Learning to Be Fair, Charles McNamara. Fortress Press (ISBN: 9781506495095) 2024.

Summary: The ancient origins of the idea of equity in western moral philosophy and the historical development of the concept.

The word “equity” has become part of the contentious triad of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” As such, the concern for equity is deemed modern and “woke.” Hopefully one error the reader will not make after reading this book is to consider equity a newfangled notion. In Learning to Be Fair, Charles McNamara demonstrates that the concept of “equity” goes back at least two millennia to the Greeks. He also shows the contested character of the concept goes back to its origins.

He begins with the Greeks and how Aristotle differed from Socrates on the matter of what constitutes justice. Whereas Socrates treated it as an immutable absolute, Aristotle introduced the idea of epieikeia, from which our word equity comes via the Latin aequitas. Aristotle believed in adapting law to actual events and concrete situations.

He then turns to the Romans, and the relationship of equity to equality, reflected in tensions between democracy and aristocracy and ambiguity around questions of merit. The questions we struggle with in our own day are not new.

From here, McNamara turns to the idea of equity in English legal tradition. Not only were there courts of law but also courts of equity, or chancery courts. For example, he traces Thomas Hobbes’ concept of distributive justice, implemented through courts of equity. The term even makes it into Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

But this hardly settles its meaning. McNamara observes that two species of equity persist and are in conflict in our culture. One is “equity of the exception.” Here law is applied, taking into consideration concrete and specific circumstances. Then there is the “equity of the norm,” which seeks to treat all alike. Yet we often fail to do this for particular groups, hence the tension between the two species.

McNamara concludes the book noting the tension and vagueness around the term equity throughout history. Instead of the binary defined by the positions of Socrates and Aristotle, he commends the approach of Isocrates who treats equity as a poietikon pragma, a creative activity. Rather than equity being something “known,” he treats it as something “made,” in which equity is defined by us in our political processes.

That seems to me to be vague as well and capable of abuse. It requires the robust guardrails of democratic institutions with a balance of power. My own sense is that Isocrates holds together the “both-and” of the inherent tensions in equity. Rather than absolutism or utter relativism, good politics is creative in fashioning proximal, common good approximations of equity that meet the situation yet adhere to the rule of law. What this presumes is recognizing that political opponents need each other, which sadly does not seem to be the modus operandi at present.

However, what McNamara does offer is a challenge to the idea that equity reflects a contemporary “woke” progressivism. Rather, from the Greeks onward, equity, with all its challenges, is part of just governing, crucial to the functioning of a civil society. At the same time, he helps us understand why equity has been so contentious. And he gestures toward a politics that creatively negotiates that tension.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

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