Comment: “Rule of law is better than rule of men.” (Aristotle) (1995)
In Politics Book III, chapters 15–16, Aristotle asks whether it is better to be ruled by the best man or by the best laws. He answers against Plato’s philosopher-king: he who bids the law rule may be deemed to bid God and Reason alone rule, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast. This founds constitutionalism. It is sound, though Aristotle himself accepted that law needs men to make, apply and correct it.
Aristotle’s Case
- Law as reason without passion. Desire is a wild beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are the best of men. Law, by contrast, is reason unaffected by desire.
- Generality. Law is impersonal, known in advance and treats like cases alike; customary law carries the experience of generations.
- Many judges are better than one. The many are harder to corrupt, like the greater quantity of water, and their pooled judgement is like a feast to which all contribute.
- Rulers as servants of law. Where some must hold power, they should be guardians and ministers of the law and decide only what law cannot settle. Where decrees override laws, there is no constitution (IV.4).
The Qualifications He Adds
- Equity (epieikeia). General law cannot foresee every case, so Nicomachean Ethics V.10 makes equity its correction: the judge decides as the lawgiver would have.
- Law follows the constitution. Laws framed for a perverted constitution are unjust.
- Surpassing virtue. A person of godlike excellence could not be bound by law, but such a person hardly exists.
Legacy and the Indian Anchor
The idea runs to James Harrington‘s empire of laws, and not of men (Oceana, 1656), John Locke (where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, 1689) and A. V. Dicey (1885). B. R. Ambedkar warned the Constituent Assembly (25 November 1949) that hero-worship in politics is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship. In Kesavananda Bharati (1973) the Supreme Court bound even the amending power by the basic structure, and in Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain (1975) it struck down an amendment placing the Prime Minister’s election beyond judicial review.
Critique
- Law is made by men. In ADM Jabalpur (1976) the Court upheld the suspension of habeas corpus during the Emergency, over Justice H. R. Khanna‘s dissent, and Puttaswamy (2017) overruled it. Legality can mask rule by law.
- Marxist. For Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (Communist Manifesto, 1848), bourgeois jurisprudence is the will of your class made into a law for all. Yet the Marxist historian E. P. Thompson (Whigs and Hunters, 1975) called the rule of law an unqualified human good, since it restrains the powerful too.
- Decisionism. Carl Schmitt (Political Theology, 1922) argued that the sovereign is he who decides on the exception: no law removes the need for decision.
Conclusion
Aristotle’s preference holds: law is reason made durable and impersonal, safer than the virtue of any ruler. But law rules only through men. Its worth depends on just content, equity in application, independent courts and citizens who value it, which is why he joined the rule of law to civic education.