Is It More Important for Society to Be Lawful or to Be Fair?

In Book V of Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle explores the issue of justice and law.
According to Aristotle, the purpose of law is to provide “common benefit” to people within a
community (Ross (translator) 1). In this sense, the practice of law advances justice because
legal behavior often encourages virtuous acts. However, in section 2 of the Book V, Aristotle
also notes that being law abiding does always mean being just as laws can be immoral or
unjust, especially when they are made by a corrupt political system. To prove this point,
Aristotle writes that “unfair and unlawful are not the same, but are different as part is from its
whole (for all that is unfair is unlawful, but not all that is unlawful is unfair)” (Ross
(translator) 2). Based on this assertion, it is clear that abiding by the law may lead one to act
unjustly and sometimes acting justly may involve breaking the law.
Given the fact that laws may create injustice, I believe that it is better for a society to
be fair rather than lawful. History is littered by examples of laws that were unfair and unjust
to sections or groups within a given community. For example, Germany in the 1930s passed
multiple laws that were unfair to Jews. In the United States, African Americans were also for
long denied many rights that Whites had. For instance, until 1865 African Americans were
not allowed to vote and were kept in bondage, treated as property (Kendall 76). Thus, the
degradation of Jews in Nazi Germany and African Americans in the USA in the 19 th and parts
of 20 th centuries was legal but unfair. For this reason, I believe that it is important for
societies to be fair rather than lawful.

Surname 2

Works Cited

Kendall, Walter. “Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Disobedience and the Duty to Obey the Law:
Where Do We Go From Here?.” The Journal of Social Encounters 3.1 (2019): 75-87.
Ross, W.D. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.