Aristotle’s Understanding of Democratic Justice and His Distinction between Two Kinds of Equality: A Response

This short article is a response to Douglas Cairns, Mirko Canevaro, and Kleanthis Mantzouranis, who in Polis 39 (2022) explicitly criticize both of my previous interpretations of Aristotle’s view of democratic justice and of the relation of proportional and numerical equality. Against Cairns et al., I argue that there is no tension or contradiction between Aristotle’s statements on these two kinds of equality and on democratic justice. The paper suggests a new reading of Aristotle’s texts that strictly distinguishes between Aristotle’s own views and his references to ‘respected opinions’ (endoxa). It concludes that Aristotle consistently identifies democratic justice with ‘numerical’ or ‘arithmetic’ equality and not with proportional equality, which he usually identifies with equality ‘according to worth or merit’ (kat’ axian).