rule of law is the name and pattern of this justice; its equality stands against the inequalities-of wealth, talent, etc.— otherwise obtaining among its participants, who by virtue of that equality are called “citizens.” It is an achievement-complete, or, more frequently, partial-of certain people in certain concrete situations. It is fragile and easily disrupted by powerful individuals who discover that the blind equality of rule of law is
inconvenient for their interests. Despite its obvious instability, Aristotle as sumed that the establishment of justice in this sense, the creation of citi zenship, was a permanent possibility for men and that the resultant association of citizens was the natural home of the species. At levels below the political association, this rule-governed equality is easily found; it is ex emplified by any group of children agreeing together to play a game. At the level of the political association, the attainment of this justice is more difficult, simply because the stakes are so much higher for each participant. The equality of citizenship is not something that happens of its own ac cord, and without the expenditure of a fair amount of effort it will collapse into the rule of a powerful few over an apathetic many. But at least it has been achieved, at some times in some places; it is always worth trying to achieve, and eminently worth trying to maintain, wherever and to what ever degree it has been brought into being.
