Understanding Equity’s Role in Judicial Philosophy in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure Rich Meyer Perhaps Shakespeare’s most provocative problem play, Measure for Measure explores the radical complexities that the law faces in the service of a human state. This state, in which the principal beings are of a fallen nature, inevitably sends waves of nuanced crime crashing against the walls of juridical philosophy. The play evokes questions pertaining to the purpose of law and the intricate relationship between justice and mercy. Claudio’s crime of fornication, Angelo’s seemingly stoic devotion to severe justice, Isabella’s merciful character and iron will, and the Duke’s providential role-playing in this Viennese moral experiment all serve to draw out the tensions between these two concepts inherently rooted within the realm of human and eternal law. These tensions can be reconciled when implementing Thomistic, and by extension Aristotelian, thought on the virtue of equity, which is “the principle that allows the magistrate to make exceptions to general laws where enforcing the general law would lead to an injustice under specific local circumstances.”1 Equity is thus especially pertinent and necessary when judging Claudio’s crime and the exoneration of Angelo, for the extremes of strictly just (Angelo) and naively merciful (the Duke) ideologies fail to navigate successfully these convoluted waters of human law. This paper intends to lay bare the structural faults in both of the princes’ radical philosophies. Afterward, it demonstrates that equity presents a reasonable and effective method of governance, and reveals how Shakespeare embeds medieval Christian theology and classical philosophy to resolve the mess of the drama. The play starts in Vienna, an Italian city-state ruled by the Duke. For fourteen years, the Duke’s misplaced compassion and unwillingness to enforce the law allowed lawlessness to fester within the city. In a move to restore order among his constituents, the Duke deputizes Angelo, a man known for his moral rigidity. Once in power, Angelo immediately sentences the young aristocrat Claudio to death for impregnating his girlfriend Juliet before they were married, hoping to make an example out of him to the other citizens of Vienna. Lucio, Claudio’s friend, goes to the local 1.Stacy Magendaz, Stacy Mag”endaz, “Public Private Mercy infor Measure for Mea“Public Justic andJustice Privateand Mercy in Measure Measure,” (San sure,” (San Bernandino, Bernandino, 2004), 327.2004), 327. 1
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